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Lore of the Ghost: The Origins of the Most Famous Ghost Stories Throughout the World | 
 enlarge | Author: Brian Haughton
Creator: Daniele Serra
Publisher: New Page Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $6.57
You Save: $8.42 (56%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 435413
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6
ISBN: 1601630247
Dewey Decimal Number: 398.25094
EAN: 9781601630247
ASIN: 1601630247
Publication Date: September 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Lore of the Ghost is an original and thought-provoking exploration of the numerous categories of ghosts and hauntings throughout the world. It discusses the possible motives for each type of haunting--from phantom white ladies and spectral black dogs to haunted highways and ghostly vehicles--what they represent, why they occur, and their possible functions. Unlike the vast majority of books on the subject, Lore of the Ghost is not a gazetteer of ghost sightings or a ghost hunter's manual, but an investigation into human belief in the supernatural and its effect on the nature of ghosts worldwide.
Most people are familiar with at least one local tale of the supernatural, but how many of these "ghost stories" are genuine examples of hauntings rather than folktales or modern urban legends? Why are similar types of ghosts--headless ghosts, spectral armies, and phantom white ladies--reported from so many diverse cultures all over the world? What do reports of particular types of ghosts tell us about the societies that see them?
In Lore of the Ghost you will discover:
* What it means to witness the Headless Horseman and the Death Coach
* The real history of the Vanishing Hitchhiker
* Extraordinary accounts of phantom battles and armies seen in the sky
* The origin of Poltergeists, as witnessed in the Bell Witch case and the Epworth Haunting
* The truth behind Screaming Skulls and other Haunted Objects
Packed with evocative illustrations, Lore of the Ghost adds a fascinating new dimension to our understanding of supernatural lore.
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| Customer Reviews:
Left a bit empty December 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This review originally appeared at www.hauntedamericatours.com
Brian Haughton knows his stuff. Over the past few years he has gained a reputation as one of the strongest researcher in the field when it comes to odd people, weird places, and the folklore that lives just this side of unexplainable. With his past work he has always made an effort to keep one foot in legitimate history while stretching the possible past with his work in older cultures and text. His new book, Lore of the Ghost, focuses his skills at looking into several of the haunted motifs that form the tales we hear in old ghost stories and that help to mold the true hauntings we hear about from down the street.
Lore of the Ghost suffers from being written by the smartest man in the room. While his previous work has always taken advantage of his knowledge, it becomes a hindrance in Lore. The book looks to explore the origins of many of these ghost stories, but does little to get to heart of them while offering only retellings of them throughout the years. No origins are found. This would be allowable (most legends are impossible to trace to their true origins by their very nature) if Haughton offered some explanations as to why these legends are spread or how they tell us about ourselves. The book offers neither.
What the reader is left with is a collection of legends with no direction. There are still few out there in the publishing world who can tell these stories as well as the author, but he spends too much time jumping from old tale to old tale. Any of his chapters could be an entire book by itself, and with subjects like phantom hitchhikers and black dogs, the reader wants to know more. He does not stay in one long enough to examine it fully before he is on to the next variation. The jumping can become somewhat disorienting, and ultimately the format he uses becomes predicable and a bit boring to read through. American audiences may also eventually tire of the numerous examples of British and European stories while only grazing some of their American counterparts, especially because there are so many of them to be found on this side of the ocean.
Part of the issue arises with the connection between the legends and folklore that are the focus of the book and their true paranormal origins. Haughton does not take a side as to the truth of the tales and yet offers many classic hauntings as proof of the motifs they involve. This will isolate the folklorist and the paranormal enthusiast. While exploring the folklore he misuses or heaps together ghost stories with tales of odd animals and time slips, and other supernatural occurrences.
Brian Haughton still knows how to tell a story, but his skills are wasted here. With his base of information, it feels he sat down and had a conversation with himself and wrote it down. More likely, his latest conference presentation was a bit fleshed out and submitted to the publisher. This book has the feel of being too easy for him, too phoned in, to offer anything truly unique to the reader. Haughton is someone who deserves to be on the paranormal reader's bookshelf, Lore of the Ghost is just not the book to add.
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