Dark Encounters: Ghost Stories

Professor Dickinson's talent for evoking suspense, wonder and at times terror, owes much to his creation of a placid, scholarly atmosphere suddenly disturbed by something strange and inexplicable. In this collection—which might well have been given the title 'Ghost Stories of a Scottish Antiquary'—archæologists, historians, and scientists find themselves unexpectedly faced with a return from the past which comes to them in unusual, and sometimes forbidding forms. Almost every story is based upon some well known event or incident, and the development of the story is so convincing that it is difficult to decide when—if ever—the known and established facts give away to pure imagination. All good ghost stories should arouse curisoity: some should communicate fear. Professor Dickinson's readers will certainly wonder if these strange happenings could occur—or perhaps even did occur. And sometimes, with a slight shudder down the spine, they will ask themselves—how, and why?