City of Ghosts: The Canterbury Ghost Story Festival comes to the remarkable St Gregory’s in Canterbury on Saturday 3 October, bringing together live performance, rare archive material, folklore, art and the history of the supernatural for one extraordinary day.

Celebrating 320 years since The Apparition of Mrs Veal, set in Canterbury and widely regarded as the first modern English ghost story, the festival features two live M. R. James performances from acclaimed storyteller Robert Lloyd Parry; Dan Baines of Lebanon Circle, exploring cursed objects and dark folklore; biographer Brian J. Corrigan, discussing his studies and performances of M. R. James and Charles Dickens; and Mark Jones of The Haunted Archive, alongside academics, writers and creatives.

Visitors will also have the rare opportunity to encounter original pieces of work and first editions connected to some of Kent’s most celebrated supernatural writers, including original M. R. James material brought out of the archive specially for the event. It’s a chance to experience Canterbury’s extraordinary supernatural literary heritage within the atmospheric surroundings of St Gregory’s, and to help put the city’s remarkable ghost-story legacy firmly on the map.