cover image Haunted England: Royal Spirits, Castle Ghosts, Phantom Coaches and Wailing Ghouls

Haunted England: Royal Spirits, Castle Ghosts, Phantom Coaches and Wailing Ghouls

Terence Whitaker. McGraw-Hill/Contemporary, $10.95 (222pp) ISBN 978-0-8092-4646-5

British broadcaster Whitaker, author of several books on ghosts and legends, presents ""a guide to a wide variety of haunted sites'' in England, some of which are open to the public. Whitaker intertwines history, folklore and legend in his tales of white ladies, gray ladies and other apparitions among the spooks and spirits that roam structures ranging from the Tower of London to farms, inns and pubs. The ``most authenticated'' phenomenon, Whitaker claims, is the ``shade'' of a pre-World War I German army officer seen (and ``felt'') by many people at BBC offices in the Langham Hotel. But for the majority of these ghost stories, he offers little proof or supposed evidencemost are presented as truncated, abbreviated anecdotes, leaving the reader hungry for more details. Nevertheless, the author conveys a satisfying sense of the spectral. (October)