The Doll's Ghost - Question

[Nemonymous]

'The Doll's Ghost' by F Marion Crawford - is this the only example of a
Ghost Story about a thing's ghost? (A doll being a thing or object).

In my view, objects that come along with ghosts as a setting (eg: a ghostly
car that was once driven by the car's owner whose ghost still drives
it) -- or objects or buildings that are haunted -- are not the same as
ghosts of things like Crawford's ghost of a doll.

May I suggest this question is central to an interest in Ligotti's fiction?
At the moment, I'm not sure why.

BTW, what examples of Fiction can you
think of that tells of a ghost of a thing or object, rather than of a
human being or animal ?

[yellowish haze]

That's an interesting point, Des. I've never noticed how different that Crawford's story is from other stories of it's kind.

Isn't "Man-Size in Marble" by E. Nesbit dealing with a similar phenomenon? I've read that story a long time ago and I'm not sure whether the statue in the story was actually a ghost or not.

[Nemonymous]

Good suggestion, Slawek. I've not read 'Man-Size In Marble' for many years (but rememeber it to be a brilliant story).
From memory, were the statues actual ghosts? The character was left with a marble finger grasped in her hand, which would indicate they remained in statue form? Crawford's ghost of a doll is a traditional ghost of the doll.

[Nemonymous]

It could be argued, I suppose, that all ghosts are ghosts of objects
(ie of corpses)?

[Aetherwing]

In protest to the felling of a beautiful, OLD water-oak in the Mobile bay area, done to let a now-bustling thoroughfare be built, a friend wrote a story concerning unexplained (fictional) wrecks along the completed road. The victims, when they survived, would report having seen a huge tree loom inexplicably in their path, then the crash occurred.

I thought it a fairly original concept at the time: the tree's 'ghost', as it were, occasionally haunting the spot it once occupied, and inadvertently causing car accidents.

I don't think my friend ever did get that story published, but this discussion brought it to mind.

I'm sure there must be stories of "ghostly" structures, although I am just as sure I cannot bring any to mind just now.

Inexplicably, I don't think I have ever read this Crawford story...

-Jimmy

[G. S. Carnivals]

There is "The Doll's Ghost" which is also by F. Marion Crawford.

I'll be damned if my April 1952 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction doesn't also include "The Cheery Soul" by Elizabeth Bowen. I'll have to take a peek for a promising quotation.

[yellowish haze]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

Good suggestion, Slawek. I've not read 'Man-Size In Marble' for many years (but rememeber it to be a brilliant story). From memory, were the statues actual ghosts? The character was left with a marble finger grasped in her hand, which would indicate they remained in statue form? Crawford's ghost of a doll is a traditional ghost of the doll.

Right!
Now that I remember more, I think 'Man-Size In Marble' is actually one of those stories which are frequently anthologized as ghost stories but where there are some ghost-related phenomena rather than actual ghosts. If that statue had a physical form then it had more to do with those hedge lions from Stephen King's "The Shining" than with a ghost.

'The Doll's Ghost'?
Drat, I can't think of any other such story right now. Most of such stories function the other way around: they are about puppets/dolls/manikins/statues that come to life rather than haunt people in their spectral form.

[marx 1]

"Drat, I can't think of any other such story right now. Most of such stories function the other way around: they are about puppets/dolls/manikins/statues that come to life rather than haunt people in their spectral form."

You mean they're not alive?

[G. S. Carnivals]

Quote Originally Posted by G. S. Carnivals

There is "The Doll's Ghost" which is also by F. Marion Crawford.

I am obviously an idiot who did not pay attention. Duh.

[yellowish haze]

Quote Originally Posted by marx 1

You mean they're not alive?

Initially they aren't. I was referring to such stories as for instance Pinochio or Sarban's "The Doll Maker" or Thomas Wiloch's "The Terrible Secret" (prose poem), where a marionette/doll starts having a life of it's own.