“I don’t think anything in his life absorbed, enthralled him as did the witches of Florence.” -Elizabeth Robins Pennell Charles Godfrey Leland had never been a stranger to the odd and the out-of-the-way, but when he settled in Florence in the late 1880s, his life took on a distinctly magical bent. Like any newcomer he…
“It was in one of these periods of strange happenings that I accepted my friend’s invitation, having little fear of ghosts.” – Roma Lister As I’ve written previously, late nineteenth-century Florence was a bona fide ghostland. Following the rise to international stardom of the Fox sisters (who are generally acknowledged as the “mothers” of spiritualism),…
Long ignored by scholarship, Lister was a writer, folklore collector, and occultist who served as an inspiration and adviser to the American man of letters Charles Godfrey Leland. Throughout her life, Lister, like her friend Lady Walburga Paget and others, often had strange, visionary experiences.
In January 2023, the University of Copenhagen launched the Dark Arts Research Group (DARG). Covering the period from 1750 to the present, the project will take an in-depth look at the global public’s “fascination with otherworldly entities and the macabre”. The DARG is specifically interested in exploring the varied ways horror, gothic, and other esoteric…