Jeffrey was the resident apparition in the Selma, Alabama, home of
nationally-known folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham and the inspiration for
Windham’s best-selling collection of macabre tales that reveal two hundred years
of Alabama’s ghostly secrets, 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. One of the
most popular books ever published in the state, generations of Alabama children
and students have been thrilled and chilled by Windham’s spectral
legends.
Following the overwhelming success of 13 Alabama Ghosts and
Jeffrey, Windham and Jeffrey began to journey across the South assembling a
second collection of ghastly tales that repeat Windham’s winning combination of
traditional folklore, Southern history and culture, and family-friendly
story-telling. In Jeffrey Introduces 13 More Southern Ghosts, Windham’s
disembodied friend roams the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida to recall thirteen more timeless,
spine-tingling tales of baneful and melancholy spirits that spook the most stoic
heart.
Opening this volume is “The Girl Nobody Knew.” One midsummer
night in the genteel Kentucky mineral spring resort of Harrodsburg, a beautiful
lady arrived at the town’s grand hotel. The belle danced late into the night
with the town’s smitten gallants only to expire suddenly with the notes of the
last quadrille. The spooked residents of Harrodsburg guard a grave you can see
to this day. Readers then visit the world-famous Bell Witch of Robinson County,
Tennessee. Jeffrey also makes his first trip to old New Orleans to reveal a
revenant in residence on Royal Street before continuing his ghostly
progress across Dixie.