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"Phantasmagoria" is a poem written by Lewis Carroll and first published in 1869 as the opening poem of a collection of verse by Carroll entitled Phantasmagoria and Other Poems. The collection was also published under the name Rhyme? And Reason? It is Lewis Carroll's longest poem. Both the poem and the collection were illustrated by A. B. Frost.
"Phantasmagoria" is a narrative discussion written in seven cantos between a ghost (a Phantom) and a man named Tibbets. Carroll portrays the ghost as not so different from human beings: although ghosts may jibber and jangle their chains, they, like us, simply have a job to do and that job is to haunt. Just as in our society, in ghost society there is a hierarchy, and ghosts are answerable to the King (who must be addressed as “Your Royal Whiteness”) if they disregard the "Maxims of Behaviour”.
Ghosts, our Phantom tells the narrator, fear the same things that we often fear, only sometimes in reverse:
Phantasmagoria is divided into seven cantos which are named:
The Trystyng is the meeting between the ghost and the narrator in which they become acquainted. The narrator has come home one evening to find something "white and wavy" in his dimly lit room. Hearing a sneeze, he addresses the Phantom, a shy creature who has caught a cold, he says, “out there upon the landing”. The cordial exchange allays the narrator's apprehensions, the narrator's hospitality is appreciated by the ghost, and a conversation ensues.
The ghost explains that the number of ghosts any house can accommodate is variable: some houses have more than one ghost, but this is a "one-ghost" house. He describes the ghosts' hierarchy:
Here he describes the Five Good Rules of Etiquette that ghosts are required to obey.
Let the “Victim” (all hauntees are referred to as “victims”) begin the conversation: “No ghost of any common sense/Begins a conversation” (p. 12). Instead, the ghost should initiate a haunting by waving curtains or rattling a door. Should the victim take no heed, then the ghost tells him, “You’ll know the thing's a failure" (p. 12).
In a "ceremonious" call, "First burn a blue or crimson light...then scratch the door or walls" (p. 14).
Ghosts are required to "Protect / the interests of the Victim...To treat him with a grave respect, / And not to contradict him".
The narrator says he has encountered ghosts who forget the third rule, to which the ghost suggests that perhaps “you first transgressed” by treating the ghost rudely:
Ghosts must not trespass where other ghosts are living, otherwise (unless pardoned by the king) they must “instantly be slaughtered”:
The king must be addressed as “Sir” and “Your Royal Whiteness” (p. 17).
After reciting his maxims, the ghost is thirsty and requests a glass of beer.
The ghost speaks of the different classes of ghosts (Spectres, Elves, Goblins, and more) and their hierarchy, with Elves being “stupid company, you know, For any but themselves” (p. 19). He describes Inspector Kobold of the Spectre order, who spends his time at inns where port is served and is thus known as the “Inn-Spectre” (p. 21). The narrator tolerates the pun, but when the ghost criticises the narrator's house as “neither snug nor spacious” (p. 23), and complains about his host's food, wine, and cigars, the narrator objects angrily:
The ghost reacts by throwing a bottle at the narrator, which strikes him in the nose and renders him unconscious for a time. When the narrator awakens, the ghost continues telling his story.
In Canto IV, the ghost makes a reference to Bradshaw’s Railway Guide (which Carroll had parodied as a young child in his “Guida di Braggia”).
Hailing from a long line of ghosts and of the order, the Phantom tells his family tree as such: His father was a Brownie; his mother was a Fairy. The children were of different stripe – there was a Pixy, two Fays, a Banshee, a Fetch and a Kelpie, a Poltergeist and a Ghoul, two Trolls (“which broke the rule”), a Goblin and a Double, then an Elf, a Phantom, and finally, a Leprechaun.
No Spectres, although he notes that when he was a young Phantom some Spectres did call on the family and were “dressed in the usual white" (p. 29). Spectres are the “ghost-nobility” and look upon the rest of the ghost species with disdain and scorn.
The ghost informs us of the ways of ghosts: it’s old-fashioned to groan, and instead now there is the more fashionable squeak – which the narrator tells us "chill[s] me to the bone". (p. 31). A more difficult skill to master, the ghost says, is "gibbering" – “that's something like a job” (p. 31). Ghosts are required to spend a great deal of money on skulls, crossbones, coloured fire, the fitting of robes, and other expenses. Ghosts also must conform to the standards of the Haunted House Committee, who "make a fuss / Because a Ghost was French, or Russ, / Or even from the City", and who disapprove of dialects such as the Irish brogue (p. 34).
The narrator asks, aren’t victims consulted about their particular ghost? “Not a bit!” – imagine, he tells us, what it would take to satisfy a single child: “There’d be no end to it!” (p. 35). Ghosts regard new houses as unsuitable for haunting until the ghost has "trimmed" the premises by loosening doors and drilling holes in floorboards “to let the wind come whistling through” (p. 38).
