Thirteen Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffrey: Commemorative Edition

A deluxe, commemorative edition of famed southern author and folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham’s introduction to the Volunteer State’s most enduring ghost stories In Thirteen Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffrey, beloved and best-selling folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham presents a spine-tingling collection of Tennessee’s eeriest ghost tales. Accompanied by her faithful companion, Jeffrey, a friendly spirit who resided in her home, Windham traveled from the mysterious muds of Memphis to the haunted hollow’s of east Tennessee to collect the spookiest collection of Volunteer State revenants ever written.   In these perennial favorites, Windham captures the gentle folk humor of native Tennesseans as well as fascinating facts about the state’s rich history. In “The Dark Legend,” Windham recounts the story of explorer Merriwether Lewis, who met an untimely end on the Natchez Trace 1809 and whose spirit, it is said, still treads through Tennessee’s forests. Windham also visits central Tennessee’s Chapel Hill, where people who know the town say those who stand on the train tracks on dark, lonely nights can often see a disembodied light floating along the tracks. Neighbors say it’s the ghost of a headless flagman who returns to cavort with night-time guests.   High in Tennessee’s Appalachian mountains, Windham encounters Martin, the phantom fiddler of Johnson County. Legend has it that in life Martin’s musical skills so mesmerized the snakes of the Stone Mountains that they would slither from their dens to listen tamely to his fiddling. Intrepid visitors to the rocky tops of northeast Tennessee’s mountains say you can still hear Martin’s ghost fiddling in the hollows.   This handsome, new commemorative hardback edition returns Windham’s suspenseful classic to its original keepsake quality and includes a new afterword by the author’s children.

Paris Review

“In Windham’s tales . . . myth and fact intertwine to present a picture of the South that is as true as any textbook.”

Huntsville Times

“Almost every town has its own ghostly legends. It’s separating fact from fiction and fantasy that requires someone of Mrs. Windham's expertise.”

About the Author

Kathryn Tucker Windham grew up in Thomasville, Alabama, the youngest child in a large family of storytellers. For many years a Selma resident, Windham was a freelance writer, collected folklore, and photographed the changing scenes of her native South. A nationally recognized storyteller and a regular fixture on Alabama Public Radio, her commentaries were also featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Her other books include Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, Jeffrey's Latest Thirteen: More Alabama Ghosts, Jeffrey Introduces Thirteen More Southern Ghosts, Thirteen Georgia Ghosts and Jeffrey, and Thirteen Mississippi Ghosts and Jeffrey.

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