Written in 1785 and published the following year, ‘Halloween’ is not Robert Burns’s best-known poem, but it is one of his longest. Focusing on the traditions and activities associated with Halloween in eighteenth-century Scotland, ‘Halloween’ is best read aloud – but failing that, here’s the text of the full poem […]
The curious life of Montague Rhodes James Many people regard M. R. James (1862-1936) as the finest writer of ghost stories in the English language. How did he come to write such highly regarded tales? In this post we offer a very short biography of M. R. James, focusing on […]
The best Halloween poems What are the best poems about Halloween, the best poems for Halloween? In this post, we’ve gathered up a mixture of the two: some of the following ten poems are specifically about Halloween, while others are suitably Gothic poems to enjoy on or around Halloween. So, […]