ANAEMIC GHOSTS
THE GHOST BOOK, Strange Hauntings in Britain, by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor; Robert Hale, English price 18/-. N my ’teens I was an omnivorous reader of ghost stories, Skeleton nuns and vampires, fiends and the living dead, were nasty in my mind on rainy Sunday afternoons. "With swift, hobbling steps a squat, malignant figure oozed up the mossy steps of the twilit sepulchre. . ." Often I was afraid to look behind me. At night I pulled the bedclothes, ostrich-like, above eye level. But no image from a book could pluck at my nerves more terribly than a familiar empty room and half-open door. The unknown god or devil is always the most dreadful. The best fiction writers know it; but Mr. MacGregor does not. His ghosts are as homely as sewingmachines. His "faery dogs,’ vouched for as supernatural by ten trusty witnesses, frighten me no more than a boisterous Great Dane. For the very lovely photographs, especially those of the Scottish Highlands, with which his book is studded, I thank him many times over. One ghost, the Maid of Glen Duror, is a member of my father’s family. But the Black Shuck, the Martyr King, Madonna lilies and poltergeists-at twelve o'clock, alone with a_ bottle, maybe; but not under the influence of Mr. MacGregor’s journalese.
James K.
Baxter
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19560720.2.25.8
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 885, 20 July 1956, Page 14
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218ANAEMIC GHOSTS New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 885, 20 July 1956, Page 14
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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