We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
This book describes the haunting of eighteenth-century England. It is the first in-depth study of the production, circulation and consumption of English ghost stories during the Age of Reason. This period saw the establishment of the ghost story as a literary genre. Handley combines close textual analysis with a broad conception of historical change. She examines a variety of mediums: ballads and chapbooks, newspapers, sermons, medical treatises and scientific journals, novels and plays. She relates the telling of ghost stories to wider changes associated with the Enlightenment, arguing that they played a key role in battles against atheism, republicanism, material excess and secularisation.
"'Sasha Handley’s excellent study of the meaning, recording and use of ghost stories in the ‘long eighteenth century’ is a refreshing and much needed study.'"
Loading metrics...
* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.
Usage data cannot currently be displayed.