Prospero's Ghost

A dead professor stalks the campus, seeking revenge on those who dare taint the sacred nature of a beloved classic play.

Renowned Shakespearean scholar Dr. Marshall Emerson whose specialty was the bard’s The Tempest could never be spotted walking the grounds of McMaster University without the precious 1861 folio edition of Shakespeare’s works clutched in his hands.

Decades after his death, when McMaster University library and bookstore staff begin producing replica versions of the text on a newly acquired Espresso Book Machine, Emerson, who was also known as Professor Prospero, returns, intent to put a stop to this “desecration” of his precious text.

This short story of approximately 6000 words originally appeared in the book CAMPUS CHILLS (2009) and was written by McMaster Graduate Kimberly Foottit and Mark Leslie, whose alter ego ran the Espresso Book Machine at the McMaster bookstore from 2008 until 2011.