Twenty stories of horror, the supernatural, and ghostly hauntings. These tales show the way in which the Gothic form has been transposed to a new, alien environment--Australia! The outback, the desert, the bush are imbued with strange forces and beings that European explorers and fossickers must fathom and overcome. The colonists struggle to cope with the harsh landscape and climate, and are frequently claimed by it. The land itself seems almost a malignant force that exacts a terrible revenge on those who challenge it or wander thoughtlessly into its desert wastes. Thus, in many of the stories reprinted here, characters range across a landscape in which the supernatural can reach out and snatch the unwary at any time. Characters frequently fall victim to the bush; indeed, often it is the children, symbols of innocence and European naïveté, who fall victim to the evil "spirits" lurking just beyond human ken. Doig has resurrected these marvelous haunts from rare magazines and equally scarce collections, and has provided hard-to-find information about the authors and the times in which they lived. For any aficionado of the classic macabre tale, this anthology will be a treasure trove of chilling reading!

This handbook examines the use of horror in storytelling, from oral traditions through folklore and fairy tales to contemporary horror fiction. Divided into sections that explore the origins and evolution of horror fiction, the recurrent themes that can be seen in horror, and ways of understanding horror through literary and cultural theory, the text analyses why horror is so compelling, and how we should interpret its presence in literature. Chapters explore historical horror aspects including ancient mythology, medieval writing, drama, chapbooks, the Gothic novel, and literary Modernism and trace themes such as vampires, children and animals in horror, deep dark forests, labyrinths, disability, and imperialism. Considering horror via postmodern theory, evolutionary psychology, postcolonial theory, and New Materialism, this handbook investigates issues of gender and sexuality, race, censorship and morality, environmental studies, and literary versus popular fiction.

This international collection of eleven original essays on Australian Aboriginal literature provides a comprehensive critical companion that contextualizes the Aboriginal canon for scholars, researchers, students, and general readers.

This book engages the globally pressing question of how to live and work with the haunting power of the past in the aftermath of mass violence. It brings together a collection of interdisciplinary contributions to reflect on the haunting of post-conflict memory from the perspective of diverse country case studies including South Africa, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Northern Ireland, North and South Korea, Palestine and Israel, America and Australia. Contributions offer theoretical, empirical and practical insights on the nature of historical trauma and practices of collective healing and repair that include embodied, artistic and culturally relevant forms of wisdom for dealing with the past. While this question has traditionally been explored through the lens of trauma studies in relation to the post-Holocaust experience, this book provides new understandings from a variety of different historical contexts and disciplinary perspectives. Its chapters draw on, challenge and expand the trauma concept to propose more contextually relevant frameworks for transforming haunted memory in the aftermath of historical trauma.

This anthology explores the spatial dimension and politics of haunting. It considers how the ‘appearance’ of absence, emptiness and the imperceptible can indicate an overwhelming presence of something that once was, and still is, (t)here. At its core, the book asks: how and why do certain places haunt us? Drawing from a diversity of mediums, forms and disciplinary approaches, the contributors to Spectral Spaces and Hauntings illustrate the complicated ways absent presences can manifest and be registered. The case studies range from the memory sites of a terrorist attack, the lost home, a vanished mining town and abandoned airports, to the post-apocalyptic wastelands in literary fiction, the photographic and filmic surfaces where spectres materialise, and the body as a site for re-corporealising the disappeared and dead. In ruminating on the afteraffects of spectral spaces on human experience, the anthology importantly foregrounds the ethical and political imperative of engaging with ghosts and following their traces.

Australia’s Haunted History is a collection of spine-tingling, blood-curdling, frightening and often mysterious Australian paranormal tales from throughout our country’s turbulent past. Many of these historical accounts of spectral hauntings and strange happenings were documented in early Australian newspapers and have been accurately transcribed in the pages of this book. These ghostly sightings will challenge even the most ardent sceptic. Many of these chilling events remain largely unexplained to this day. Murder and mayhem, mystifying mysteries, haunted houses, ghostly goldfields, shocking tragedies, pestering poltergeists, strange and bizarre happenings – they are all included. Many of the historical ghost tales in this book have been forgotten through the passing of time. Australia’s Haunted History will bring these creepy tales back to life and spark the imagination of a new generation to ask that poignant question, are ghosts real? Old favourites have not been overlooked and several tales of well-known Australian ghosts are included. If you love a good ghost story, Australia’s Haunted History will keep you entertained for hours. But be careful, after reading this book you may need to sleep with the light on!

