Literary Hauntings: A Gazetteer of Literary Ghost Stories

Literary Hauntings identifies and describes the real-life locations that have inspired the best fictional ghost stories of Britain and Ireland. Notable examples are the Suffolk beach where M.R. James set his terrifying ‘ “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” ’, and the ruins of the Scottish mansion featured in Margaret Oliphant’s classic ‘The Open Door’.

This comprehensive gazetteer, consisting of 267 entries by experts and exponents in the genre, identifies the building in Dublin that inspired Joseph Le Fanu’s story ‘The House by the Churchyard’, and the canals where Elizabeth Jane Howard’s eerie ‘Three Miles Up’ is set. Both classic and contemporary ghost stories are included.

Literary Hauntings is designed to help readers track down landscapes, monuments, cities, towns and villages that have haunted writers of ghost stories for at least the last two hundred years. The gazetteer is also a celebration of the insight and craft that goes into writing a really good ghost story, a genre that is still sometimes overlooked today.