Elliott O'Donnell

Elliott O'Donnell (February 27, 1872 - May 8, 1965) was an author known primarily for his books about ghosts. He claimed to have seen a ghost, described as an elemental figured covered with spots, when he was five years old. He also claimed to have been strangled by a mysterious phantom in Dublin.

He claimed descent from Irish chieftains of ancient times, including Niall of the Nine Hostages (the King Arthur of Irish folklore) [1] and Red Hugh, who fought the English in the sixteenth century. O'Donnell was educated at Clifton College in Bristol, England, and later at Queen's Service Academy, Dublin, Ireland.

In later life he became a ghost hunter, but first he traveled in America, working on a range in Oregon and becoming a policeman during the Chicago Railway Strike of 1894. Returning to England, he worked as a schoolmaster and trained for the theater. He served in the British army in World War I, and later acted on stage and in movies.

His first book, written in his spare time, was a psychic thriller titled For Satan's Sake (1904). From this point onward, he became a writer. He wrote several popular novels, including an occult fantasy, The Sorcery Club (1912) [1] but specialized in what were claimed as true stories of ghosts and hauntings. These were immensely popular, but his flamboyant style and amazing stories suggest that he embroidered fact with a romantic flair for fiction. O'Donnell wrote material for numerous magazines,including Hutchinson Story Magazine, The Novel Magazine, The Idler, Weekly Tale-Teller, Hutchinson's Mystery-Story Magazine, Pearson's Magazine, Lilliput [2] and Weird Tales.[3]

As he became known as an authority on the supernatural, he was called upon as a ghost hunter. He also lectured and broadcast (radio and television) on the paranormal in Britain and the United States. In addition to his more than 50 books, he wrote scores of articles and stories for national newspapers and magazines. He claimed "I have investigated, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other people and the press, many cases of reputed hauntings. I believe in ghosts but am not a spiritualist."

Many of O'Donnell's books possess autobiographical sections in which he reveals a desperate struggle to escape early poverty and scrape acquaintance with the wealthy and the influential. These revelations, coupled with both his employment of actors such as C. Aubrey Smith to help stage hauntings, and the fact that he left no notes relating to his studies after his death, suggest that he embellished or perhaps even invented many of his supposed experiences. This is borne out by the fact that virtually every reference book in the field of supernatural fiction accords O'Donnell the status as a fiction writer. Certainly he was never approached by, nor worked with, the Society for Psychical Research.

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 John Wilson Foster, Irish Novels 1890-1940: New Bearings in Culture and Fiction. Oxford University Press, 2008 (p. 367-71)
  2. ↑ Foster, p. 29.
  3. ↑ Elliot O'Donnell,"The Haunted Wood of Adoure", Weird Tales, July 1930. Reprinted in 100 Wild Little Weird Tales,edited by Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz and Martin H. Greenberg, Barnes and Noble, 1994.

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