The Haunted House

Written by Charles Dickens

Narrated by Philip Bird

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. “The Mortals in the House” by Charles Dickens provides the framework for the tales, which include two more of his own stories. Counting Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins among its other 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.


1: The Mortals in the House – Charles Dickens
2: The Ghost in the Clock Room – Hesba Stretton
3: The Ghost in the Double Room – George Augustus Sala
4: The Ghost in the Picture Room – Adelaide Anne Procter
5: The Ghost in the Cupboard Room – Wilkie Collins
6: The Ghost in Master B’s Room – Charles Dickens
7: The Ghost in the Garden Room – Elizabeth Gaskell
8: The Ghost in the Corner Room – Charles Dickens

• Language: English
• Publisher: Summersdale Publishing Audio
• Release date: Mar 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781848390959

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was one of England's greatest writers. Best known for his classic serialized novels, such as Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations, Dickens wrote about the London he lived in, the conditions of the poor, and the growing tensions between the classes. He achieved critical and popular international success in his lifetime and was honored with burial in Westminster Abbey.

Reviews for The Haunted House

[p_s_patrick · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a collection of short stories, brought together weakly by a surrounding plot. The haunted house of the title is spotted by the author from the train, who decides it would be a good idea to rent it for a few months and stay there with a group of friends over the Christmas season. They have until the 12th Night to sleep in their allotted and supposedly haunted room, at which point they will regale the whole group with their own experiences. Here an added twist comes in - each of the stories was written by a contemporary of Dickens, who invited his literary friends to contribute alongside himself. The quality and style of the tales thus vary, and generally they have not aged well at all. What they all have in common is that there is very little in the way of ghosts or hauntings, which is somewhat disappointing. While the concept behind this is in my opinion a very good one, it is let down by its execution.

[donna47_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Edition doesnt have all the stories that make up this group but what I read was good

[passion4reading_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Having read Dickens's short ghost story The Signalman and being somewhat familiar with the works of Wilkie Collins, I was hoping for a literary experience of the same or at least similar calibre. Sadly, I was distinctly underwhelmed by the collection of short stories on offer here. The Haunted House appeared in Dickens's magazine All the Year Round in 1862 and features contributions by his friends Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins, as well as the now rather unknown authors Hesba Stretton, George Augustus Sala and Adelaide Anne Procter. It consists of several unrelated short stories linked together by a frame narrative, in this case nine friends spending the Christmas holidays in a supposedly haunted house and describing their experiences on Twelfth Night. Apart from the rather melodramatic and moralistic overtones typical of the time, the stories had virtually nothing to do with what I understand by a haunted house or ghost story but dealt with rather more personal issues of hauntings. I'm sorry to say that I found the majority of them slightly baffling and not in the slightest bit affecting, the exception being Wilkie Collins's story Blow up with the Brig that at least raised the tension during reading. Unfortunately, this volume isn't exactly what I'd describe as a classic.