Horrible Histories: Ghosts

Do you believe in ghosts? People have been telling ghost stories for hundreds of years, but where do the stories come from? Are they real or invented?  

The Horrible Histories team have been gathering up ghost stories from Egypt and ancient Assyria to the Victorians, the Georgians and rightup to the twentieth century. Step back in time and discover the frightful facts, ghostly tales and ghastly legends from history that they’ve found. You can find out about one of the first ghost stories ever recorded, The Ghost in the Garden; a trick invented in 1862 called Pepper’s Ghost that theatres used to create ghosts on stage; or the tale of the screaming skull from Wardley Hall in Manchester. There’re restless ghosts, ancient curses, ghost ships, unsolved mysteries, and ‘ghosts’ with scientific explanations too.  

Combining facts with a chatty narrative style and lots of humour, the Horrible Histories series is a brilliantly engaging way of finding out about historical events, attitudes and ideas – some of which seem utterly bizarre to us today, while others continue to be a part of our cultural knowledge, like the curse of Tutankhamun or the tale of the Flying Dutchman. 

Are you spooked yet?