Haunted Cornwall - Images of England S. Author:Paul Newman Divided into geographical sections, this book on the ghosts of Cornwall not only introduces you to the spirits themselves but also to a living landscape of castles, tombs, burial mounds and standing stones. From heart-stopping accounts of poltergeists to first-hand encounters with ghouls and spirits who haunt prehistoric graves, "Haunted Cornwal... more »l" contains a chilling range of ghostly phenomena. Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, it features a dramatic 'exorcism' that took place at Botathan in the 17th century; the recent appearance of the spectre of Annie George at the First and Last Inn, Sennen; a 'human double' clocking in for work at a St Austell theatre school; a terrifying case of madness, magic and spirit possession that took place when the 'Great Beast', Aleister Crowley, visited Tregerthen; the tale of Frederick Densham, the benighted Vicar of Warleggan whose troubled spirit still haunts his old rectory; a vanishing house at Bossiney; a phantom stagecoach on the Mevagissey road and the sirens singing at Tregudda Gorge near Padstow. "A highly readable, deeply intriguing work that skilfully traces the borderline where folklore melts into what may be termed the authentically supernatural. The variety of apparitions chronicled in Mr Newman's short but gripping work is astounding. Here are doppelgangers, poltergeists, the 'crisis apparition' of a famous admiral, the mournful revenants of the lost gardens of Heligan, the sirens ensnaring a solitary walker on the coast near Padstow, a 17th century housemaid's encounter with fairies (that recalls "A Midsummer Night's Dream"), ghostly lights, ghouls that haunt burial mounds, a disturbing story featuring the Great Beast, Aleister Crowley, and the poet Rupert Brooke, and an account of an excorcism that catches the abrupt manifestation and swift, gliding movements of a restless spirit. In no other part of Britain would one find such a disturbing and blood-chilling spectral banquet." - Thomas McNeff, "West Country Book News".« less