Ghosts in the Great War, and true tales of haunted houses

"Ghosts in the Great War, and true tales of haunted houses : Thrilling…." by S. Louis Giraud is a collection of first-person ghost accounts written in the early 20th century. Drawn from readers of the Daily News, it gathers wartime apparitions, premonitions, and domestic hauntings, framed as “true” experiences rather than folklore. The tone is investigative rather than sensational, balancing believers’ testimonies with skeptical letters and editor’s notes about method and selection. The opening of the collection sets out its newspaper origins: a public call for sober, first-hand reports, prizes for publishable accounts, and an editorial promise to classify, trim excess, and avoid lurid fabrications, while not claiming to prove or disprove ghosts. Several letters argue against superstition and offer psychological or scientific explanations, yet the main section, “Ghosts in the Great War,” quickly unfolds dozens of brief, vivid vignettes—soldiers guided from danger by dead comrades, loved ones appearing at the hour of death, mothers and fiancées sensing wounds or peril, strange battlefield lights and vanishing figures, and uncanny warnings that avert disaster. These tales stress visions that coincide with verifiable events, “instinct” that saves lives, and meaningful coincidences across distance. The excerpt then shifts to “True Tales of Haunted Houses,” beginning with an oppressive hotel presence that induces paralyzing dread, a recurring apparition of a tormented nun in a former monastic house, a farm rumored to be cursed and plagued by knocks and a grim old woman, a “thimble-tapping” matron who haunts a city bedroom, and a minister’s family beset by varied rural spectres. It closes mid-anecdote as a narrator, fetching a book in darkness, senses a presence on the stairs. (This is an automatically generated summary.)