The ghost mentions that he is subject to the authority of the Knight-Mayor. When the narrator says he doesn’t know the Knight-Mayor the ghost tells him, “Either you never go to bed,/Or you’ve a grand digestion”, as the Knight-Mayor's duties are to "pinch and poke” those who eat too much before going to sleep (p. 39).
The ghost discovers he has the wrong house and is not at Tibbs’ house but Tibbets’, which makes the Phantom very angry and he tells our narrator, Tibbets,
When the narrator objects that he is not to blame for the ghost's carelessness, the ghost quickly calms down, accepts responsibility for his mistake, and thanks Tibbets for his hospitality. The scene ends with the two shaking hands (the ghost calls Tibbets “Turnip-top”). He says a Sprite may be sent instead and gives him advice on how to manage the sprite by rapping him on the knuckles.
The Phantom leaves (favorite phantom) and nothing can bring him back, which leaves the narrator weeping…so he makes himself a drink and sings a “Coronach”
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1869 collection of 26 poems, unillustrated.
Phantasmagoria by Lewis Carroll was first published by Macmillan and Co., London, in 1869. Macmillan was also the publisher of the Alice in Wonderland books by Carroll. The first edition, had a blue cardboard cover with gold embossed cover illustration and edges and spine, bound by Burn & Co., Kirby Street, E.C.
Cover illustrations on the original book (Morgan Library copy) represent the Crab Nebula in Taurus and Donati's Comet, "Two distinguished members of the Celestial Phantasmagoria".
1883 collection of 17 poems (also New York: Macmillan and Co., 1884), illustrated by Arthur B. Frost (new) and Henry Holiday ("The Hunting of the Snark").
One of the front pages states (quote):
Some library records for Phantasmagoria and Other Poems, and other sources concerning that title, provide a list of contents that includes the four poems first published in 1883. This is because Macmillan re-used the old title Phantasmagoria and Other Poems for a different collection in 1911 and stated on its title page "First published in 1869." In fact, it is a reissue of Rhyme? and Reason? except that "The Hunting of the Snark" is omitted. See Ebook #651 at Project Gutenberg, whose source is the 1911 collection.
1911 collection of 16 poems, illustrated by Arthur B. Frost.
This collection matches the 1883 Rhyme? and Reason? in contents and sequence, except that it does not contain "The Hunting of the Snark" (and thus contains no illustrations by Holiday). A copy of the first edition is the source for Project Gutenberg Ebook #651.
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The book tells of Alice's adventures within the back-to-front world of Looking-glass world.
The Hunting of the Snark, subtitled An Agony in 8 Fits, is a poem by the English writer Lewis Carroll. It is typically categorised as a nonsense poem. Written between 1874 and 1876, it borrows the setting, some creatures, and eight portmanteau words from Carroll's earlier poem "Jabberwocky" in his children's novel Through the Looking-Glass (1871).
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Occult detective fiction is a subgenre of detective fiction that combines the tropes of the main genre with those of supernatural, fantasy and/or horror fiction. Unlike the traditional detective who investigates murder and other common crimes, the occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts, demons, curses, magic, vampires, undead, monsters and other supernatural elements. Some occult detectives are portrayed as being psychic or in possession of other paranormal or magical powers.
"The Signal-Man" is a first-person horror/mystery story by Charles Dickens, first published as part of the Mugby Junction collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to poetry:
Phantasmagoria is the third studio album by Curved Air. Released in 1972, it reached No. 20 in the UK Charts and is notable for its early use of the EMS Synthi 100 synthesizer to process lead singer Sonja Kristina's voice on the second side. Unavailable for many years, the album was reissued on CD in April 2007.
The Hunting of the Snark is a musical based on Lewis Carroll's 1876 poem The Hunting of the Snark, written by composer Mike Batt.
Little Gidding is the fourth and final poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, a series of poems that discuss time, perspective, humanity, and salvation. It was first published in September 1942 after being delayed for over a year because of the air-raids on Great Britain during World War II and Eliot's declining health. The title refers to a small Anglican community in Huntingdonshire, established by Nicholas Ferrar in the 17th century and scattered during the English Civil War.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871). He was noted for his facility with word play, logic, and fantasy. His poems Jabberwocky (1871) and The Hunting of the Snark (1876) are classified in the genre of literary nonsense.
“Glenfinlas; or, Lord Ronald's Coronach” by Walter Scott, written in 1798 and first published in 1800, was, as Scott remembered it, his first original poem as opposed to translations from the German. A short narrative of 264 lines, it tells a supernatural story based on a Highland legend. Though highly appreciated by many 19th century readers and critics it is now overshadowed by his later and longer poems.
Rhyme? And Reason public domain audiobook at LibriVox and Phantasmagoria public domain audiobook at LibriVox