Fittes Manual for Ghost-hunters

Biddesden House - one of the most haunted houses in Britain 
Thanks to the Tatler

Title: Fittes Manual for Ghost-hunters

Author: Marissa Fittes

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud (Lockwood & Co #1)

The Fittes Manual is a famous book of instructions written by Marissa Fittes, the founder of Britain’s first psychical agency. Fittes was one of the first ghost hunters, and remains one of the most celebrated; chiefly perhaps because of her ability to communicate with ghosts. The Fittes Agency is the largest and most successful of the London businesses specialising in containing and destroying ghosts.

We are not actually given any details about what’s in the Manual, but presumably there are instructions about chains, rapiers, iron filings and salt bombs; all essential equipment in the ghost hunting business. Maybe instructions on how to grow lavender which is also rather mysteriously necessary to keep ghosts away from your property. And also presumably details of the various types of ghost: shades, lurkers, poltergeists, phantasms and so on.

Marissa Fittes also wrote her Memoirs, which feature famous ghosts, including Lady Esmeralda and Floating Joe.

There is also a Gazeteer of British Hauntings. The Screaming Staircase doesn’t make it entirely clear whether the unfortunate Problem of ghosts and hauntings and Visitors is confined to Britain, or is an issue worldwide. There is a mention of a 19th century Polynesian ghost-chaser; but obviously that dates too well before the Problem began. This seems to be a question for a later Lockwood & Co book.

Anthony Lockwood, George Cubbins and Lucy Carlyle work for the Lockwood Agency and to be honest, they aren’t doing too well. After a slight disaster when they accidentally burned down quite a large chunk of a house, they have been ordered to pay £60,000 in compensation. So when they are approached to deal with a cluster of serious hauntings at the sinister Combe Carey Hall, for a huge fee, they cannot afford to refuse.

While researching this new case, George comes across Corbett’s Berkshire Legends. There is a book called Berkshire Ghosts, Legends and Lore (available from Amazon) but I can’t find Corbett’s Legends so I take it to be fictional. At any rate, this book has a reference to two children found at the bottom of the “old steps” [spoiler alert: the Screaming Staircase]. One of the children died at once, the other soon afterward. 

Also mentioned in The Screaming Staircase are the Fittes Yearbook and Mottram’s Psychical Theories.

Ardgowan House - one of the most haunted houses in Britain 
Thanks to the Tatler