Dead End Job

A Critical Edition of "The Transferred Ghost" by Frank Stockton

Abstract

The following critical edition of Frank R. Stockton’s “The Transferred Ghost” focuses on the ways in which the rise in spiritualism parallels the emergence of the middle class and white-collar positions in the United States in the late 1800s. By analyzing Stockton’s story along with other comedic ghost stories from the period, this edition will show how humor hid deeper anxieties about the era’s economic and social developments.