Sleuthing in the Stacks

As the nights grow ever darker and we approach the shortest day (and thus the longest night) of the year, it is the season for ghost stories. For centuries, people have gathered around the hearth to tell pleasingly chilling tales of what might be lurking in the shadows beyond the flickering light. It was the Victorians who really made such tales of the supernatural a literary Christmas tradition. Mr Dickens played a major part in its establishment, of course, with the Christmas editions of the magazines he 'conducted', Household Words and All The Year Round, containing a number of ghost stories by various hands, including the great man himself. Many of these stories were written by female authors, who were able to make a living writing for the magazines and journals which proliferated in this period. We have collections of a number of these down in the stacks, so it seemed a good idea to a bit of supernatural sleuthing to see what spectres we might divine.  Dickens seemed like