Karl Bell

Karl Bell is an award-winning historian and an Associate Professor of Cultural History at the University of Portsmouth.

His research revolves around the history of the fantastical imagination and the relationship between environment and storytelling. He has published on a wide range of topics including 19th century magic and witchcraft, urban and maritime folklore and legends, ghost lore, and the urban Gothic. His second book, The Legend of Spring-heeled Jack: Victorian Urban Folklore and Popular Culture, won the 2013 Katharine Briggs Award.

He is the co-editor of Dark City, an anthology of ghost and horror fiction set in Portsmouth, and editor of Supernatural Cities, a collection of essays that examine the urban fantastical on five continents from the 19th - 21st centuries. In 2016 he co-created Portsmouth DarkFest, an annual festival that celebrates local creative cultures. He lives in Southsea, Hampshire.