Phantasmagoria and Other Poems

Phantasmagoria and Other Poems is a classic piece of American Poetry written by Lewis Carroll and first published in 1869. Phantasmagoria is a narrative discussion written in seven cantos between a ghost (a Phantom) and a man named Tibbets. Lewis Carroll portrays the ghost as not so different from human beings. They may gibber and jangle their chains, but they, like us, simply have a job to do and that job is to haunt. Just as in our society, in ghost society there is a hierarchy and ghosts (for there are different orders of ghosts, he tells the narrator) are answerable to the King who must be addressed as "Your Royal Whiteness."