The novelist and children's author Catherine Crowe (c.1800 1876) published The Night Side of Nature in two volumes in 1848. This lively collection of ghostly sketches and anecdotes was a Victorian best-seller and Crowe's most popular work. Sixteen editions appeared in six years, and it was translated into several European languages. The stories are intertwined with Crowe's own interpretations and commentaries which attack the scepticism of enlightenment thought and orthodox religion. Crowe seeks instead to encourage and re-invigorate a sense of wonder and mystery in life by emphasising the...

The novelist and children's author Catherine Crowe (c.1800 1876) published The Night Side of Nature in two volumes in 1848. This lively collection of ghostly sketches and anecdotes was a Victorian best-seller and Crowe's most popular work. Sixteen editions appeared in six years, and it was translated into several European languages. The stories are intertwined with Crowe's own interpretations and commentaries which attack the scepticism of enlightenment thought and orthodox religion. Crowe seeks instead to encourage and re-invigorate a sense of wonder and mystery in life by emphasising the...

Catherine Crowe (1790 1872) was a successful author of fiction, non-fiction and plays, who moved in literary circles and corresponded with the prominent authors of her day, including W. M. Thackeray and Harriet Martineau. Her interest in the supernatural and the spiritual dimension, and her frustration with the narrow-mindedness of her generation, are evident in this work, first published in 1859. A strong believer in the possibilities of spiritual planes and of forces beyond contemporary human knowledge, she suggests that much is still unknown to the human race, and that the advance of...

Friederike Hauffe (1801 1829) suffered throughout her short lifetime from severe spasms and nervous fevers, and in her semi-conscious state she allegedly saw spectres and spoke and wrote predictions in an unknown, 'innate' language. When physically well, Hauffe could communicate with spectres of the dead, and created a complex diagram of circles to explain the nervous energy of a person and its changes throughout the year. The flow of consciousness and one's waking state in the spirit world, or 'sun sphere', was individual and seasonal. After continued illness, she was finally taken into the...

Shipwrecked as a young girl, middle-class Lilly Dawson is kidnapped by smugglers and forced to work as their servant. Terrified by the prospect of a forced marriage, this Victorian Cinderella flees captivity and has to navigate an outside world she finds both oppressive and dangerous. The Story of Lilly Dawson is a romping tale of pirates, outlaws, murder, mistaken identity, lust and betrayal. Best known for The Night Side of Nature, Crowe was one of the most successful women novelists of the mid-nineteenth century. Through her memorable heroine, Crowe insists that woman can "play a noble...

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s he was passing the door, 'You must have been mistaken about seeing Mr. Robertson; the boat from Raasa is not come in.' -'Then he must have come over by some other, for I not only saw him but walked and talked with him. I can't think what he can mean by playing at Hide and Seek in this way?' -'It's very extraordinary, ' said the landlord, 'for I am expecting a hamper from Raasa; and so, hearing from you that Mr. Robertson was come, I went down to inquire about it; but they declare no boat of any sort has come in these two days; the wind's right against them.' -'I know the boat from Raasa is...