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The Ghost: A Cultural History

Hardback

Main Details

Title The Ghost: A Cultural History
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Susan Owens
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:288
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 156
ISBN/Barcode 9781849764674
ClassificationsDewey:133.109
Audience
General
Illustrations 80 colour illustrations

Publishing Details

Publisher Tate Publishing
Imprint Tate Publishing
Publication Date 3 October 2017
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

"Five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has even been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it." - Samuel Johnson Ghosts are woven into the very fabric of life. In Britain, every town, village, and great house has a spectral resident, and their enduring popularity in literature, art, folklore, and film attests to their continuing power to fascinate, terrify, and inspire. Our conceptions of ghosts - the fears they provoke, the forms they take - are connected to the conventions and beliefs of each particular era, from the marauding undead of the Middle Ages to the psychologically charged presences of our own age. The ghost is no less than the mirror of the times. Organized chronologically, this new cultural history features a dazzling range of artists and writers, including William Hogarth, William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Susan Hiller and Jeremy Deller; John Donne, William Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Percy and Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Muriel Spark, Hilary Mantel, and Sarah Waters.

Author Biography

Susan Owens is an art historian and curator. Formerly curator of paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, she has published and lectured widely on British art.

Reviews

`The Ghost: A Cultural History is a work of profound scholarship and imaginative engagement, beautifully written and elegantly constructed. It's the finest study of its kind I've read.' - The Literary Review, review by John Harwood, October Issue