Throughout the storied history of Virginia, ghost stories, both real and fictional, were published to whet the appetite of the public. The trauma of the Civil War left literal and physical scars upon the land of Virginia and on its residents, but ghost stories also permeated during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age.

Virginia's Haunted History uncovers historic paranormal tales as told through the newspapers of the time, with many of the stories and accounts reproduced here for the first time since their original publication.