Corpse Candles and Fire Coffins: Paranormal Parlor, A Weiser Books Collection

By Elliot O'Donnell and Varla Ventura

Varla Ventura, Coast to Coast favorite, Weird News blogger on Huffington Post, and author of The Book of the Bizarre and Beyond Bizarre, introduces Weiser Books’ new Collection of forgotten occult classics. Paranormal Parlor is an eerie assemblage of affordable digital editions, curated with Varla’s sixth sense for tales of the weird and unusual.

Corpse Candles and Fire Coffins

Death portents, evil boring beetles, and flickering ghosts move across the shadowy pages of this ultra-freaky collection from Irish supernaturalist Elliott O'Donnell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781619400986

Elliot O'Donnell

Elliot O' Donnell was an Irish author known primarily for his books about ghosts. He claimed decent from Irish chieftains of ancient times, including Niall of the Nine Hostages (the King Arthur of Irish folklore) and Red Hugh, who fought the English in the sixteenth century. O'Donnell was educated at Clifton College, England, and Queen's Service Academy, Dublin, Ireland. As he became known as an authority on the supernatural, he was called upon as a ghost hunter. He also lectured and broadcast, via radio and television, on the paranormal in Britain and the United States. In addition to his more than 50 books, he wrote scores of articles and stories for national newspapers and magazines. O'Donnell claimed, "I have investigated, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other people and the press, many cases of reputed hauntings. I believe in ghosts but am not a spiritualist."

Book preview

Nevermore

On a drizzly, foggy morning of late, my path to public transit was interrupted by a very large and very menacing murder of crows. Their cacophonous chatter echoed across the near-empty streets, distracting me from my purpose: a quick jaunt on the bus to the grocery store. In fact, I was so sidetracked by their looming blackness and the volume at which they communicated I was compelled to take out my journal and pen and scratch out an outline for a short story about a murder plot revealed to police only by the local blackbird population. Though I can't say it was my best work (the journal pages later ended in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the garbage chute), it did get me thinking about the iconic crow, the ominous owl, and other such creatures that seem to be steeped in lore from across time and cultures.

Elliott O'Donnell was no stranger to the rich wisdom about animals and other warnings of death. He spent a good portion of his long and prolific life gathering ghost stories, myths, legends, and history from his native Ireland as well as other parts of the UK. He seemed much more contented to spend his time collecting ghost stories and lore than to trying to prove (or disprove) their existence. An author of more than forty books on ghosts, paranormal encounters, and creatures of the fairy race, O'Donnell, unlike so many authors of his time who conducted psychic experiments and often took the skeptical or sensational point of view, had a more authentic approach to ghost stories. He claimed to have had numerous encounters himself, including one with a ghost when he was five years old. He also reported having been strangled by a phantom somewhere in Dublin. He said, "I