Family Ghosts and Ghostly Phenomena

Family Ghosts and Ghostly Phenomena gathers Elliott O’Donnell’s accounts of apparitions and other reported supernatural disturbances linked with families, houses and inherited ghost traditions. Its subject matter belongs to the case-based tradition of early 20th-century paranormal writing, where personal testimony, folklore and speculation frequently overlap.

The book sits alongside O’Donnell’s classifications of phantasms of the living and dead, death warnings, dreams and family ghosts. Related themes include haunted houses, phantom figures, séances, telepathy and automatic writing, with the wider material extending beyond Britain to ghost-lore associated with Europe and America. The result is a period account of how apparitions were reported, categorised and interpreted before modern paranormal investigation took shape.