It is not necessary to believe in ghosts to appreciate a good ghost story. We all believe in
death. AUDREY NIFFENEGGER In 1928 Eric and Mabel Smith arrived from India to take over the
lonely parish of Borley on the northern border of Essex. When they moved into Borley Rectory
Mrs Smith made a gruesome discovery in a cupboard: a human skull. Soon the house was electric
with ghosts. Within three months the Smiths had abandoned it and the Rectory became notorious
as the 'most haunted house in England'. Some months later Reverend Lionel Foyster moved into
the Rectory to find a further explosion of poltergeist activity with an increasing violence
directed at his attractive young wife. Marianne Foyster was a passionate and sensuous woman
isolated in a village haunted by ancient superstition and deep-rooted prejudice. She would be
accused not only of faking the ghosts but of adultery bigamy - and even murder. The haunting
sensationally reported in the tabloid press gripped the nation. It was then investigated by
Harry Price a self-made 'psychic detective'. With the instincts of a journalist rather than a
scientist Borley was the case that would make Price's name as the most celebrated ghost-hunter
of the age. He recorded the evidence of two hundred witnesses to over two thousand supernatural
incidents. This surely confirmed that not only did ghosts exist but finally here was proof of
life after death. With the pace and tension of a thriller and the uncanny chills of a classic
English ghost story Sean O'Connor vividly brings the story of Borley Rectory to life as an
allegory for an age fraught with anxiety haunted by the shadow of the Great War and terrified
of the apocalypse to come.
