The Sounds the Ghosts Knew: Imaginative Remembering of the Past

Abstract

When exploring history, the technical resources developed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries can only take us so far. Beyond that we become reliant on the written word of witness and recollection. The writings of Gilbert White from the eighteenth century show us quiet world, while the diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn show vivid sound pictures of the London. Sound is governed by place as much as time. Two contemporary sound worlds from the early years of the twentieth century, one rural and one urban, are compared. This is highlighted by contrasting accounts of the industrial revolution, and the conflicts between emerging and disappearing worlds. Thomas Dekker and George Crabbe offer us authentic auditory witness to the everyday world of their time.