The English Ghost

Ackroyd’s book has its fair share of terrified hauntees and, unless you’re a sceptic, there are plenty of scenes that will make the hairs on the back of your neck bristle – Simon Griffith * Mail on Sunday *A rich and compelling assembly of stories for winter nights * New Statesman *This is a wonderful little book. It’s properly old-fashioned and unorthodox, a scrapbook of clues, tittle-tattle, hints and mortal byways – Roger Clarke * Independent *Ackroyd’s collection glides seamlessly from terror to humour to downright peculiarity: it is the ideal read as the nights darken and Halloween approaches – Tina Jackson * Metro *A fascinating anthology of sightings of ghosts in England over the centuries – Andrew Lycett * Literary Review *A winning compendium * Daily Telegraph *He has found some sterling stories. It’s for life, not just for Hallowe’en * TheBookBag.co.uk *Everybody loves a good ghost story and this selection of spooky sightings, both scary and comical, will certainly satisfy an appetite for eerie reading * Daily Express *The stories have a pleasing strangeness, even, or perhaps especially if one does not believe in ghosts * Independent on Sunday *The story of the phantom hitchhiker did give me the creeps – Colin Waters * Herald *

Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning historian, biographer, novelist, poet and broadcaster. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers London- The Biography, Thames- Sacred River and London Under; biographies of figures including Charles Dickens, William Blake, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock; and a multi-volume history of England. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal Society of Literature’s William Heinemann Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and the South Bank Prize for Literature. He holds a CBE for services to literature.