Richard Middleton 3 hr 2 min read

A ghost ship blown inland by a great gale settles in a Kentish turnip field, and its spectral captain sets up a roaring trade in ghostly rum, to the scandal and delight of the village's own dead.

Richard Middleton's 1912 collection leads with its beloved, whimsical title tale. Charming, wry, gently haunting. Read it for a delightful classic of comic fantasy, a genial ghost-story of a stranded phantom ship and its rowdy crew, from a gifted young writer whose early death cut short a rare talent.

In its time

Published in 1912, during the 1910s, lost worlds and interplanetary adventure.

Reading it

3 hr 2 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).