Absolutely fascinating, this thoughtfully told and telling book about the ghosts that haunt the British Museum deserves to be read and considered. It is worth noting that author Noah Angell turned down the chance to be partnered with the museum with authorised access to staff in exchange for their editorial control. He spent seven years interviewing former and current employees, some of which requested anonymity. This results in a heart-achingly compassionate yet piercing combination of the author and those he has spoken to. Noah Angell comes from North Carolina and understands that “the telling of ghost stories serves as a way of mapping that pain that is lodged in the land”. He advises that you enter the museum respectfully, and I suggest the same when opening the pages of this book. The first collections were founded on the fortune of sugar plantations, and no matter the originating location, a theme exists of death and items removed from their rightful place. These objects hold an energy, an energy that transmits into hauntings. The author considers: “Perhaps simply to put material heritage in a museum is to make a ghost of it. After all, the creation of a collection often involves the violent or underhanded extraction of artefacts from their original settings”. Each ghost story, haunting, information about collections, and telling of history builds layer upon layer of intrigue and disquiet and I found myself reconsidering our past and the context of museums. The suggestions on the last page of the afterword make complete sense. This is a book that is going to stay with me and so sits as a LoveReading Star Book and Liz Pick of the Month. Powerful and provocative Ghosts of the British Museum creates its own unique energy and important voice. Highly recommended.
'An absorbingly creepy travelogue through the corridors, tunnels and basements of our most famous cultural repository. With Noah Angell as our guide, the British Museum becomes a haunted prison filled with imperial plunder and restless spirits clamouring for attention.' - Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin Of All Witches 'Fascinating and illuminating' - Peter Ackroyd
'Brilliantly delicate, pointed, shivery...' - Erin L. Thompson, professor of art crime at the City University of New York
'Achieves a near-impossible marriage between paranormal pop-culture, folklore and hauntology' - Roger Clarke, author of A Natural History of Ghosts What if the British Museum isn't a carefully ordered cross section of history but is in instead a palatial trophy cabinet of colonial loot - swarming with volatile and errant spirits?
When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a deluge as staff old and new - from overnight security to respected curators - brought him testimonies of their supernatural encounters.
It became clear that the source of the disturbances was related to the Museum's contents - unquiet objects, holy plunder, and restless human remains protesting their enforced stay within the colonial collection's cabinets and deep underground vaults. According to those who have worked there, the institution is heaving with spectral disorder.
Ghosts of the British Museum fuses storytelling, folklore and history, digs deep into our imperial past and unmasks the world's oldest national museum as a site of ongoing conflict, where restless objects are held against their will.
It now appears that the objects are fighting back.
