The Little Red Jacket

A true almost Christmas, almost mystery, almost ghost story for children and certain grown-ups about a Great-Aunt's efforts to replace a lost button and mend the buttonholes of a little red jacket she wants to send to her Grandniece for Christmas – and the mysterious incidents which involve, the Great-Aunt believes, the ghostly help of her deceased mother. Despoina Ikaris (Professor Emeritas, CUNY), was born in Greece and grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. She has been a life-long student of Henry James (1843-1916) who believed in ghosts and wrote of them as a concerned force in our life. In November 2004, the button problems of the red jacket she wanted to send to Haworth for Christmas, were, to the world at large, seemingly trivial. They acquire a lasting significance from their eerie resolution by a presence, she is convinced, from another, invisible dimension. As she recorded this matter of the red jacket, the ghost of Henry James was, no doubt, also looking over her shoulder, with – she hopes – his fond, however bemused, approval.