ABSTRACT
The ghost walk is an abiding feature of the contemporary tourist landscape in many parts of the world. The moniker ‘ghost walk’ describes a wide variety of experiences; walks may gravitate towards settings that have ghostly associations or centre on buildings with significant heritage value, while others prefer to evoke the appropriate ambience in lonely or neglected spots. Telling stories is fundamental to the visitor experience on a ghost walk. To explore further how the ghost story may anticipate the pattern of the ghost walk as one of “literary wandering or digression”, but also as a blend of aimlessness and purpose, let us turn first to Henry James. J. J. Hissey’s residual affection for the immersive, exploratory pleasures of travelling on foot has its roots in a Romantic conception of walking. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Romanticism transformed the walk from a managed leisure pursuit into a heightened, transformative experience, often in wild or isolated landscapes.
