F

irst published in 1977, Usborne’s

World of the Unknown: Ghosts was

one of the very first books from

Usborne, a brand-new children’s

publisher that set out to revolutionise

the world of kids’ books. Peter Usborne (who,

now in his eighties, still owns and runs the

company), set up Private Eye magazine before

he became a book publisher, and wanted to

bring the same lively, magazine-style format

to children’s books. At that point, books for

children were mainly readers and classics, with

some non-fiction for the educational market, but

very little for the general trade.

Usborne changed all that. Inspired by a phone call

from his wife telling him he was going to become a

father, Peter wanted to put children at the centre of

everything he did. He asserts to this day that “being

a parent has been the biggest privilege and joy I can

imagine, and everything I’ve done in publishing has

been an extension of that”. He set out to combine

high quality writing, design and production with

popular subjects – never speaking down to children

and presenting them with information that would

spark their imagination and curiosity.

The World of the Unknown and a

haunted generation

The World of the Unknown series was classic early

Usborne: magazine-sized, floppy paperbacks with

a picture-strip layout that came from comics; vivid

illustrations designed to compete with TV; the dead-

pan tone of voice that spoke directly to children

and the topics – Ghosts, Monsters and UFOs – that

captured

their imagination. There isn’t much in the way of

data going back to those early days, but we know

that 30,000 copies of each of those books were

printed in the first year, and that they stayed in print

for twenty years or so before they were retired in

the ‘90s. So, it’s fair to say they were pretty popular

with kids.

We also now know, thanks to social media, that

these books left a big impression. They lived on

bookshelves in bedrooms and libraries, thrilling

their young readers, many of whom reported hardly

daring to open the books but loving them all the

same. Readers remember – vividly – reading and re-

reading them, taking these books out of the library

so many times that eventually a librarian gave them

a well-read copy, or putting their names on waiting

lists to get hold of one. Some of those readers have

reflected with hindsight that the book itself wasn’t

even that scary: it was the way it fuelled their

young imaginations that was exhilarating. Great

nineteenth century ghost story writer M.R. James

talked about the ‘pleasing terror’ of ghost stories –

the joy of feeling a little scared but safely within the

pages of a book. A great children’s book should be

gripping, full of atmosphere and tension, and open

up a world to explore, and World of the Unknown:

Ghosts had these qualities in spades.

USBORNE

AGAIN

“THIS BOOK LAUNCHED A GENERATION OF PARANORMAL LOVERS, INCLUDING US!”

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Resurrecting Usborne’s ‘World of the Unknown: Ghosts’