Our Caption: Yes, do take stock and leave the bonds.

(Illustration from a 1912 issue of Life magazine)

An illustration from a 1908 issue of Life magazine.

An illustration from a 1904 issue of The Windsor magazine.  The caption reads: "Once more he placed the men, and once more they started of their own volition."

An illustration from a 1907 issue of The Windsor magazine.  The caption reads: "A dull, unearthly glare surrounded it."

An illustration from a 1901 issue of Life magazine.  The caption reads: "Christmas Night.  Ancestral Greetings."

"The Haunted House":  an illustration from an 1879 issue of Peterson's magazine.

"The Genealogical Ghost":  an illustration from an 1886 issue of Life magazine.

An illustration from a 1916 issue of Green Book magazine.  The caption reads: "His fingers ran about the keyboard and seemed to meet her fingers there as before.  She was at his side, her hands crossing his, his fingers lingering on hers.  He turned to clasp her . . . but his arms found only emptiness."

Here's a precursor to the spooky wallpaper in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, from a 1904 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.  This illustration prefigures the work of M.C. Escher by about three decades.

A ghostly illustration from an 1883 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The apparition."

An illustration from an 1869 issue of Harper's magazine.  The caption reads: "The wise man's home changed."

An illustration from a 1917 issue of Saturday Evening Post magazine.  The caption reads: "Do you not see its fearful eye staring at me through the wall?  Save me from it!"

"Who are you?":  an illustration from a 1913 issue of Munsey's magazine.

J writes: "Well, the answer that jumps to mind is 'Bob Hope.' Anachronistic, yes (I believe Leslie Hope would still have been, literally, in short pants in that decade, except when donning baggy pants for his award-winning Charlie Chaplin imitation); but if a ghost can't be exempt from strict chronological considerations, who can? I also, of course, love the fact that it's the *apparition* asking the *mortal* who the hell he is."

An illustration from a 1914 issue of Everybody's magazine.  The caption reads: "It had draped arms extended, with some cloth or band that looped and tightened at each stride."

An illustration from an 1871 issue of Our Boys and Girls magazine.

An illustration from a 1902 issue of Everybody's magazine.

An illustration from a 1900 issue of Scribner's magazine.  The caption reads: "He heard their seductive voices.  They danced around him in numbers."

An illustration from a 1919 issue of Munsey's magazine.  The caption reads: "He saw a veritable cloud of evil creatures, swimming about like fish in dark waters."

An illustration from an 1879 issue of Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly magazine.