Victorian Ghosts and Revengers

Abstract

In May 1827 a country girl called Maria Marten mysteriously disappeared. Maria had actually been murdered by her lover, William Corder, but the truth came to light only in March 1828, when her stepmother repeatedly dreamt that the girl had been killed and buried in a barn. After the discovery of the body, the site became the object of a macabre pilgrimage, was pillaged for souvenirs and even reproduced in small scale as a bibelot. The ‘Red Barn Murder’ inspired a long series of poetic, narrative and theatrical works, such as The Murder of Maria Marten, or, The Red Barn, a popular melodrama. Needless to say, these texts capitalised on the sensational appeal of the dream, as is shown by this 1828 ballad, where the case is related by the murderer himself:

Her bleeding, mangled body I buried under the Red Barn floor.

Now all things being silent, her spirit could not rest,

She appeared unto her mother, who suckled her at her breast;

For many a long month or more, her mind being sore oppress’d,

Neither night nor day she could not take any rest.

Her mother’s mind, being so disturbed, she dreamt three nights o’er,

Her daughter she lay murdered beneath the Red Barn floor;

She sent the father to the barn when he the ground did thrust,

And there he found his daughter mingling with the dust.¹