The Haunted House (Fantasy and Horror Classics)

By Charles Dickens

First published in 1859 for the weekly periodical “All the Year Round”, “The Haunted House" is a collection of short stories by Charles Dickens and others, with Dickens writing the opening and closing stories. They include: "The Mortals in the House" (Charles Dickens), "The Ghost in the Clock Room" (Hesba Stretton), "The Ghost in the Double Room" (George Augustus Sala), "The Ghost in the Picture Room" (Adelaide Anne Procter), "The Ghost in the Cupboard Room" (Wilkie Collins), "The Ghost in Master B's Room" (Charles Dickens), "The Ghost in the Garden Room" (Elizabeth Gaskell), and "The Ghost in the Corner Room" (Charles Dickens). Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812–1870) was an English writer and social critic famous for having created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters. His works became unprecedentedly popular during his life, and today he is commonly regarded as the greatest Victorian-era novelist. Although perhaps better known for such works as “Great Expectations” or “A Christmas Carol”, Dickens first gained success with the 1836 serial publication of “The Pickwick Papers”, which turned him almost overnight into an international literary celebrity thanks to his humour, satire, and astute observations concerning society and character. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Dec 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781447480129

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social critic. Regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, Dickens had a prolific collection of works including fifteen novels, five novellas, and hundreds of short stories and articles. The term “cliffhanger endings” was created because of his practice of ending his serial short stories with drama and suspense. Dickens’ political and social beliefs heavily shaped his literary work. He argued against capitalist beliefs, and advocated for children’s rights, education, and other social reforms. Dickens advocacy for such causes is apparent in his empathetic portrayal of lower classes in his famous works, such as The Christmas Carol and Hard Times.

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THE

HAUNTED HOUSE

Fantasy and Horror Classics

By

CHARLES DICKENS

First published in 1859

Copyright © 2020 Fantasy and Horror Classics

This edition is published by Fantasy and Horror Classics,

an imprint of Read & Co. 

This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any

way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

For more information visit

www.readandcobooks.co.uk

Contents

Charles Dickens

I THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE

II THE GHOST IN MASTER B.’S ROOM

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Landport, Portsmouth in 1812. When he was ten years old, his family settled in Camden Town, a poor neighbourhood of London. A defining moment in the young Dickens' life came only two years later, when his father – the inspiration for the character of Mr Micawber in David Copperfield – was imprisoned in the Marshalsea debtor's prison. As a result, Dickens was sent to Warren's blacking factory, where he worked in appalling conditions and gained a first-hand acquaintance with poverty. After three years Dickens resumed his education, but the experience was highly formative for him, and would later be fictionalised in both David Copperfield and Great Expectations.

Dickens' writing career began in around 1830, when he started to write for the journals The Mirror of Parliament and The True Sun. Three years later, he became parliamentary journalist for The Morning Chronicle, and also began to have some successes with his fiction: His first short story, A 'Dinner at Popular Walk', appeared in the Monthly Magazine in December of 1833, and his first book, a collection titled Sketches by Boz, was published in 1836. However, his real breakthrough came in 1837, with the serialised publication of Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club – the work was hugely popular, and transformed Dickens into a well-known literary figure.

Over the next few years, at an almost incredible rate, Dickens wrote Oliver Twist (1837-39), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39) and The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge (1840-41). In 1842, he travelled with his wife to the United States and Canada (where he gave lectures denouncing slavery), and in the years following produced his five 'Christmas Books'. During the fifties, after brief spells living in Italy and Switzerland, he continued to write at a seemingly inexhaustible pace, producing some of his best work: David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-53), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1861).

During the latter stages of his life, Dickens turned his focus from writing to giving readings. In 1869, during one such reading, he collapsed, showing symptoms of a mild stroke. He died at home one year later, aged 58. He was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, where the inscription on his tomb reads: He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world. Dickens is now regarded as the greatest writer of the Victorian era, and one of the greatest English authors since Shakespeare.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

I

THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE

Under  none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by none of the conventional ghostly

Reviews for The Haunted House (Fantasy and Horror Classics)

[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.

[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.

[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