Welcome back to All Things Eerie.  Of all the ghost stories that haunt me presently - and there are many - none are so terrifying to me as those in which the ghost appears in broad daylight, shunning the shadows of dark corridors and the blowing curtains of dimly-lit rooms.  This evening’s story begins with this premise and launches us into an adventure.

There are several very good variations of this theme - the daytime visitant from the dark realm - among the stories here on All Things Eerie: try “Afterward” by Edith Wharton or “The Trial by Jury” by Charles Dickens.  It might be wise to remember that once we enter the portal of the ghostly and ghastly, we can no longer pretend that the presence of daylight - or any other type of illumination - can protect us from being visited upon or exposed to the energies and personas of the restless dead.

Writing in the second half of the nineteenth century – when scores of writers in both England and America were playing with the details of ghosts, séances, spiritualism, and hauntings – Jerome K. Jerome gives us tonight “A Ghost Story” and presents some of the popular arguments of his time in favor of and opposed to the belief in ghosts.  By positing these arguments in the context of our story, the characters spell out for us some of the existing arguments of the time in the course of normal conversation, in a sense, educating us with regard to the popular beliefs of the day.

As for Jerome K. Jerome himself, a small museum dedicated to his life and works was opened in 1984 at his birth home in Walsall, England,  but it closed in 2008 and the contents were returned to Walsall Museum. So goes fame and achievement in this world, leaving us, if we’re lucky, with some choice writings to carry with us into the future.

And now,  turn down the lights and join us for “A Ghost Story” by Jerome K. Jerome….