“Excellent . . . provides well-researched history as well as reports of recent unusual phenomenon” —from the author of Biloxi Memories (Southern Spirit Guide). The Hospitality State plays hosts to dozens of supernatural entities in this creeptastic guide to the other side. Chilling accounts of poltergeist activity include such landmarks as the McRaven House, where spiteful spirits smack guests without warning and an image of a Confederate soldier appears in contemporary photographs. A section on Anchuca in Vicksburg describes the vision of a woman in a fancy dress who floats through bedroom doors and the sound of dripping water without a source. Other establishments include Merrehope, King’s Tavern, and the Williams Gingerbread House. “Sucked me right in to Mississippi’s rich, haunted history. Sillery eloquently describes the settings of her stories, so I could easily visualize each of the places she writes about . . . At some points, I was scared out of my bones.” —Jackson Free Press

An examination of a noted civil rights case involving the murder of an NAACP official and his killer's three trials draws comparisons between the case and the racial climate in the Deep South

Mississippi's gorgeous Gulf Coast is known for its sandy beaches, sunny weather and welcoming people. Not so welcoming, however, are the spirits that haunt the shores, lighthouses, canneries and historic sites in towns along the coast. Join author and ghost hunter Bud Steed as he leads a haunted journey with stops in Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport, Waveland and all points in between. From the apparition seen lingering in the Bay St. Louis Train Depot, still waiting for his train to come, to the forceful spirits haunting the Old Biloxi Cemetery that refuse to be ignored, this collection offers the complete take on the haunted hot spots that add a touch of darkness and a hint of menace to Mississippi's sunny Gulf Coast.

Meridian once echoed with the high and lonesome sound of early country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers. With the right ears, that lonely wail may still be heard from the spirits that haunt this historic east Mississippi community. Now, for the first time, Meridian ghost expert and local author, Alan Brown, surveys the city's many sites of ghostly activity and recounts chilling tales of spirits past. From the Gypsy Queen's grave at the Rose Hill Cemetery to the phantom that haunts Stuckey's Bridge, this frightening collection offers adventurous readers a view into a side of Meridian's history that is rarely seen.

Some of the nation's most compelling ghost stories owe their origin to "The Father of Waters." Ghosts along the Mississippi River is the first book-length collection of ghost tales from the small towns and bustling cities that have grown up along its banks. The states represented in this book include Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Unlike most collections of "true" ghost stories, Ghosts along the Mississippi River draws from the folk traditions of the northern and the southern United States. These tales are populated with Federal and Confederate soldiers, Native Indians, wealthy entrepreneurs, actors, college students, hotel owners, preachers, slaves, and planters. According to some paranormal investigators, the large number of ghost stories from the Mississippi's river towns, and from watery sites all over the world, are proof that large bodies of water are conductors of psychic energy. Granted, no concrete proof exists that there is a definite connection between the river and any actual ghosts or spiritual phenomena. What is indisputable, though, is the fact that the ghost stories included in Ghosts along the Mississippi River are an invaluable record of the values, dreams, fears, and lives of the people who have called the river home.

"Here is an intriguing collection of true stories about ordinary people who have the extraordinary experience of sharing their lives with ghosts! In 'Ghosts!: personal accounts of modern Mississippi hauntings', author Sylvia Hubbard takes a realistic approach to a supernatural subject, and her very lack of exaggeration or tabloid sensationalism makes these authentic accounts all the more chilling. From antebellum mansions to modern suburbs, here are twenty-five true stories of active Mississippi ghosts, chronicled by the people who know them best--those who actually live and work amidst these disembodied spirits on a daily basis." Back cover.

St. Louis ghosts, legends & lore! Welcome to Haunted St. Louis ... one of the grand cities of the Mississippi River, the gateway to the western frontier and a very haunted place! This is no mere book of ghost stories by a page-turning account of how history and hauntings have shaped the city, from the early days to the 1904 World's Fair, the bloodbath of Prohibition and beyond. Taylor plunges the reader headlong into the mysterious past, violent history and bloody deeds of this great city, intertwining these events with tales of ghosts, hauntings and the unsolved!

A haunting historical tour of this little Mississippi town—includes photos! Take a tour though a charming small town full of all the appeal Dixie has to offer—a tour that reveals there is more to Natchez than its pristine exterior suggests . . . Just beneath the unassuming placid gentility of classic Southern mansions and estates, ghosts and spirits pervade Natchez. From the old Adams County Jail to the Natchez City Cemetery, spirits from generations past remain in Natchez. Join Alan Brown, experienced Mississippi author and expert on all things haunted, as he surveys the historic haunts of Natchez, a town as rich in history as it is in ghostly activity.

Winner of a 2021 South Central Modern Language Association Book Prize At the heart of America’s slave system was the legal definition of people as property. While property ownership is a cornerstone of the American dream, the status of enslaved people supplies a contrasting American nightmare. Sarah Gilbreath Ford considers how writers in works from nineteenth-century slave narratives to twenty-first-century poetry employ gothic tools, such as ghosts and haunted houses, to portray the horrors of this nightmare. Haunted Property: Slavery and the Gothic thus reimagines the southern gothic, which has too often been simply equated with the macabre or grotesque and then dismissed as regional. Although literary critics have argued that the American gothic is driven by the nation’s history of racial injustice, what is missing in this critical conversation is the key role of property. Ford argues that out of all of slavery’s perils, the definition of people as property is the central impetus for haunting because it allows the perpetration of all other terrors. Property becomes the engine for the white accumulation of wealth and power fueled by the destruction of black personhood. Specters often linger, however, to claim title, and Ford argues that haunting can be a bid for property ownership. Through examining works by Harriet Jacobs, Hannah Crafts, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Sherley Anne Williams, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, and Natasha Trethewey, Ford reveals how writers can use the gothic to combat legal possession with spectral possession.