Ingoldsby Legends, 3rd Series

A gloriously mischievous collection of ghost stories, legend retellings, and supernatural verse, narrated by the fictional Squire Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor who claims to transcribe ancient family manuscripts. Barham's wit is razor-sharp and delightfully impious: his monks are frequently damned, his heroes are usually fools, and his ghosts have an irritating tendency to interrupt their own ghost stories with complaints about rheumatism. The poems pirouette between genuine Gothic atmosphere and outright parody, creating something entirely its own. George Cruikshank and John Leech's illustrations render the supernatural proceedings with delicious grotesquerie. Originally published to enormous Victorian acclaim, these legends satirize the very English appetite for haunted abbeys and family curses while indulging it magnificently. They remain a treasure for readers who want their phantoms with a wink and their folklore with a healthy dose of irreverence.