Beadle's Dime Library No. 801

Trapping the Grave Ghouls This serial romance by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham features Lionel Lonsdale, a man who returns after ten years of wandering to his family estate, Cedar Hall on the Hudson River. During an approaching storm, he observes a hand-shaped formation in tree foliage pointing directly at an unmarked grave. Knocked unconscious by lightning, Lionel recovers and discovers that his father, Colonel David Lonsdale, has died. The old servant Thurber explains that Lionel's sister Ruth married Grayson Glyndon, who rescued their father from a burning steamer; the colonel left her his wealth while disinheriting Lionel. After his father's death, the stable hand Patsey went mad after witnessing something supernatural in the mansion—"the dead walking" at night. Lionel resolves to spend the night in the abandoned house, titled "The Midnight Vision," suggesting supernatural encounters ahead. The serial continues across multiple chapters.