The Haunted House by Charles Dickens and others

The Haunted House is a frame story told by Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, and others. The first and last chapters, authored by Dickens, frame the story of the narrator taking residence in a notoriously haunted house. After the domestics all flee, the narrator invites a group of friends and relatives to occupy the various rooms and individually document what specters may come.

 

"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)

 

"The Ghost in the Corner Room" (Charles Dickens)

 

 

I had high hopes for this unusual story, but I was disappointed. It’s a magnificent idea, and looking at the above list, you would think, “can’t go wrong.”

 

It went wrong. For starters, the house isn’t haunted, and the individual “ghost stories” are not about ghosts. As Dickens’ narrator says in the final chapter:

 

In a word, we lived our term out, most happily, and were never for a moment haunted by anything more disagreeable than our own imaginations and remembrances.

 

*** yawn ***

 

And I think that is precisely what trickly old CD intended, but it just doesn’t work.

 

Dickens’ was said to have been disappointed in the result, so I won’t lose sleep over a less-than-stellar review of one of my favorite others and company. Some of the individual chapters were entertaining. Gaskell’s offering was very good and quite Dickensian. But as a whole, the individual stories are disconnected despite the overt intention of connecting them.

 

It's probably a must-read for Dickens fans, and I’ll still claim it as fulfilling a read for R.I.P XVII, but I’m happy to be moving out of The Haunted House.

 

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