Calvariae Disjecta

by Kate Briggs

One of the most ubiquitous English ghost stories, ‘The Screaming Skull of Burton Agnes Hall’, has been spread and adapted over many years, but it nonetheless persists. Drawing from his own library plus decades of research, artist and academic Robert Williams re-presents references to the story from more than 100 popular sources that extend across more than 150 years. The project, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Hilmar Schäfer, echoes the transmission of the story itself as an extended quotation, in oral traditions and through downright plagiarism. The many lives of this story mapped out by this collection tell us as much about cultural and historical representations as they do a lurid tale of murder, grave-opening and screaming skulls.

168 pages, Hardcover

Published February 1, 2017

About the author

Kate Briggs was born in Somerset, United Kingdom.

Writer, essayist, and translator from French into English of authors such as Roland Barthes and Hélène Bessette. She lives and works in Rotterdam, where she founded and co-directs the writing and publishing workshop Short Pieces That Move and teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute.

In addition to The Long Form, her first novel, her works This little art and Entertaining Ideas.

In 2021, Kate Briggs received the Windham–Campbell Prize.