Ghosts

I actually feel guilty for paying piggy-bank money for this. I've been going back to collect all the good installment books of the much-inspired Time-Life Books:THE ENCHANTED WORLD series that was a hot ticket back in the earlier Eighties. GHOSTS is one of maybe four or five essential titles from the collection. Tales of mischief, haunting and terror permeate the book and make it hard to put it down. What is more, the book defines the types of ghosts that *exist* as well as tell the story. It makes it as involving for kids as well as adults. The paintings and illustrations perfectly accompany the literature and I have always been a fan of the artists staffed for this series. What's more, the book arrived a mere three days after the order. If that vendor has more of these books, they have my business for sure.

This book is one in Time Life Books' The Enchanted World series. Each of these books covers a different aspect of folklore and mythology, and they are an excellent set. They tell stories in a similar format and complement each other well without repeating the content. Each is about 140 pages. This is a beautifully illustrated well printed volume. Artists include John Jude Palencar, Mark Langenekert, Kinuko Craft, Gary Kelley, Marshall Arisman, Yvonne Gilbert, Brian McCall, Robert Goldstrum, Winslow Pinney Pels and James C Christensen. Older illustrations are mixed in. These include works by Horace Vernet, Peter Bruegel, Herbert Arnold and Kuniyoshi. Stories are retold in a style that makes for a good read. These stories come from all over the world. Often there will be smaller illustrations and captions in the margins to the main story. These tell variations of the story and related stories from other cultures. Each chapter follows the format of general information and then a long story that illustrates the theme of the chapter. This is a beautifully bound and printed book. The binding is just cloth to collectors, but it is printed to look like a wizard's book. The cover shows a dragon holding a picture of a girl and a ghost knight riding a horse. I think it was the cover that got me reading this when I was child. Chapters: Guises of the Reaper: Song of the sorrowing harp Invasions by the Angry Dead: A meeting on the road home Shadow Plays of Grief and Pain: The hooded congregation Hands Across the Void: Grim's Tale This is a well researched nicely produced series. For me one book in the series had me hooked. If you are interested in mythology and all things magic then it is definitely worth trying out the series. High school and middle school libraries should consider the series.

If you read this book alone, in a house in the middle of the woods on a dark, snowy night, don't be surprised if you hear a howling at the window. I did, and decided to switch over and read seed catalogues until it was light out again.Lots of things howl in this vividly illustrated book: the Wild Hunt; Black Shuck, the dog with eyes as big as saucers; and various melancholy or angry ghosts. The stories are loosely connected as in a history of what people believed and saw, or thought they saw, with a special concentration on medieval Europe. Death is on every page as an illustration or in the text. There are plague victims, abandoned babies (one of the most horrific revenants in the book is an 'utburd'--"from the old Norse word for 'child carried outside'"), sisters murdered by sisters, sons murdered by mothers, and whole armies that rise up after death and fight again on a haunted battlefield.I had to cover some of the illustrations with my hand before I could read the accompanying text. Time-Life series books always have great pictures, and this book from the 'Enchanted World' series is no exception.Many customs surrounding the death of a loved one are explained here, including the consequences for not following them. Familial hauntings seemed to be particularly common in Scandinavia, and no matter how well the ghost was loved in life, it always returned full of anger and malevolence. So sprinkle salt on the corpse's chest, put a cup of milk on the windowsill, and bury your dead with its favorite possessions--or it might come back to fetch them. Some of the most familiar English ghost stories are included here, including the bride of Marwell Hall who accidentally locked herself inside a chest while playing hide-and-seek on her wedding night. The ghosts and monsters of the Tower of London and Glamis Castle are paraded in all of their gory (and sometimes headless) cerements. Skulls scream in Burton Agnes Hall. Heads roll down a deserted pathway and snap at late travelers.I highly recommend this book to ghost-story aficionados. Just don't read it at night.

Out of my entire collection of horror stories and ghost folklore books, this one has a special place in my heart and collection. It is extremely well done, with beautiful prose and delicate paintings. This volume presents folklore from around the world, describing the how the dead but not quite departed manifest in this world. Some of the stories are sweet, some are touching, most are chilling. Sprinkled among the chapters are fully illustrated tales, my favorite of which is Song of the Sorrowing Harp. All the volumes of this series are well done, but among the series this is one of the best. Highest recommends!