British Ghosts

For longer than recorded history there have been tales of spirits and of places where our hackles rise and our skin turns cold. Bestselling historian Neil Oliver travels the British Isles on a deliciously spine-chilling tour that spans several centuries and explores more than 20 sites - castles, vicarages and towers, lonely shorelines and forgotten battlefields - to unpick their stories..

What if the British Museum isn't a house of learning, but a vast sinkhole of still-bubbling historic injustice? What if it presents us not with a carefully ordered cross section of history but is instead a palatial trophy cabinet of colonial loot swarming with volatile and errant spirits? When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a landslide as staff old and new brought forth testimonies of their inexplicable supernatural encounters.

The United Kingdom is an ancient land steeped in history and tradition, filled with prehistoric ruins, majestic castles, and a countryside sculpted from millennia of human habitation. Its rolling countryside is dotted with prehistoric burial mounds and stone circles. Medieval churches have elaborate stained glass windows and gruesome carvings, reflecting a mixture of hope and darkness. Every hamlet and village has tales that go back centuries, and folk festivals with roots in pagan times. Thus, it is not surprising that many believe the area is filled with ghosts.

First published in 1971, Gazetteer of British Ghosts was the result of a quarter of a century of study and on-the-spot investigations by one of the leading authorities on haunted houses. The first comprehensive guide to the ghost population of the British Isles, it covers a subject that still fascinates and, at the same time, still terrifies. The ghosts of Britain are numerous, and in this book (catalogued and placed in alphabetical order) are well over 200 accounts of ghostly happenings, ranging from the legendary to the factually presented and the scientifically investigated.

England is an ancient land steeped in history and tradition, filled with prehistoric ruins, majestic castles, and a countryside sculpted from millennia of human habitation. Thus, it is not surprising that many believe England is a land filled with ghosts. The Ghosts of London: A Collection of Ghost Stories from the British Capital offers a sampling of the many strange ghost stories and unexplained phenomena that make London such an intriguing place.

An intruder shot dead to be seen rising from the grave, an escaped psychopath with a hidden murderous intent, and a forgotten mansion lying in the midst of an ancient Norfolk marsh.

This is the unabridged audio recording of M R James' excellent ghost story "An Episode of Cathedral History". Read by David Collings, this is sure to scare and delight in equal measure.

Algernon Blackwood, a journalist and broadcast narrator, was one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. The title story, "The Touch of Pan", explores the lingering presence of myth in everyday life. In "The Glamour of the Snow", Blackwood winds a tale about a man's infatuation with a supernatural winter beauty. In "The Attic", the ghost of an usurer haunts the old Chateaux and, on the anniversary of a young boy's death, the boy's cat brings the family together. "The Willows" follows two campers who are on a canoe trip down the Danube.

This is the unabridged audio recording of M R James' excellent ghost story "A Warning to the Curious". Read by David Collings, this is sure to scare and delight in equal measure.

DCI Lesley Clarke thinks she’s close to solving her predecessor’s murder. But when the body of a police officer connected to the crime turns up in the abandoned village of Tyneham, the case steps up a gear. And when someone she's close to is threatened by the killer, Lesley’s quest for the truth becomes even more urgent. Can Lesley convince her senior officers of the truth, keep her team on track and protect her family?

In 1988 a famous record producer took his own life and a woman vanished after attending a party at Crow’s Cottage. When the cottage’s owner passes away decades later, the property falls into the hands of his nephew, who finds a strange box hidden there. It is a replica of an infamous occult device called the Mephisto Arcane. In the wake of its discovery come sightings of an apparition. The crew of the paranormal TV show Where the Dead Walk are invited to investigate the haunting. They are about to find the past guards its secrets jealously.

Edith Nesbit is more famously known as a writer of children’s stories such as The Railway Children. But in this volume we explore her short stories of the macabre and ghostly sort. Thought of as the first modern writer for children she also wrote for adults producing over 50 books in total as well as collections of poetry which we shall explore in a separate volume. These stories are brought to your ears in eerie detail by Ghizela Rowe and Richard Mitchley.

In 1791, inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, the slaves of San Domingo rose in revolt. Despite invasion by a series of British, Spanish and Napoleonic armies, their twelve-year struggle led to the creation of Haiti, the first independent black republic outside Africa. Only three years later, the British and Americans ended the Atlantic slave trade. In this outstanding example of vivid, committed and empathetic historical analysis, C. L. R. James illuminates these epoch-making events.

Fascinated by the supernatural, Charles Dickens had a passion for the macabre and the afterlife that spawned a fascinating collection of short ghost stories. Dickens' unique blend of fantastic credibility and paranormal absurdity made his form of ghost story an instant success - one that keeps on chilling our spines nearly 200 years later. Volume 1: 'The Ghost in the Bride's Chamber', 'The Lawyer and the Ghost', 'The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton', 'The Trial for Murder', 'Four Ghost Stories', 'A Madman's Manuscript'.

Fascinated by the supernatural, Charles Dickens had a passion for the macabre and the afterlife that spawned a fascinating collection of short ghost stories. Dickens' unique blend of fantastic credibility and paranormal absurdity made his form of ghost story an instant success - one that keeps on chilling our spines nearly 200 years later. Volume 2: 'The Ghosts of the Mail', 'Christmas Ghosts', 'To Be Read at Dusk', 'The Baron of Grogzwig', 'The Queer Chair', 'Mr Testator's Visitation'.

When you look in the mirror, who do you see? With Mandy the haunted doll now safely ensconced in Mason Town Museum, sealed in a glass case, Shady Groves and her colleagues, Annie and Ray, can relax. After a fashion. The small-town museum they run is not like others, it’s a place that seeks to contain and understand artifacts and relics charged with negative energy. Their aim is to gradually reduce how potent that energy can be, and the destruction it can lead to. All is well, until Shady chances upon a mirror in a thrift store. The reflection staring back at her is not quite her own.

In this deliciously strange debut collection, Leon Craig draws on folklore and gothic horror in refreshingly inventive ways to explore queer identity, love, power and the complicated nature of being human. In the 13 darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells, we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revellers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems.

Rudyard Kipling: great Victorian, great writer of empire, great man. From The Jungle Book to The Man Who Would Be King to a great and voluminous body of poetry, featuring works of the calibre of "If" and "On The Road To Mandalay", here shows us another facet of his truly incredible talent: ghost stories. Collected for your listening pleasure are a selection of chilling, disturbing, but always entertaining stories from a man at the top of his craft and always aware of his effect on the minds of us mere mortals.

While staying at a friend’s house in an apparently humdrum London suburb, the sceptical Hugh Grainger sees and then converses with an unsettling stranger from his bedroom window in the very dead of night. But what could be the meaning of this curious visitation? ‘Hold very tight, please!’ E. F. Benson is well known for his Mapp and Lucia novels but his ghost and supernatural stories are marvellous jewels, combining elegant writing and moments of blood-curdling horror. Here Greg Wagland narrates one of the best of them, for Magpie Audio.

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist, famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s and remains popular to this day. 'The Little Ghost' tells the eerie story of a man who is grieving deeply following the unexpected death of a close friend, who goes to stay at an old house which has recently been rented by a family with a large number of very boisterous children.