O'Donnell, Elliott (1872-1965)

Author of popular books on occult subjects. Born February 27, 1872, in England, he claimed descent from Irish chieftains of ancient times, including Niall of the Nine Hostages (the King Arthur of Irish folklore) and Red Hugh, who fought the English in the sixteenth century. O'Donnell was educated at Clifton College, Bristol, England, and Queen's Service Academy, Dublin, Ireland. He had a psychic experience at the age of five, in a house where he saw a nude elemental figure covered with spots. As a young man, he claimed he was half strangled by a mysterious phantom in Dublin.

In later life he became a ghost hunter, but first he traveled in America, working on a range in Oregon and becoming a policeman during the Chicago Railway Strike of 1894. Returning to England, he worked as a schoolmaster and trained for the theater. He served in the British army in World War I, and later acted on stage and in movies.

His first book, written in his spare time, was a psychic thriller titled For Satan's Sake (1904). From this point onward, he became a writer. He wrote several popular novels but specialized in what were claimed as true stories of ghosts and hauntings. These were immensely popular, but his flamboyant style and amazing stories suggest that he embroidered fact with a romantic flair for fiction.

As he became known as an authority on the supernatural, he was called upon as a ghost hunter. He also lectured and broadcast (radio and television) on the paranormal in Britain and the United States. In addition to his more than 50 books, he wrote scores of articles and stories for national newspapers and magazines. He claimed "I have investigated, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other people and the press, many cases of reputed hauntings. I believe in ghosts but am not a spiritualist."

The O'Donnells were reputed to have a banshee —the wailing ghost that heralds a death, and O'Donnell wrote the first book devoted entirely to the subject. It is not known whether his own passing evoked this phantom, but he lived to the age of ninety-three years. He died on May 8, 1965. His entry in the British publication Who's Who, listed his hobbies as "investigating queer cases, inventing queer games, and frightening crooks with the Law." His books include: The Banshee (1926), Ghosts with a Purpose (1952), Spiritualism Explained (1917), Strange Cults & Secret Societies of Modern London (1934), Werewolves (1912), For Satan's Sake (1904), Unknown Depths (1905), Some Haunted Houses (1908), Haunted Houses of London (1909), Reminiscences of Mrs.E. M. Ward (1910), The Meaning of Dreams (1911), Byways of Ghostland (1911), Scottish Ghost Stories (1912), The Sorcery Club (1912), Animal Ghosts (1913), Ghostly Phenomena (1913), Haunted Highways and Byways (1914), The Irish Abroad (1915), Twenty Years' Experience as a Ghost Hunter (1916), The Haunted Man (1917), Fortunes (1918), Haunted Places in England (1919), Menace of Spiritualism (1920), More Haunted Houses of London (1920), Ghosts, Helpful and Harmful (1926), Strange Disappearances (1927), Strange Sea Mysteries (1927), Confessions of a Ghost Hunter (1928), Fatal Kisses (1929), Famous Curses (1929), Great Thames Mysteries (1929), Rooms of Mystery (1931), Ghosts of London (1932), The Devil in the Pulpit (1932), Family Ghosts (1934), Spookerisms; Twenty-five Weird Happenings (1936) Haunted Churches (1939), Dead Riders (1953), Phantoms of the Night (1956), Haunted Waters, and Trees of Ghostly Dread (1958).