Spirits of the Season

Festive cheer turns to maddening fear in this new collection of seasonal hauntings, presenting the best Christmas ghost stories from the 1850s to the 1960s. The traditional trappings of the holiday are turned upside down as restless spirits disrupt the merry games of the living, Christmas trees teem with spiteful pagan presences, and the Devil himself treads the boards at the village pantomime. As the cold night of winter closes in and the glow of the hearth begins to flicker and fade, the uninvited visitors gather in the dark in this distinctive assortment of haunting tales.

Tanya Kirk is Lead Curator of Printed Heritage Collections 1601-1900 at the British Library, and was the co-curator of the major exhibition Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination. She edited The Haunted Library: Classic Ghost Stories.