77 tales: A variety of phantasmic experiences. Second and last edition (1899) The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (first published in 1897) recounts a variety of phantasmic experiences either in Lang's own words or through direct quotation. The committed reader may experience the book as a dream intensifying. Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a polymath. Lang is best known today either for the twelve color fairy books that bear his name or for his periodical writings, though he was also a poet, a translator of Homer, a historian and biographer, a scholar with interests in myth and anthropology, and the author of various works of fiction.