Bannatyne, Lesley

Bannatyne, Lesley—Lesley Bannatyne is an American author of five books on Halloween, including Halloween: An American Holiday, An American History (1990), which inaugurated contemporary Halloween popular histories and paved the way for the numerous Halloween histories published since. Bannatyne’s other books include A Halloween How To: Costumes, Parties, Decorations, and Destinations (2001), A Halloween Reader: Stories, Poems, and Plays from Halloweens Past (2004), and Halloween Nation: Behind the Scenes of America’s Fright Night (2011), as well as the children’s book Witches’ Night Before Halloween.

She has lectured extensively on Halloween, and provided the Halloween articles for the World Book Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience, and Be My Guest: An Encyclopedia of Entertaining. She also held (for two years) an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for “Largest Halloween Gathering” (which was actually a Halloween gathering of WITCHES reading poetry).