Spectres of the Self
Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-Seeing in England, 1750–1920

Examines the culture of ghost-seeing, arguing that the ghost represents a symbol of the psychological hauntedness of modern experience.

Shane McCorristine (Author)

9780521747967, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 22 July 2010

286 pages, 6 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.7 cm, 0.46 kg

'The book is a welcome and necessary contribution to the field - necessary because, while it covers some trodden ground, it does so with a thoroughness lacking in much other scholarship … McCorristine's book, for its wealth of information and strength of research, should be required reading in any course on the Victorian supernatural, especially if the course has anything to do with ghosts.' Srdjan Smajic, Victorian Studies

Spectres of the Self is a fascinating study of the rich cultures surrounding the experience of seeing ghosts in England from the Reformation to the twentieth century. Shane McCorristine examines a vast range of primary and secondary sources, showing how ghosts, apparitions, and hallucinations were imagined, experienced, and debated from the pages of fiction to the case reports of the Society for Psychical Research. By analysing a broad range of themes from telepathy and ghost-hunting to the notion of dreaming while awake and the question of why ghosts wore clothes, Dr McCorristine reveals the sheer variety of ideas of ghost seeing in English society and culture. He shows how the issue of ghosts remained dynamic despite the advance of science and secularism and argues that the ghost ultimately represented a spectre of the self, a symbol of the psychological hauntedness of modern experience.

Introduction
Part I. The Dreams of the Ghost-Seers: 1. The haunted mind, 1750–1850
2. Seeing is believing?: Ghost-seeing and hallucinatory experience
Part II. A Science of the Soul: 3. Ghost-hunting in the Society for Psychical Research
4. Phantasms of the living and the dead
5. The concept of hallucination in late-Victorian psychology
Epilogue: towards 1920
Appendix
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]