At the time of this book's original publication in 1897, millions of Americans believed in Spiritualism. That is to say, they believed they could communicate with the dead. We humans could survive death and spirits were real. Andrew Lang's The Book of Dreams and Ghosts shares roughly a hundred stories spanning the two preceding centuries. As Lang states in his preface, "The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain people interested in the kind of narratives here collected." More than 125 years later, may these unusual tales entertain you as well.