A True Ghost Story from Cambridge University

Our meticulously restored edition of The White Ghost Book (available at Amazon) features over 40 illustrations and over 600 annotations, providing contemporary readers with the historical and cultural context to appreciate Middleton's unique contribution to supernatural literature. This isn't merely a collection of invented tales—it represents a journalistic approach to documenting what Middleton and many of her contemporaries believed were genuine encounters with the spirit world.


In our last two posts, we shared a ghost story from Jessie Adelaide Middleton's renowned book of true ghost stories, The Grey Ghost Book (available at Amazon) and from Middleton's Another Grey Ghost Book (available at Amazon). This week, we share a story from Middleton's The White Ghost Book (available at Amazon). 

Since we shared a student story from Oxford University last week, we thought we'd share a student story from Cambridge University this week:

Stories from Jessie Adelaide Middleton's The White Ghost Book (1916)


The Bell and the Footsteps


"When at Cambridge, I had rooms not far from the Market Place. I shared them with a friend. He had a bedroom on the third floor. Once, when he was very ill, I sat up with him. Between two and three in the morning I heard a bell tolling. It was a deep-toned bell, and I did not recognize the tone.

"My friend, who had been asleep, woke up and asked what bell it was. It tolled for about twenty minutes and then stopped. I opened the window but could not hear it outside. It sounded as if it were inside the house. Each night that I sat up with him, through his recovery, I heard it, and so did he. I learnt afterwards that the house was built on the site of an old monastery.

Hearing the Bells Toll

"In the same house I used to hear footsteps at night, and one evening, having been talking about them to a friend, we agreed to sit up and listen. At the same hour as the bell, between two and three in the morning, there were distinct sounds of someone walking upstairs. The footsteps came right up to my door—the third floor—which had three steps leading to it, and then there were two knocks at the door, which we at once opened. There was nothing there, and no sound. We sat up the second night and left the door open, sitting in the dark. The same thing happened, but without the knock at the door. I have never heard an explanation of this.

The Orange Girl

"The man I sat up with at Cambridge told me a story of a friend of his—a barrister—who took some rooms in, I think, Clement's Inn. He used to sit up late at night reading.

"The first night he was there he noticed late at night a strong smell of oranges, which he could not explain. He noticed it particularly in his sitting-room. The next morning there was no smell there, but in the evening, he noticed the smell again, which seemed to get stronger until about eleven-thirty, and then diminish. He got quite accustomed to this. One evening, after he had been in the rooms for about a month, he fell asleep in his chair, and waking up was astonished to see a little girl, rather poorly dressed, sitting at his table eating an orange. The smell was very strong.


"He jumped up and asked her what she was doing there. As he got up the figure disappeared. On making inquiries, he learnt that some time previously a little girl had been found strangled in the room, which had been empty. She had never been identified. She was poorly dressed and answered in every way the description of the figure he had seen. When the body was found, tightly clutched in its hand was a portion of a half-eaten orange. As soon as possible after that my friend changed his rooms.”

The renowned true ghost story trilogy is back in print: The Grey Ghost Book, Another Grey Ghost Book, and The White Ghost Book

This BookBrains Illustrated and Annotated Edition features:

  • Over 40 illustrations that breathe new life into these chilling tales.
  • Over 600 annotations to help readers with early 20th-century references they may be unfamiliar with.
  • An introduction to the work that places it in historical context.
  • A biographical sketch of the author and her career.

The White Ghost Book (1916) by Jessie Adelaide Middleton completes her supernatural investigation trilogy, documenting authenticated accounts of ghostly phenomena during a period when World War I heightened public interest in spiritual matters. This volume presents Middleton's continued journalistic inquiry into apparitions, prophetic dreams and visions, featuring numerous cases with real names and locations for enhanced credibility.



Get The White Ghost Book at Amazon.



In the Next Post:

We'll talk about photographs of ghosts.

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