Cock Lane and Common-Sense

What It's About

Cock Lane and Common-Sense is a collection of essays in which Andrew Lang turns his attention to ghosts, haunted houses, apparitions, crystal-gazing, second sight, and the notorious eighteenth-century "Cock Lane ghost" hoax. Rather than simply cataloguing supernatural tales as folklore or dismissing them outright, Lang examines the testimony behind them with a skeptical but genuinely curious eye, weighing eyewitness accounts against the possibility of fraud, coincidence, and hallucination.

Key Concepts

A recurring theme is Lang's frustration with the Folklore Society and contemporary anthropology, which he felt were happy to record ghost stories as quaint "savage" or rural tradition, but refused to engage seriously once respectable, first-hand witnesses reported similar experiences. The book sits at the crossover between folklore studies and the early psychical research movement, applying historical and legal-style analysis of evidence to claims of the paranormal, without committing fully to either belief or dismissal.

About the Author

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a Scottish writer, poet, and critic best known today for his collections of fairy tales. He was also a serious contributor to anthropology, folklore studies, and classical scholarship, and maintained a long-standing interest in psychical research, eventually serving as president of the Society for Psychical Research.