Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History

Author:   Catherine Belsey
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781474417372


Pages:   256
Publication Date:   30 September 2019
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History


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Overview

Considers the ways ghost stories appeal to our uneasy relationship with conventional good sense. What do they want, the ghosts that, even in the age of science, still haunt our storytelling? Catherine Belsey's answer to the question traces Gothic writing and tales of the uncanny from the ancient past to the present from Homer and the Icelandic sagas to Lincoln in the Bardo. Taking Shakespeare's Ghost in Hamlet as a turning point in the history of the genre, she uncovers the old stories the play relies on, as well as its influence on later writing. This ghostly trail is vividly charted through accredited records of apparitions and fiction by such writers as Ann Radcliffe, Washington Irving, Emily Bronte, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, M. R. James and Susan Hill. In recent blockbusting movies, too, ghost stories bring us fragments of news from the unknown.

Full Product Details

Author:   Catherine Belsey
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781474417372


ISBN 10:   147441737
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   30 September 2019
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

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Reviews

'an engaging examination of the persistence of these shivery tales in the western canon, ' --Erica Wagner ""The Financial Times"" A fine reading of ghost stories in the western cultural context ... loaded with perceptive insights and sharp wit. Keeping our doors of perception open in search of the phantoms that exist only in the mind, she lets us rediscover the unresolved tensions of belief and orthodoxy that range across centuries. Belsey's book is a delightful read and the insights it affords the inquisitive reader are bound to be unlimited. The entire book is an instance of haunted writing. --Dr Murali Sivaramakrishnan ""The Hindu"" In Tales of the Troubled Dead Belsey provides a lively and thorough account of a slippery subject. Marshalling a vast range of ghost stories from Homer to the 2017 Man Booker Prize-winner Lincoln in the Bardo, plus a good helping of 'true accounts', she asks what the ghosts of our imaginations do, where and when they appear, how they dress, move and communicate - and how they reflect their times .... Today, as Belsey suggests in an elegant coda, the idea of the ghost is so deeply embedded in our ways of thinking about history, story-telling and our place in the world that we can hardly do without it. --Susan Owens ""Times Literary Supplement""


In Tales of the Troubled Dead Belsey provides a lively and thorough account of a slippery subject. Marshalling a vast range of ghost stories from Homer to the 2017 Man Booker Prize-winner Lincoln in the Bardo, plus a good helping of 'true accounts', she asks what the ghosts of our imaginations do, where and when they appear, how they dress, move and communicate - and how they reflect their times .... Today, as Belsey suggests in an elegant coda, the idea of the ghost is so deeply embedded in our ways of thinking about history, story-telling and our place in the world that we can hardly do without it. --Susan Owens Times Literary Supplement A fine reading of ghost stories in the western cultural context ... loaded with perceptive insights and sharp wit. Keeping our doors of perception open in search of the phantoms that exist only in the mind, she lets us rediscover the unresolved tensions of belief and orthodoxy that range across centuries. Belsey's book is a delightful read and the insights it affords the inquisitive reader are bound to be unlimited. The entire book is an instance of haunted writing. --Dr Murali Sivaramakrishnan The Hindu 'an engaging examination of the persistence of these shivery tales in the western canon, ' --Erica Wagner The Financial Times


"'an engaging examination of the persistence of these shivery tales in the western canon, ' --Erica Wagner ""The Financial Times"" A fine reading of ghost stories in the western cultural context ... loaded with perceptive insights and sharp wit. Keeping our doors of perception open in search of the phantoms that exist only in the mind, she lets us rediscover the unresolved tensions of belief and orthodoxy that range across centuries. Belsey's book is a delightful read and the insights it affords the inquisitive reader are bound to be unlimited. The entire book is an instance of haunted writing. --Dr Murali Sivaramakrishnan ""The Hindu"" In Tales of the Troubled Dead Belsey provides a lively and thorough account of a slippery subject. Marshalling a vast range of ghost stories from Homer to the 2017 Man Booker Prize-winner Lincoln in the Bardo, plus a good helping of 'true accounts', she asks what the ghosts of our imaginations do, where and when they appear, how they dress, move and communicate - and how they reflect their times .... Today, as Belsey suggests in an elegant coda, the idea of the ghost is so deeply embedded in our ways of thinking about history, story-telling and our place in the world that we can hardly do without it. --Susan Owens ""Times Literary Supplement"""


Author Information

Catherine Belsey was a critic and cultural historian. After an academic career at Cambridge, Cardiff and Swansea, she visited the University of Derby for discussions with the students. She lived in Cambridge and chaired a range of reading groups in the area on an occasional basis.

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