Get an education in ghostly history—and meet the spirits that haunt schools in Boston and beyond. Includes photos! Among the throngs of students attending colleges and universities across the state of Massachusetts linger the apparitions of those who met their untimely ends on campus grounds. In 1953, Eugene O’Neill, an Irish American playwright, died in room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel—today a Boston University dormitory. Named Writer’s Corridor in O’Neill’s honor, the fourth floor draws students in search of creative inspiration and a sighting of the ghostly writer. A grief-stricken widow roams the halls of Winthrop Hall at Endicott College in her pink wedding gown. She threw herself from her widow’s walk after receiving news of her husband's death at sea, and is known to students today as the “pink lady.” Author Renee Mallett reveals the stories behind these “school spirits”—and offers eerie stories from over two dozen colleges and universities throughout the Bay State.

From haunted libraries to doomed dorms, journalist Matthew L. Swayne has scoured the country for the creepiest ghost encounters at our bastions of higher education. This guide explores the strangest and most enduring stories, complete with first-hand accounts from ghost hunters and the tales behind the hauntings as theyve been handed down through the generations.

Why do so many American college students tell stories about encounters with ghosts? In Haunted Halls, the first book-length interpretive study of college ghostlore, Elizabeth Tucker takes the reader back to school to get acquainted with a wide range of college spirits. Some of the best-known ghosts that she discusses are Emory University's Dooley, who can disband classes by shooting professors with his water pistol; Mansfield University's Sara, who threw herself down a flight of stairs after being rejected by her boyfriend; and Huntingdon College's Red Lady, who slit her wrists while dressed in a red robe. Gettysburg College students have collided with ghosts of soldiers, while students at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College have reported frightening glimpses of the Faceless Nun. Tucker presents campus ghostlore from the mid-1960s to 2006, with special attention to stories told by twenty-first-century students through e-mail and instant messages. Her approach combines social, psychological, and cultural analysis, with close attention to students' own explanations of the significance of spectral phenomena. As metaphors of disorder, insanity, and school spirit, college ghosts convey multiple meanings. Their colorful stories warn students about the dangers of overindulgence, as well as the pitfalls of potentially horrifying relationships. Besides offering insight into students' initiation into campus life, college ghost stories make important statements about injustices suffered by Native Americans, African Americans, and others.

Readers will get a lesson in history in this title that looks at what happened in various schools and how these happenings are tied to tales of ghosts, poltergeists, and other unexplainable phenomena.

The very first illustrated "census" of Green Mountain ghosts

Shiver-inducing science not for the faint of heart. No one studies fear quite like Margee Kerr. A sociologist who moonlights at one of America's scariest and most popular haunted houses, she has seen grown men laugh, cry, and push their loved ones aside as they run away in terror. And she's kept careful notes on what triggers these responses and why. Fear is a universal human experience, but do we really understand it? If we're so terrified of monsters and serial killers, why do we flock to the theaters to see them? Why do people avoid thinking about death, but jump out of planes and swim with sharks? For Kerr, there was only one way to find out. In this eye-opening, adventurous book, she takes us on a tour of the world's scariest experiences: into an abandoned prison long after dark, hanging by a cord from the highest tower in the Western hemisphere, and deep into Japan's mysterious "suicide forest." She even goes on a ghost hunt with a group of paranormal adventurers. Along the way, Kerr shows us the surprising science from the newest studies of fear -- what it means, how it works, and what it can do for us. Full of entertaining science and the thrills of a good ghost story, this book will make you think, laugh -- and scream.

The first of six Jeffrey ghost story books centers on Jeffrey's favorite 13 ghostly tales set in Alabama.