I opened the door and could just smell the blood and gunshots. I could sense these people who were still in agony because they were caught in the moment of being shot. It was so intense that excruciating pain...' This is the intriguing insight into the world of a Sydney psychic healer. Caterina Ligato first communicated with spirits at the age of three and has since come to accept her gift for dealing with the supernatural and to use her talent to help people in need. Her stories of exorcism, healing sessions and spiritual communication have spread through word-of-mouth, lectures and workshops so that she now receives requests for help from around the world. This is a fascinating and honest story of the astounding personal experiences and relationships between a psychic and the spiritual world.

' Haunted is a wonderful book: part history, part rumination on life, and, of course a haunting book about ghosts .... beautifully written, fascinating, deeply moving and thought-provoking.' - James Holland 'A proper page-turner .... A fascinating tangle of witches and mermaids, drowned fishers and dead warriors, ghostly planes and spectral horses .' - Christopher Somerville, author of Ships of Heaven 'One of the most enjoyable books on the paranormal I've read. Neil Oliver creates a bucket list of places to visit, perfect for both paranormal investigators and history buffs alike.' - Nick Tyler, author of Haunted Yorkshire ....................................................................................................................................................................... For longer than recorded history there have been tales of spirits and of places where our hackles rise and our skin turns cold. Bestselling historian Neil Oliver travels the British Isles on a deliciously spine-chilling tour that spans several centuries and explores more than 20 sites - castles, vicarages and towers, lonely shorelines and forgotten battlefields - to unpick their stories.. Oliver invokes his family's history alongside that of kings and queens past as he probes why our emotions and senses are heightened in certain locations where the separation between dimensions seems gossamer thin. Our landscape is riven with these places, creaking from the weight of the secrets they hold, the echoes of tragedy and dark deeds . From Inverness to Devon, Co Dublin to Norfolk, Hauntings casts an enjoyably eerie glow with stories that, told generation after generation, are inextricable from place - and considers why they matter. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 'Oliver is an evocative storyteller, vividly bringing his tales to life' BBC History Magazine

'Locating Australian Literary Memory' explores the cultural meanings suffusing local literary commemorations. It is orientated around eleven authors – Adam Lindsay Gordon, Joseph Furphy, Henry Handel Richardson, Henry Lawson, A. B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, Nan Chauncy, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Eleanor Dark, P. L. Travers, Kylie Tennant and David Unaipon – who have all been celebrated through a range of forms including statues, huts, trees, writers’ houses and assorted objects. Brigid Magner illuminates the social memory residing in these monuments and artefacts, which were largely created as bulwarks against forgetting. Acknowledging the value of literary memorials and the voluntary labour that enables them, she traverses the many contradictions, ironies and eccentricities of authorial commemoration in Australia, arguing for an expanded repertoire of practices to recognise those who have been hitherto excluded.

Experience a ghostly thrill with Mark Leslie’s five books on strange supernatural happenings. Macabre Montreal Montreal is steeped in history and culture. But there are dark tales, eerie stories, and ghostly spectres that come alive once the sun goes down. Creepy Capital True stories of ghostly encounters and creepy locales lurk throughout the Ottawa region. Come along with Canada’s paranormal raconteur extraordinaire, Mark Leslie, and discover the first-person accounts of ghostly happenings at landmarks throughout the historic city and surrounding towns. Haunted Hamilton From the Hermitage ruins to Dundurn Castle, from the Customs House to Stoney Creek Battlefield Park, the city of Hamilton, Ontario, is steeped in a rich history and culture. But beneath the surface of the Steel City there dwells a darker heart — from the shadows of yesteryear arise the unexplained, the bizarre, and the chilling. Spooky Sudbury From haunted mine shafts to inexplicable lights in the northern sky, there are strange things afoot in the peaceful northern municipality of Sudbury; eerie phenomenon that will amaze, give you pause, make you wonder, and have you looking twice at what might first appear to be innocent shadows. Tomes of Terror It’s been said that books have a life of their own, but there’s more than literature lurking in the cobwebbed recesses of dusty bookstores and libraries across Canada. Read about some of the most celebrated and eerie bookish haunts, and try to brush off that feeling of someone watching from just over your shoulder...