G h o s t s . . .

As its approaching Halloween (can you believe it?? Minutes ago it was still summer!!) I thought I'd indulge myself and go for a truly scary ghost theme for my next treasury. Click on the picture above to see the treasury for real, until Thursday 8th Oct when it will disappear forever). I love reading ghost stories and I went for images that evoked that feeling of chilliness I get when I reading, or listening to on audiobook, a story like M.R. James' "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad" or Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman's "The South-West Chamber". Both of these stories involve bedrooms as the scene of horror which I find particulary effective because its something everyone can relate to; sleeping in a room with another (empty) bed in it (which I have done, and didn't like), and sleeping in a bed in which you know someone has recently died (which I haven't done, and I don't think I ever could).

The Literary Gothic is a great site; a guide "to all things concerned with literary Gothicism, which includes ghost stories, "classic" Gothic novels and Gothic fiction (1764-1820), and related pre- and post-Gothic and supernaturalist literature written prior to the mid-C20"