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1786, Jerusalem College Cambridge. The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumoured to be haunting Jerusalem since disturbed fellow-commoner, Frank Oldershaw, claims to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds. Desperate to salvage her son's reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts - a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion - to investigate. But his arrival in Cambridge disrupts an uneasy status quo as he glimpses a world of privilege and abuse, where the sinister Holy Ghost Club governs life at Jerusalem more effectively than the Master, Dr Carbury, ever could. And when Holdsworth finds himself haunted - not only by the ghost of his dead wife, Maria, but also Elinor, the very-much-alive Master's wife - his fate is sealed. He must find Sylvia's murderer or the hauntings will continue. And not one of them will leave the claustrophobic confines of Jerusalem unchanged.… (more)
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The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor

Ghosts (117)
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» See also 46 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 101 (next | show all)
This is more than an historical crime novel, as Andrew Taylor, also paints a lively picture of Cambridge and one of its colleges in 1786 when the events occur. John Holdsworth, and impoverished London bookseller, is engaged by Lady Anne Oldershaw to investigate the belief that her son, Frank, that he has seen a ghost. This experience has lead to him being taken into a doctor’s care in Cambridge. During the course of his enquiries, Holdsworth has to face his own past as there are parallels with the events surrounding Frank. Interwoven, are the contrasting social and financial circumstances of most of the privileged college students and their tutors with those of their servants. This makes for a vivid backdrop to Holdsworth’s efforts to unravel the truth in what is a highly entertaining and enjoyable book.
  camharlow2 | Mar 2, 2021 |
I wanted to enjoy this book, and I stuck with it in the hopes that the story would get better, but unfortunately it just wasn't my cup of tea. None of the characters were particularly agreeable and the story played out in a fairly predictable manner. The concept is great, and I love historical/academic-y fiction, but this just fell flat. ( )
  bookishtexpat | May 21, 2020 |
My actual rating for Andrew Taylor’s novel is 3.5 stars, and 5 stars for the narration of the audio edition by John Telfer.

Taylor’s novel, set in the late 1700’s at a fictional college in England, is almost Dickenson-like fraught with numerous colorful characters, and close attention paid to period detail.

While I wouldn’t say it was a suspenseful page-turner, it did hold my attention, and the ending was a surprise. I would absolutely recommend the audio version as Telfer does an amazing job with all of the different voices. He is much like Jim Dale, in that you know what character is speaking just by his voice. I think the book may have lagged a bit if I had actually read it rather listened to it.

The conclusion of the book seemed to lend itself to perhaps a sequel? If so I would want to check it out, especially if it were on audio read by Telfer. ( )
  tshrope | Jan 13, 2020 |
After the deaths of his infant son and his wife in separate drowning accidents in London, John Holdsworth is glad to accept the offer of employment by Lady Oldershaw to investigate the possible sighting of a ghost by her son, a resident undergraduate at Jerusalem College, Cambridge. Little does he know that amid the tranquillity lie power struggles and intrigues, and that it is not only the dead who have the power to haunt a person.

If, like me, you picked up this novel expecting it to be a ghost story in the original sense (i.e. infused with the supernatural) in a historical setting, then be warned: the title and the blurbers' comments on the front and back covers give quite the wrong impression; this is a historical mystery holding up a magnifying glass to 18th-century society, and it is debatable whether anything paranormal does indeed take place as the book explores how people and events from the past can haunt someone – and even the living. Andrew Taylor once again manages to effortlessly create the atmosphere of a bygone age, along with its inhabitants, sights, sounds, smells, conventions and manners. It moves along at a slow pace, and it becomes apparent that several layers are woven through the narrative, which are worth exploring in a second reading now that the ending is known, though one important question remains unanswered. There are unexpected gems hidden among the prose, and even though the novel is well crafted, it leaves behind a slight sense of dissatisfaction. ( )
  passion4reading | Nov 21, 2016 |
Meh. Disappointment. ( )
  Ms_Kasia | Aug 4, 2016 |
Showing 1-5 of 101 (next | show all)
Andrew Taylor has written almost every kind of genre fiction, from village mysteries to psychological thrillers. But his mandarin style and eccentric imagination seem best suited to the historical crime novel... THE ANATOMY OF GHOSTS pitches us into dynamic but rowdy 18th-century England, when superstition still held a grip on rational minds despite the advent of the Enlightenment.

added by y2pk | editNew York Times, Marilyn Stasio (Feb 25, 2011)
 
In The Anatomy of Ghosts Taylor has captured, with his habitual economy and precision, the maelstrom of the 18th century and its myriad contradictions: its greed and its lassitude, its religiosity and its scepticism, its rigid class structure and its social fluidity, its casual brutality and its profound superstition. In the 1760s even the educated and sophisticated occupied a world bristling with ghosts and omens. But, though the novel describes itself as a ghost story, it's not a book that will force you to go to bed with the lights on. Instead it is the haunting power of fear and regret that gives the narrative its particular tension.
 
As the days edge further into autumn, what better way to pass the time than with a good old-fashioned ghost story? Andrew Taylor's The Anatomy of Ghosts provides just that, as grieving bookseller John Holdsworth is coerced into attempting to disprove the existence of "an alleged apparition" in a corrupt, crumbling 18th-century Cambridge college.
 

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Andrew Taylorprimary authorall editionscalculated
Telfer, JohnNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it. (Dr Johnson, 31st March 1778 (Boswell's Life of Johnson)
Dedication
In memory of Don
First words
Late in the evening of Thursday, 16 February, 1786, the Last Supper was nearing its end.
Quotations
Books are not luxuries. They are meat and drink for the mind.
drowning runs "like a watery thread through the whole sad affair"
Money was a powerful thing, Holdsworth thought, the true philosopher's stone, with the power of transmuting dreams.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then she turned towards him like a door swinging slowly on its hinge.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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1786, Jerusalem College Cambridge. The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumoured to be haunting Jerusalem since disturbed fellow-commoner, Frank Oldershaw, claims to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds. Desperate to salvage her son's reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts - a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion - to investigate. But his arrival in Cambridge disrupts an uneasy status quo as he glimpses a world of privilege and abuse, where the sinister Holy Ghost Club governs life at Jerusalem more effectively than the Master, Dr Carbury, ever could. And when Holdsworth finds himself haunted - not only by the ghost of his dead wife, Maria, but also Elinor, the very-much-alive Master's wife - his fate is sealed. He must find Sylvia's murderer or the hauntings will continue. And not one of them will leave the claustrophobic confines of Jerusalem unchanged.

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A mysterious
death at a Cambridge college –
did Frank see a ghost?
(passion4reading)

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