The Canterville Ghost Retold

By B.D. Knight

If you haven't read The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde, you should. The author recognizes that older stories are harder to read nowadays so he takes that story and retells it to bring it into the modern readers domain. 

Read about the struggle a wicked ghost faces when dealing with a family who doesn't seem to fear him. Worse of all,is the indignity he suffers at the hands of the twin boys. They turn the table on this ghost who has scared the wits out of many a person living in the castle. The mischief the twins perform drives the ghosts to near tears.

Will he have a nervous breakdown or can he somehow regain his dignity? This is a ghost who originally killed his wife and has driven many a person living in the castle insane. He is not used to being treated in the manner he is experiencing.

This could easily be called The Frustrated Ghost.

This remake will have you chuckling as you read the book. This is a book you must read for yourself.

Pure entertainment. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: B.D. Knight
• Release date: Feb 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781502217967

B.D. Knight

I write books for middle grade and young adults. They range from scary to spun fairy tales and more.  Most of the stories, including the scary ones, are basically fantasy tales. YOu need to have an open mind when you read them. :-) That's one of the reasons I enjoy writing for the younger audience. I really think it's also why many adults are reading these types of books. To escape reality.

Book preview

Introduction

I finished reading The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. I remember the story from when I was a kid and it was a comical story. I watched it on Netflix and, although movies always make changes, the premise seemed to change completely. I wasn’t impressed.

As I read the original story, I admit I did a lot of skimming but then took time to go back and reread. It was a good thing too as I was missing some important points. The original story is in the public domain but unfortunately sometimes the classics are difficult to read.

I received an email from a reader who enjoyed my retelling of The Monkey’s Paw in particular, but said she wished some of the old time stories could be rewritten and brought into the modern era.

What a great idea! I wanted to see what would happen if you took a story based on this classic and placed it into modern times. I’ll tell you off hand that it was fun writing this and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

If you have read The Centerville Ghost you will notice I am taking some liberty in this rewriting but am following the basic storyline. I wanted to add my own touch.

If you have never read the original story, everything will be new to you. In either case I hope you find yourself laughing as you read this. The ghost having such a hard time scaring the family and the twins playing havoc with him are the parts of the story, both in the original and here as well, that I find the most amusing.

I will also mention that I changed the ending a little. Again, it’s pretty similar but I found myself getting confused with the original ending.

Just so you know, I am not saying anything bad about Oscar Wilde. The man was an outstanding writer. Things were written somewhat differently in the older times with lots of detail which most modern readers tend to skip so that’s where the biggest change is. I hope it will inspire you to read the original story.

I hope you enjoy my version.

The Canterville Ghost

When Mr. Hiram Otis bought Canterville Chase, it was against all the warnings he received telling him it was a foolish idea, since it was well known that the castle was haunted.

In fact Lord Canterville, being a straight up gentleman, felt it was his obligation to attempt to talk Mr. Otis out of