The haunted and haunting stories of this book come from a variety of people and places, persons who reside in sleepy, practical neighborhoods scattered all throughout the Rock River Valley and over most of north-central Illinois.

An organized and comprehensive guide to Illinois' haunted and legendary places, Haunting the prairie contains 130 mystery sites and 60 individual illustrations and maps, plus a bibliographic timeline of paranormal and folklore research in Illinois. The author examines the sites and the history, as well as the hobbyists and professionals who explore the strange and unusual in the state. Divided among eight distinct regions and listed by county, each location features a description, directions, and information drawn from a diverse variety of books and articles.

Although Illinois saw no dramatic witch trials, witchcraft has been a part of Illinois history and culture from French exploration to the present day. On the Illinois frontier, pioneers pressed silver dimes into musket balls to ward off witches, while farmers dutifully erected fence posts according to phases of the moon. In 1904, the quiet town of Quincy was shocked to learn of Bessie Bement's suicide, after the young woman sought help from a witch doctor to break a hex. In turn-of-the-century Chicago, Lauron William de Laurence's occult publishing house churned out manuals for performing bizarre rituals intended to attract love and exact revenge. For the first time in print, Michael Kleen presents the full story of the Prairie State's dalliance with the dark arts.

Follow local historian and “Ghost Lady” Kathi Kresol as she researches the spirits, curses, and curiosities from the Forest City’s shadowy past. Just beneath the glossy surface of Rockford’s rich heritage lies a dark history of tragedy, a troubled and turbulent past leaving scars that still resonate today. Geraldine Bourbon’s final struggle echoes throughout the farmhouse where her estranged husband pursued her with a pistol from room to room before gently laying her corpse on the bed. The sobs of society darling Carrie Spafford still keep vigil over the family plot of the cemetery where she sowed the heartbreak of her twilight years. From the vengeance of Chief Big Thunder to the Witch of McGregor Road, author Kathi Kresol shares the legends and lore of Rockford’s haunted history. Includes photos! “There are reasons why Kathi Kresol believes Rockford is so haunted. The tour guide said there are good ‘conductors’ for the supernatural in the city’s downtown area. These factors include being near a body of water, having limestone in the area and the area having a Native American influence.” —Beloit Daily News

In the evocative collection 'Christmas After Dark - 36 Holiday Ghost Stories & Supernatural Thrillers,' the reader is treated to a remarkable tapestry of the macabre and the mysterious, set against the backdrop of the holiday season. This anthology stands out for its eclectic mix of narratives that weave together the chilling with the festive, showcasing a stunning diversity in literary stylesfrom the gothic to the surreal. The collection reimagines the traditional sentiments of Christmas through a darker lens, highlighting the contrast between the joyous festivities and the eerie quiet of winter nights. The anthology thoughtfully curates stories from a range of time periods, thereby painting a comprehensive picture of the literary evolution of the ghost story genre, with particular attention to its intersection with Christmas traditions. The ensemble of authors featured in the collectionranging from the celebrated minds of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle to the lesser-known but equally compelling figures like Florence Marryat and Catherine Crowebrings together a rich array of backgrounds, each contributing a unique voice to the chorus of holiday hauntings. These authors, many of whom were pivotal figures in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, collectively embody the diverse cultural and historical contexts from which these stories spring. Their works not only reflect the societal attitudes and anxieties of their times but also contribute to the overarching theme of the anthology by exploring the universal fascination with the supernatural. This anthology is a treasure trove for those keen on exploring the confluence of holiday cheer and the spectral, offering readers a chance to immerse themselves in a world where the spirit of Christmas meets the spirit world. 'Christmas After Dark' is an indispensable addition to the library of anyone fascinated by the history and evolution of ghost stories and their unique ability to bridge themes of joy, nostalgia, and terror. It beckons the reader to cozy up by the fire on a cold winter's night and delve into tales that promise to chill the heart and warm the soul in equal measure.

Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.

Throughout his illustrious writing career, Charles Dickens often turned his hand to fashioning short pieces of ghostly fiction. Even in his first successful work, Pickwick Papers, you will find five ghost stories, all of which are included in this collection. Dickens began the tradition of the 'ghost story at Christmas', and many of his tales in this genre are presented here including the brilliant novella, 'The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin', which deserves to be as well known as A Christmas Carol. While all his supernatural tales aim to chill the spine, they are not without the usual traits of Dickens' flamboyant style, his subtle with, biting irony, humorous incidents and moral observations. It is a mixture which makes these stories fascinating and entertaining as well as unsettling. To paraphrase the Fat Boy in Pickwick Papers: Charles Dickens 'wants to make your flesh creep.'

Everybody said so. Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right. In the general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority is proved to be fallible. Everybody may sometimes be right; “but that’s no rule,” as the ghost of Giles Scroggins says in the ballad. The dread word, GHOST, recalls me. Everybody said he looked like a haunted man. The extent of my present claim for everybody is, that they were so far right. He did.

“The Ghost Stories of Charles Dickens” is a collection of twenty of Charles Dickens's best ghost stories, including his famous “Christmas Carol”. A fantastic teller of macabre tales, Dickens presents his full gothic talents in this chilling collection. The stories include: “The Queer Chair - The Bagman's Story”, “A Madman's Manuscript”, “The Goblins who Stole a Sexton”, “The Ghosts of the Mail - The Story of The Bagman's uncle”, “The Baron of Grogzwig”, “To be Read at Dusk”, “Ghost in the Bride's Chamber”, and more. Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812–1870) was an English writer and social critic famous for having created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters. His works became unprecedentedly popular during his life, and today he is commonly regarded as the greatest Victorian-era novelist. Although perhaps better known for such works as “Great Expectations” and “A Christmas Carol”, Dickens first gained success with the 1836 serial publication of “The Pickwick Papers”, which turned him almost overnight into an international literary celebrity thanks to his humour, satire, and astute observations concerning society and character. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

" West Virginia boasts an unusually rich heritage of ghost tales. Originally West Virginians told these hundred stories not for idle amusement but to report supernatural experiences that defied ordinary human explanation. From jealous rivals and ghostly children to murdered kinsmen and omens of death, these tales reflect the inner lives—the hopes, beliefs, and fears—of a people. Like all folklore, these tales reveal much of the history of the region: its isolation and violence, the passions and bloodshed of the Civil War era, the hardships of miners and railroad laborers, and the lingering vitality of Old World traditions.