William Thomas Stead (July 5, 1849 - April 15, 1912) was a British journalist. He was born in Embleton, Northumberland, the son of a Congregational minister. He died on the RMS Titanic when it struck an iceberg and sank.

Excerpts from the title:
...But what with the superstitious credulity of the one age and the equally superstitious unbelief of another, it is necessary to begin from the beginning and to convince a skeptical world that apparitions really appear. In order to do this it is necessary to insist that your ghost should no longer be ignored as a phenomenon of Nature. He has a right, equal to that of any other natural phenomenon, to be examined and observed, studied and defined. It is true that he is a rather difficult phenomenon; his comings and goings are rather intermittent and fitful, his substance is too shadowy to be handled, and he has avoided hitherto equally the obtrusive inquisitiveness of the microscope and telescope.