The Haunted House

By Charles Dickens

Book Overview

On Christmas Eve, a party of friends descends on a purportedly haunted country retreat, charged with the task of discovering evidence of the supernatural. Sequestered in their rooms for the holiday, the friends reconvene on Twelfth Night at a great feast and share their stories of spectral encounter. "Conducted" by Charles Dickens and counting Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins among its contributors, The Haunted House examines quintessentially Victorian themes-sex and longing, nostalgia and loss-in ways that continue to resonate today. Ingeniously conceived and written, and spiked with flashes of Dickensian humor, this volume is a strange and sheer delight.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812973062
• ISBN13: 9780812973068
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Modern Library
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

If you like Victorian literature

Charles Dickens (1812-70) is widely remembered today as an author of high quality, socially conscious literature. However, another work of Dickens was his weekly literary magazine called All the Year Round, which was published from 1859 to 1895. In 1854, Dickens decided to revisit the theme of his wildly successful Christmas novels - five books that began with A Christmas Carol. This book is a collection of eight short stories from All the Year Round, taking the form of a group of people spending three months in a haunted house, and then discussing their experiences. The authors of the stories are quite a mixed bag. First of all three of the eight stories were written by Mr. Dickens himself. Then, there was Hesba Stretton (1832-1911) an author of children's books, George Augustus Sala (1828-95) a journalist and author, Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-64) a poet of some renown, Wilkie Collins (1824-89) the famous novelist and playwright, and Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-65) a very famous English novelist. Overall, I found this to be an entertaining short story collection. Yes, the styles of the stories do vary widely, with Ms. Procter's obviously being in the form of verse. The stories were all written during the early part of the Victorian Era, and as such are more in the form of Victorian popular literature, rather than modern horror literature. If you like Victorian literature, then you will no doubt like this book, but if you don't...well, I would recommend you give this one a pass.