~ Reader and Writer of Supernatural Tales
Interest in the Jack the Ripper murders never seems to fade, yet these terrible crimes took place over 135 years ago. In short, in the second half of 1888, five, possibly six, women were murdered by the man known to us as Jack the Ripper. There were five canonical victims…
London’s population grew dramatically in the first part of the 19th century, but the land given over to bury the dead remained largely unchanged. This, coupled with the vast number of deaths at the time from diseases such as typhoid and cholera meant graveyards were overflowing. It became impossible to…
I’ve always been spooked by cadaver tombs such as the one shown above, yet oddly drawn to them too. That’s the lover of the weird and unsettling in me, I suppose But just look at it. Such artistry and detail. Such a macabre representation. Cadaver tombs, also referred to so…
What is spirit photography? Spirit photography’s goal was to capture images of spirits (extras) or other supernatural events on photographic plates. The example above is typical. An extra appeared as a shadowy presence near the sitter, and, in many cases, those who commissioned such photographs recognised, or thought they recognised,…
In my short novel A Strange Death in Devell’s Wood, which is set in the Victorian era, my main character often takes laudanum. But what is laudanum and why was it so popular in the 1800s? Laudanum is an alcoholic tincture of powdered opium, a substance obtained from opium poppies….