
"'I think it must have been two o'clock at least when I thought I heard a sound in that--that odious dark recess at the far end of the bedroom....Without at first a suspicion of anything supernatural, on a sudden I saw an old man, rather stout and square, in a sort of roan-red...

The Victorians excelled at telling ghost stories. In an age of rapid scientific progress, the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held a special potential for terror. Throughout the nineteenth century, fictional ghost stories developed in parallel...

"'I think it must have been two o'clock at least when I thought I heard a sound in that--that odious dark recess at the far end of the bedroom.... Without at first a suspicion of anything supernatural, on a sudden I saw an old man, rather stout and square, in a sort of roan-red...
