Countdown to Halloween: Gathering in the Pumpkins

(From the Library of Congress, c.1904)

Gathering in the pumpkins at the end of this Countdown to Halloween.

Countdown to Halloween: A Gilded Age Halloween Extravaganza

We've reached the penultimate post in this Halloween Countdown - and we've hit a rich vein of Gilded Age spookiness.

Countdown to Halloween: "'Twas the Night of All Hallows", Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1865

It's the first Halloween after the Civil War - and is a changing Halloween sensibility discernible in the way that the Brooklyn Daily Eagle marked the day?

Countdown to Halloween: The Civil War

"Jeff Davis Reaping the Harvest", Harper's Weekly, October 26, 1861 (via Library of Congress)

Halloween during the Civil War: where real and imaginary horrors meet.

Countdown to Halloween: E. D. E. N. Southworth, "The Spectre Revels" (1860)

From E.D.E.N Southworth's The Haunted Homestead: and Other Nouvellettes (1860)

On the verge of the Civil War, E.D.E.N Southworth provides us with a haunted house story set on Halloween - and, you might be relieved to discover, there's not a love spell or a pumpkin in sight.

Countdown to Halloween: Susan Fenimore Cooper's Rural Hours (1850); or, more pumpkins...

"October" - harvesting pumpkins - from Appletons' Journal, 1869

"The following notes contain, in a journal form, the simple record of those little events which make up the course of the seasons in rural life, and were commenced two years since, in the spring of 1848, for the writer's amusement." So begins Susan Fenimore Cooper's delightful Rural Hours (1850).

Countdown to Halloween: John Greenleaf Whittier's "The Pumpkin" (1846)

"The Pumpkin Effigy", from Harper's Weekly, November 23, 1867, reprinted in The Ladies' Floral Cabinet, 1875 (via)

The first sight of a pumpkin on this countdown, and what's Halloween without a few pumpkins?

Countdown to Halloween: Timothy Shay Arthur, "Love Tests of Hallowe'en" (1849)

Today, Timothy Shay Arthur's "Love Tests of Hallowe'en", published in Graham's Magazine, September 1849 (and reprinted in Arthur's Sketches of Life and Character (1850)).

Countdown to Halloween: Nathaniel Covington Brooks, "Clara Lawson; or, The Rustic Toilet" (1836)

Today's story: the curiously named "Clara Lawson; or, The Rustic Toilet", written by Nathaniel Covington Brooks and published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1836, available here.

Countdown to Halloween: "The Magic Mirror" (1825)

Today, "The Magic Mirror", an ephemeral curiosity whichever way you look at it.

Countdown to Halloween: William Harrison Ainsworth's Rookwood (1834)

George Cruikshank, "The Vault", from William Harrison Ainsworth's Rookwood (1834)

A smooth transition from my last post on Walter Scott, because in so many ways William Harrison Ainsworth was a follower of the Wizard of the North.

Countdown to Halloween: Walter Scott's Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830)

George Cruikshank, "Witches Frolic"

Last time, we saw an example of Walter Scott in Gothic mode early in his writing career. Today, it's one of his lesser known publications from the end of his life and career - though an equally fitting choice for Halloween.

Countdown to Halloween: Looking for "Lenore" (or, four ways of looking at a spectre bridegroom)

From this 1796 edition

Today's post finds us in the late eighteenth century again - but in Germany, not Scotland, though we'll end up there again, as well as across the Atlantic.

Countdown to Halloween: Robert Burns, "Halloween" (1785)

From The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities (1832)

I'm starting my Countdown to Halloween with Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785). Why? Because throughout the first half of the nineteenth century there was no more influential account of Halloween entertainments.

Countdown to Halloween: Priming the Pump(kins)

From The Almanack of the Month, October 1846

Throughout October, I'm going to be taking part in the annual Countdown to Halloween blogging marathon.