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Lore

Legends 87: Cursive

Duration
36m
Broadcast on
31 Aug 2026
Audio Format
other

Everyone loves a good ghost story, but literature and spirits have a relationship that is older than some might think.

Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing and research by GennaRose Nethercott and Alex Robinson.

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©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Most women have been there. Something feels off. You don't feel like yourself. Yet your doctor says everything looks fine. Spoiler, it's your hormones. MIDI is a virtual care platform built for women by women, and offers specialized hormone care from trained clinicians. Plus, it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. It's not you. It's your hormones. Visit JoinMiddy.com to book your first visit. That's JoinMiddy.com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. Hey Denver! The Wayfair Store's grand opening weekend starts November 20th. Come shop, celebrate, and save with up to 80% off in store all weekend long. Plus, the first hundred customers in line each day get a free $50 gift card. Bring the whole family for giveaways, music, entertainment, and surprises. So mark your calendar and head to the Wayfair Store at avenues at Northfield November 20th through 22nd for our grand opening celebration. He might just have been the strangest man in France. Most of his friends were first exposed to his quirks at dinner parties, where his steel stomach was the star. Victor was known to eat unpeeled oranges, raw egg yolks, and to everyone's confusion, lobsters with a shell still on. During the 1870 siege of Paris, he even resorted to chowing down on animals from the Paris Zoo. He wrote in his private journal that within the span of just a few days, he had sampled stag, antelope, and bear. But of course, Victor's oddities didn't stop there. He also indulged in another hobby, seances. They started as a way for him to speak with his deceased daughter, but even after that proved successful, he stuck around. Victor chatted with the likes of Galileo and Shakespeare, but his crowning glory would always be his conversation with death. Apparently the grim reaper himself called on Victor. They chatted for a while, and death even gave him a few tips on how to navigate the publishing industry, explaining that Victor should arrange for his books to be published on a staggered schedule, so that he would always be in the public consciousness. Which is how Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, got the idea to delay the publication of 21 of his books. The last one was released in 1951, 66 years after he died. If you believe the stories, Victor might have been the first author to speak directly with death, but he wasn't the first to chat with the dead. It turns out plenty of writers over the years have had run-ins with the afterlife, and because of that, whole corners of literature have taken on a supernatural flavor. One might even say, "It's haunted." I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore Legends.
Outside the wind howls with January cold, but inside Pagani's restaurant, it's crowded and bustling. A singer croons on a low stage, glasses clink as laughter trickles through the room. Many of these faces you recognize, celebrities and entertainers and famed authors, some at your very table. This is after all one of the finest restaurants in Victorian London, but you aren't here to hobnob. No, you're here on more some or business. One of your friends raises a glass and utters your group's motto in the proper Latin. Noskey, la borare, mori, noskey. Be born, work, die, be born. And with that, the latest meeting of the Ghost Club commences. In 1855, a group of Trinity College students in Cambridge began whispering about ghosts. Not that they'd seen one, mind you. No, these were academics fueled by curiosity in the paranormal and the psychical, and this curiosity, while it was like a seed planted in the minds of the boldest and brightest of English society. It sprouted and grew, until finally in 1862, an official club formed, and they called themselves the Ghost Club.

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