Mary L. Lewes

Mary L. Lewes is known for writing about ghosts, folk belief, witches, and other supernatural traditions. Her best-known book, Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore, was published in 1911, and she later wrote The Queer Side of Things in 1923.

In the preface to Stranger Than Fiction, she notes that many of its pieces had first appeared in The Occult Review, which helps place her within the lively early-20th-century world of folklore and supernatural writing. The book is especially associated with Welsh ghost lore and popular belief, blending anecdote, tradition, and a clear fascination with the uncanny.

Very little biographical information about Lewes appears to be widely documented online, so the surviving books themselves tell most of the story. What stands out is her gift for collecting and retelling unusual tales from the edges of everyday life, preserving a world where family curses, apparitions, and old countryside warnings were taken seriously.