Before the "hanky code" of colored bandanas to announce one's inclinations, there was Black and Gold, or the Signal Scarf by W. H. Patten-Saunders, 1865.

We like both candles -- the one carried on a turtle's back, and the witch-emblazoned one that casts a cat's shadow and is held by an holder with a face.  Date uncertain.

From 1911.

"This is the day to make a night of Hallowe'en."

"Braemar Badminton Club opening tea, Edmonton, 1953."

"At the master's grave," from Der Golem, illustrated by Hugo Steiner-Prag.

Photo by Leslie Jones, date uncertain.

"[continues without heeding her.]"  From Drawing-Room Plays, selected and adapted from the French by Lady Adelaide Cadogan and illustrated by E. L. Shute, 1888.

Before Butt-head there was merely Be[a]vis, The Story of a Boy by Richard Jefferies, 1891.

From Once a Week, 1866.

"All sorts of creatures walk about / And ghosts sure live, beyond a doubt / On Hallowe'en."

"Greetings for Hallowe'en."  Date unknown.

"The Salem witch."

From 1970.

"Trollkjerring" by Theodor Kittelsen, 1907.

"None of your d—d blue skies here," from The King's Own by Frederick Marryat and illustrated by F. H. Townsend, 1896.

As Harry Hill would have put it on TV Burp, "I like the moon considered as a planet; I like the moon considered as a world; then again, I like the moon considered as a satellite.  But which is better?  There's only one way to find out—fight!"  From The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite by James Nasmyth & James Carpenter, 1885.

Here are some of our favorite sheet ghosts from our research.  Click each image for its source.

A daydream of Death taking out heroes and damsels, scholars and businessmen and schoolboys, as king and clergy look on.  From Once a Week, 1865.

You're aware of "the complex ways we distract ourselves from our inevitable demise" (Doug Bower, From Horseback to Desktop PC, 2007).  One of them is bobbing for apples while a witch peers through one's window.  Date uncertain.

From c. 1910.

Here's the white owl of Halloween, from c. 1910.

"On Hallowe'en, strange sights are seen."  From 1910.

From Der Golem, illustrated by Hugo Steiner-Prag.

Circa 1908.

Mormons attempt to raise the dead, from Upper Canada Sketches by Thomas Conant, 1898.

Since so few prefaces are actually read, this preface is at least red.  From Archery and Archness by Robin Hood, 1834.

Here's a diplomat from Die Muskete, 1917.

An initial reaction to our puzzler This Book is a Cactus by Bob Neale, author of This Is Not a Book: "One very sneaky treatise.  Actually, it is blatantly intellectual as much as it is absurd.  And I even wonder if it is a guide to spiritual meditation.  But I have a way to go with it to come to any conclusion.  Right now, I just know that there is a hell of a lot more in it than I can comprehend."

"A Saint Louis scientist has discovered that we shall all be crazy by the year 2016.  This, alas, is not the worst of it.  We shall also be dead."  From The Ottawa Evening Herald, January 27, 1902.

Before Prince's "raspberry beret," there was the strawberry handkerchief by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, 1908.

From Hunter College's Wistarion yearbook, 1916.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

Here's a rare insight into how Hallowe'en sheet ghosts are freshly gathered from clothes lines by witches.  Date uncertain.

"On Hallowe'en, when the hour is right, let the witch mix a charm in a pumpkin bright."  Date uncertain.

Here's a vintage Halloween card from Germany, date uncertain.

From c. 1907.

"The mighty fabric of St. Paul's tottering in the grey morning mist," from "London Undermined," Cassell's, 1893.

From c. 1890.

"Death saw two Players playing at Cards, / But the game was not worth a dump; / For he quickly laid them flat with a spade, / To wait for the final 'Trump.'"  A color lithograph by Edward Hull, 1827.

"Why did you sup on pork?" from Hood's Own by Thomas Hood, 1855.

Here's a precursor to the living busts in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion -- Miss Ethel Warwick pictured in The Sketch, Feb. 28. 1906.

"Taxed to death," from Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1869.

Here's a postcard written by a ghost, on October 27, 1909.  The message reads, "Dear friend.  It has been a long time since I saw or heard from any of you.  Do you recognize any-one on other side.  Love to all, Ida."  This has long been a problem — those in the land of the living often have trouble discerning those who have departed to the other side.

"With a goose wish-bone and four pumpkin seeds, marked with letters love on Hallowe'en place over door on the sill above and he who first passes from under, your future husband is to be — if he dont blunder."  Date uncertain.

"What's meant for thee thee'll have."  Date uncertain.

"By all the powers o' darkness, this beats broomsticks!"  Date unknown.

"We didn't waste much time looking at each other."  From "My Messenger Call-Box," in Cassell's, 1893.

"The slave of grease," from c. 1890.

"Prins Carnaval, Lambert I," date unknown.

From The Briar Patch yearbook of Sweet Briar College, 1915.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

What's older than ancient?  The obsolete spelling: antient.

A precursor to Burgess Meredith as The Penguin in Batman.  From Die Muskete, 1912.

Here's a hauntingly furnished room from Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1872.

INSTRUCTIONS: Click to bring on the night.

From c. 1915.

Here are the possessed chestnuts of uncertainty, hope, despair, and "happy ever after."  From 1918.

From c. 1920.

"The mystery of the ages is clear to me."  From "The Mysterious Painting" by C. N. Barham, in Cassell's, 1893.   Also very much of interest: The Young Wizard's Hexopedia.

Canned meat is here inserted into a scene from Macbeth.  From c. 1890.

"A man building a wig on to the head of a woman on a kind of scaffolding while another woman wearing a tall wig looks on."  Coloured etching by Maximilien Rapine, 18th century.

Here's a precursor to a key scene in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, from Un Autre Monde by Grandville.

"Birthing begins in the brain," says Denise Spatafora, and here's proof from a 1912 issue of Die Muskete.

"Laughing brings out the good in food.  It's good to laugh.  If you don't laugh, you're going to magnify.  And if you magnify, you're going to die." —Michael Paterniti, Love and Other Ways of Dying

"Macbeth.— 'Thrice the brindle cat hath mew'd.'"  From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1871.

"Guid luck tae ye this Hallowe'en."  Date uncertain.

A possessed candlestick wishes you "a joyful Halloween," c. 1915, by Ellen Clapsaddle.

"A sickly female invalid sits covered up on a balcony overlooking a beautiful view; death (a ghostly skeleton clenching a scythe and an hourglass) is standing next to her, representing tuberculosis.  Watercolour by R. Cooper."

"There could be no mistake; we all saw it."  From "The Mysterious Painting" by C. N. Barham, in Cassell's, 1893.

Here's some maledicta from a c. 1890 ad for luncheon meat.

The Black Cat, from March, 1896.