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Review
`...the idea of an Ackroyd-curated collection of true ghost stories is appealing...the book records a folk art form, now itself deceased' --The Independent on Sunday
'Ackroyd's book has its fair share of terrified hauntees...will make the hairs on the back of your neck bristle' --The Mail on Sunday
'Ackroyd's collection glides seamlessly from terror to humour to downright peculiarity...ideal read as the nights darken and Halloween approaches' --Metro
`A fascinating anthology of sightings of ghosts in England over the centuries' --Literary Review
'Good for Peter Ackroyd: he has supplied enough well documented stories to terrify even the most entrenched sceptics' --The Oldie
`The stories have a pleasing strangeness, even, or perhaps especially if one does not believe in ghosts.' --Independent on Sunday
'Ackroyd's book has its fair share of terrified hauntees...will make the hairs on the back of your neck bristle' --The Mail on Sunday
'Ackroyd's collection glides seamlessly from terror to humour to downright peculiarity...ideal read as the nights darken and Halloween approaches' --Metro
`A fascinating anthology of sightings of ghosts in England over the centuries' --Literary Review
'Good for Peter Ackroyd: he has supplied enough well documented stories to terrify even the most entrenched sceptics' --The Oldie
`The stories have a pleasing strangeness, even, or perhaps especially if one does not believe in ghosts.' --Independent on Sunday
Book Description
An enormously enjoyable spooky collection of ghost-sightings over the centuries, full of the spirit of place, in true Ackroyd style.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Thought the book well written and fun. A piece of popular history on the culture of the ghost story. Some of the reviews on here seems to have missed the point or have another agenda... that there are NO ghosts and you shouldn't/are not allowed to believe in them anyway! Well enough of all that, keep this book at hand (bathroom a great place) and dip in for the pure eccentric curiosity of each strange tale. Not a horror book just a series of reported natural anomalies. Englishness at its best.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am surprised at the number of negative reviews this book has garnered so far.
I bought it expecting exactly what I got - a wide-ranging overview of encounters with the paranormal from throughout the centuries.
Anyone expecting the earlier stories to be longer then they are is expecting too much. It is hard enough to get people in our generation to put anything into writing about a ghostly encounter without adding on the religious and societal restraints the earlier people would have been living under.
And unless you have access to a library as extensive as that maintained by the SPR you would be hard-pressed to have encountered many of these stories. In fact I have a collection some 700 books strong solely on the subject of ghosts, with books/pamphlets dating back to the 1600s and the thing I liked the most about this book was the amount of material I'd never encountered before. How anyone can accuse Peter Ackroyd of lazy research is beyond me.
Yes, it is a choppy read but don't let that put you off the chance to immerse yourself in the forgotten cultural gems that leap out of the pages of this book.
I bought it expecting exactly what I got - a wide-ranging overview of encounters with the paranormal from throughout the centuries.
Anyone expecting the earlier stories to be longer then they are is expecting too much. It is hard enough to get people in our generation to put anything into writing about a ghostly encounter without adding on the religious and societal restraints the earlier people would have been living under.
And unless you have access to a library as extensive as that maintained by the SPR you would be hard-pressed to have encountered many of these stories. In fact I have a collection some 700 books strong solely on the subject of ghosts, with books/pamphlets dating back to the 1600s and the thing I liked the most about this book was the amount of material I'd never encountered before. How anyone can accuse Peter Ackroyd of lazy research is beyond me.
Yes, it is a choppy read but don't let that put you off the chance to immerse yourself in the forgotten cultural gems that leap out of the pages of this book.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is about a hundred accounts of hauntings together in one volume, which the overly-cynical might say took Peter a fortnight and about six trips to the British Library to compile. Nonetheless, one of Ackroyd's strengths has always been as a researcher, so some of the stories herein are recently-unearthed and fascinating, whilst others are incredibly over-familiar or just plain dull. The tone veers wildly throughout, in fact, so it can be something of a choppy read if taken at one sitting, something it was almost certainly not designed for. It's a decent gift book for giving mild chills to elderly relatives, but there's very little here to distract anyone with more than a passing interest in the subject.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
The English Ghost
A fine collection of "real life" supernatural encounters. The book is interesting as a companion piece to a fictional collection of ghost stories as it sets the cultural background... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Count Magnus
Ghosts are real
My family lived in a haunted house in Esher, England.
The Ghost was a Gypsy lady, who had died after her caravan caught fire, when our garden had been a paddock used by... Read more
The Ghost was a Gypsy lady, who had died after her caravan caught fire, when our garden had been a paddock used by... Read more
Published 4 months ago by P. V. Hackett
A waste of good wood.
This can only have been published because of the Ackroyd name. The few luke-warm positive reviews must be from his friends. Read more
Published 4 months ago by bez
The English Ghost: Spectres Through Time
Having read a tempting extract in the Telegraph Book Review section - which had been written by Peter Ackroyd, I decided to purchase the book. It was not what I had been expecting. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Rex
A Collection of Journalism and Other Peoples Tales
Because of Peter Ackroyd's reputation for fiction as well as non fiction preceding him before I had even read a word I had very high expectations from this book. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Simon Savidge Reads
Unexiting short stories
In this book you can find many short stories about ghosts in England (that's what the title suggests :-)). Read more
Published 6 months ago by Martin
fascinating but inconclusive
I enjoyed this book but found it inconclusive. Peter Ackroyd is known for his focus on the nature of the English (as in, for instance, another book of his on the English... Read more
Published 8 months ago by S. Robinson
The English Ghost; Spectres through time
The book is made up of dozens of dis-jointed stories.
The 13 page introduction is interesting but
Knowing Peter Ackroyd's work I was expecting a novel that would be more... Read more
The 13 page introduction is interesting but
Knowing Peter Ackroyd's work I was expecting a novel that would be more... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Gerald Pieti
Dreary rubbish
I am not a connoisseur of "true" ghost stories, I wondered if Peter Ackroyd was doing something clever by presenting his own work as a collection of contemporary accounts. Read more
Published 14 months ago by MR N G SIMON
Cannot be read, just dipped into
I should like to warn prospective readers that the accounts that make up this volume are generally so short as to make it impossible to read the book smoothly. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. R. J. Roberts
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