Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy.
Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales, mystery novels, and horror fiction. He was a leading ghost story writer of his time, central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. M. R. James described Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories". Three of his best-known works are the locked-room mystery Uncle Silas, the lesbian vampire novella Carmilla, and the historical novel The House by the Churchyard.
Montague Rhodes James was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (1913–1915).
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Anglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote numerous short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced a number of books of retellings of stories taken from Irish mythology. Born into a class that identified closely with British rule, she turned against it. Her conversion to cultural nationalism, as evidenced by her writings, was emblematic of many of the political struggles to occur in Ireland during her lifetime.
Sarah Jill "Lalla" Ward is an English actress, voice artist and author. She is best known for playing the role of Romana II in the BBC television series Doctor Who from 1979 to 1981.
Springhill is a 17th-century plantation house in the townland of Ballindrum near Moneymore, County Londonderry in Northern Ireland. It has been the property of the National Trust since 1957 and, in addition to the house, gardens and park, there is a costume collection and a purported ghost. It is open from March to June, and September on weekends, and is open to the public seven days a week during July and August.
Edward Petherbridge is an English actor, writer and artist. Among his many roles, he portrayed Lord Peter Wimsey in the 1987 BBC television adaptations of Dorothy L. Sayers' novels, and Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. At the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980, he was a memorable Newman Noggs in the company's adaptation of Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
George Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, of Horton, Northamptonshire, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1705 to 1715 when he became a peer.
Prideaux Place is a grade I listed Elizabethan country house in the parish of Padstow, Cornwall, England. It has been the home of the Prideaux family for over 400 years. The house was built in 1592 by Sir Nicholas Prideaux (1550–1627), a distinguished lawyer, and was enlarged and modified by successive generations, most notably by his great-great-grandson Edmund Prideaux (1693–1745) and by the latter's grandson Rev. Charles Prideaux-Brune (1760–1833). The present building, containing 81 rooms, combines the traditional E-shape of Elizabethan architecture with the 18th-century exuberance of Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill Gothic.
Spye Park is a former country estate in Bromham parish in Wiltshire, England. It lies north of Chittoe, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north-west of Bromham village and 2.5 miles (4 km) east of Lacock. The historic house which stood there, near the Roman road from London to Bath, had been twice destroyed by fire, most recently in 1974. The new owner, as of 2005, was planning to rebuild a Palladian house.
Barbara Ewing is a New Zealand actor, playwright and novelist based in the UK. In the 1980s Ewing played the character Agnes Fairchild in British comedy series Brass. Ewing's novel The Petticoat Men was shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award in 2015.
Alfred McLelland Burrage (1889–1956) was a British writer. He was noted in his time as an author of fiction for boys which he published under the pseudonym Frank Lelland, including a popular series called "Tufty". After his death, however, Burrage became best known for his ghost stories.
Charles Cornwallis, 2nd Baron Cornwallis of Eye was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1662 when he inherited the peerage as Baron Cornwallis.
Thomas Thynne, 2nd Viscount Weymouth of Longleat House in Wiltshire was an English peer, descended from Sir John Thynne (c.1515-1580) builder of Longleat.
A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One between 1971 and 1978, and revived sporadically by the BBC since 2005. With one exception, the original instalments were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films were all shot on 16 mm colour film. The remit behind the series was to provide a television adaptation of a classic ghost story, in line with the oral tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas.
Sir Henry Halford, 1st Baronet, GCH, born Henry Vaughan, was president of the Royal College of Physicians for 24 years. As the royal and society physician, he was physician extraordinary to King George III from 1793 to 1820, then as physician in ordinary to his three successors – George IV, William IV and the young Victoria. He also served other members of the royal family until his death.
The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft. Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19 August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most infamous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. All three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted.
"The Ash-tree" is a ghost story by British writer M.R. James, included in his 1904 collection Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.
Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Sneyd, of Keele Hall was an English politician who served in the Parliament of Great Britain and as High Sheriff of Staffordshire.
William Gaspard Guy Romilly, 4th Baron Romilly was a British hereditary peer.
