A PLAGUE OF GHOSTS!
Ghosts, dear reader, may frighten you, brighten you, tickle you or pickle you. Oh pilgrim into the afterlife, the spirits that shiver in your cellars and go bump in your attic may cause your teeth to chatter with terror -- and laughter.
However, may we suggest that they might also amuse you? Certainly John Kendrick Bangs hoped so! In his day, the famous humorist put the grin back into Death's skull. In these droll stories and witty essays, there are as many winks and rib-pokes as goosebumps and horrors.
In the Mystery of My Grandmother's Hair Sofa we find a frosty Christmas Eve haunt bent on mischief.
Cigar-stealing ghosts romp in The Mystery of Barney O'Rourke.
Can you stand the most utterly obnoxious ghost in The Exorcism That Failed?
A man meets his own ghost in Thurlow's Christmas Story.
Author Biography
John Kendrick Bangs (1862 - 1922) was an American author, humorist, editor and satirist. He was born in Yonkers, New York. His father Francis Nehemiah Bangs was a lawyer in New York City, as was his brother, Francis S. Bangs. He went to Columbia College from 1880 to 1883 where he became editor of Columbia's literary magazine, Acta Columbia and contributed short anonymous pieces to humor magazines. After graduation in 1883 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in Political Science, Bangs entered Columbia Law School but left in 1884 to become Associate Editor of Life under Edward S. Martin. Bangs contributed many articles and poems to the magazine between 1884 and 1888. During this period, Bangs published his first books.
