Overview of Legends 87: Cursive
Aaron Mahnke’s Lore Legends episode “Cursive” explores the eerie intersection of writing, death, and the supernatural. Through a series of literary legends and alleged spirit-written works, the episode asks whether some famous stories were truly created by the living alone—or whether the dead may have had a hand in shaping them. The result is a spooky, history-rich look at ghost clubs, séance culture, and the enduring power of storytelling.
Key Stories and Examples
Victor Hugo and “conversations” with Death
- The episode opens with stories about Victor Hugo’s eccentric habits, including strange eating habits and séances.
- According to legend, Hugo even spoke with Death, who supposedly advised him to stagger the publication of his books to stay in the public eye.
- This story frames the episode’s larger theme: authors and the afterlife have long been linked in literary folklore.
The Ghost Club of London
- The original Ghost Club began among Cambridge academics in the 1850s and became an official club in 1862.
- Its early members, including Charles Dickens, approached ghosts with skepticism and curiosity, investigating séances and paranormal claims.
- A later version of the club, revived in 1882, was more spiritualist and elite, with members such as:
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- W.B. Yeats
- Sir Oliver Lodge
- Algernon Blackwood
- The club survives today in a more inclusive form and still investigates paranormal phenomena.
O. Henry’s alleged ghost-written stories
- William Sidney Porter, known as O. Henry, was a prolific short story writer whose life was marked by loss, imprisonment, and heavy drinking.
- After his death, Albert Houghton Pratt claimed to have received a new O. Henry collection through a Ouija board.
- The book, My Tussle with the Devil and Other Stories, was published under the byline “By O. Henry’s Ghost.”
- The episode treats this as a likely hoax or at least a dubious claim, but one that reflects the fascination with posthumous authorship.
Charles Dickens and the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood
- Dickens died while serializing The Mystery of Edwin Drood, leaving the ending unresolved.
- Thomas Power James (T.P. James), a printer and self-described medium, claimed Dickens dictated a completion of the novel through automatic writing.
- The resulting book was reportedly convincing enough to impress some readers and critics, including Arthur Conan Doyle, though skepticism remained.
- The episode suggests that the story may have been amplified—or invented—by newspaper reporting and self-promotion.
Francesca da Rimini and Dante’s immortalization
- The final section shifts to Francesca da Rimini, a noblewoman whose tragic love affair with her husband’s brother ended in murder.
- Her story survived because Dante included her in Inferno as one of the damned in the second circle of Hell.
- Though morally condemned in the poem, Francesca is portrayed sympathetically, and Dante’s version of her story helped secure her place in literary history.
- This serves as the emotional capstone: even the powerless can become immortal through writing.
Main Themes and Takeaways
Writing as a form of haunting
- The episode treats literature itself as a kind of ghost story.
- Writers may be dead, but their words continue to speak, influence, and sometimes appear to return through mediums or séances.
Skepticism vs. belief
- Many of the “spirit-written” stories are presented with healthy doubt.
- Mahnke highlights how easily grief, reputation, publicity, and fascination with the paranormal can blur the line between truth and invention.
The afterlife as literary inspiration
- Ghosts don’t just appear in fiction; they shape how people think about authorship, creativity, and legacy.
- Whether the claims are true or not, the stories reveal a cultural desire to believe that great authors never really leave us.
Storytelling outlives the storyteller
- The episode ends on the idea that what matters most is not whether a ghost literally wrote the page, but that the story survived.
- In that sense, the dead continue to live on through the written word.
Notable Insight
- The episode’s core idea is that “ghostwriter” may be more than a metaphor—at least in folklore.
- It also suggests that the hunger for a good story can overcome disbelief, especially when the author is gone and readers want one more chapter.
Closing Thought
“Cursive” is both a ghost story and a meditation on literary legacy. By moving from séances and spirit dictation to Dante’s immortal Francesca, the episode shows how writing can preserve the dead, blur the line between fact and legend, and make authors seem hauntingly present long after they’re gone.