”Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring— From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart…
The Dark Blog
The Magical World Of Vampires: Origins and Evolution
It is clear that the word “vampire” today evokes fantasy monsters. Regarding its origin and evolution, works on the subject such as the classic one by Summers (1928) and the most recent one by Beresford (2008), erroneously consider as “vampires”…
The Old Nurse’s Story – Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)
The Old Nurse’s Story (sometimes published as: The Old Maid’s Tale) is a ghost story by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865), originally published in the Christmas edition of 1852 from Household Words, and later republished in the 1862 anthology Curious,…
The Ghost Of Mary King’s Close
At around midnight on Saturday 10th May, the general manager at “The Real Mary King’s Close”, Stephen Spencer activated the infra-red camera to check that the computer system had been switched off for the night. The camera is static and…
The Ghost Club
The Ghost Club is the oldest organisation in the world associated with psychical research. It was founded in 1862 but has its roots in Cambridge University where, in 1855, fellows at Trinity College began to discuss ghosts and psychic phenomena….
Ghost House, Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Ghost House, one of Robert Frost’s best poems, transports us to the remains of an old abandoned house, a farm, perhaps. Its spectral nature has nothing to do with the presence of ghosts, but with the memory of its former…
Quia Multum amavi – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Quia Multum amavi —a Latin phrase that means: “because I have loved so much”— is, without a doubt, one of Oscar Wilde’s greatest poems, where his deep admiration for decadence, romanticism, and ancient Latin poems can be observed. In short:…
What makes something creepy?
Even though we could translate the English adjective “creepy” as “chilling” (or “horrifying”, to name two common examples) we would be incurring a gross distortion. It is impossible to define why something is “creepy”, however, we could all identify it…
Vampires and Crucifixes
The image is familiar, and even tiring, to all horror movie lovers: an academic vampire hunter, for example, Abraham Van Helsing, faces a vampire who flees in terror in the presence of a crucifix. The idea that vampires hate crosses…
Anne Rice – The Vampire Queen
Anne Rice, a name and a legend. A person who whose lush, best-selling gothic tales reinvented the blood-drinking immortals as tragic antiheroes, has died. She was 80. In a post on his mother’s public Facebook page, Rice’s son and frequent…
