Hark! It's this year's installment of Hellacious and Horrific Happenings for Halloween! Academia Edition

This blog arises from the dead for its annual cavalcade of horror stories.  This year, we feature...haunted professors, students, and academics of all stripes, somewhat loosely construed.  OK, very loosely construed.  In a number of cases, the horror is also somewhat loosely construed...

• "The Harvard College Ghost" (Ghost Stories: Collected with a Particular View to Counteract the Vulgar Beliefs in Ghost and Apparitions, 1846).  A prank goes off script.  
• "The College Ghost.  A Legend of Old South Middle" (Yale Literary Magazine, 1856).  A young man is visited by a ghastly vision that actually turns out to be a pretty terrible pun on this edition of Horace.
• S. Baring-Gouid, "The Brunswick Ghost" (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1887).  The ghost of an academic with some unfinished business comes back looking for help.
• J. Edmund V. Cooke, "The Hypnotized Ghost" (Overland Monthly, 1893).  A hypnotist finds himself controlling his the ghost of a dead man.
• M. R. Gilkeson, "Hobgoblins" (Oliver Optic's Magazine, 1873).  For children.  A German professor is invited out to help investigate the mystery of some ghostly sounds.  
• Henry Hill, "Professor Falkenstein's Ghost Story" (Godey's Magazine, 1878).  Professor Falkenstein narrates a story about making a deal with a musical ghost, only for there to be an unexpected twist.
• [Mary Ann Hoare], "The Ghost-Raiser" (Household Words, 1852).  A skeptical student faces off against the horror raised by a fellow traveler.  Er, sort of.
• M. R. James, "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad."  A professor ignores one of the most important rules in horror fiction: never take a vacation.  
• Augustus Jessopp, "An Antiquarian's Ghost Story" (Lantern, 1977; first published in 1880).  An antiquarian doing some research has a visitor.  And that's pretty much it.
• J. S. Le Fanu, "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street" (Dublin University Magazine, 1851).  Two medical students discover that they're sharing their rooms with an unpleasant resident.
• Bram Stoker, "The Judge's House" (1891).  In a tip of the hat to Le Fanu, a student rents a house and, again, discovers that he's sharing his rooms with an unpleasant resident.
• [Walter Thornbury], "How Professor Gaster Lectured a Ghost" (All the Year Round, 1862).  After eating rather too much at dinner, Professor Gaster is surprised by the company of two chatty skeletons.  He out-chats them, however.  (In some versions, "Professor Gaster" is "Professor Pepsine.")

Comments

[Rawdon Crawley]

The blog has risen from the dead!
Welcome back.