Complete Ghost Stories of Charles Dickens

Welcome, Mr. Turnip! I've not seen the hardcover, but take it the selection is the same as the pair Coronet issued over two paperbacks?

Peter Haining (ed.) - The Ghost Stories Of Charles Dickens: Vol. 1 (Coronet, 1984)



Introduction - Peter Haining

Captain Murderer And The Devil's Bargain
The Lawyer And The Ghost
The Queer Chair
The Ghosts Of The Mail
A Madman's Manuscript
The Story Of The Goblins Who Stole A Sexton
Baron Koeldwethout's Apartment
A Christmas Carol
The Haunted House

Peter Haining (ed.) - The Ghost Stories Of Charles Dickens: Vol. 2 (Coronet, 1985)

Introduction - Peter Haining

The Haunted Man And The Ghost's Bargain
A Child's Dream Of A Star
Christmas Ghosts
To Be Read At Dusk
The Ghost's Chamber
Mr. Testator's Visitor
The Trial For Murder
The Signal-Man
Four Ghost Stories
The Portrait-Painter's Story
Well-Authenticated Rappings

Never got off on the best foot with Dickens' ghost stories, most likely because the first pair I read were Captain Murderer and The Story Of The Goblins Who Stole A Sexton which struck the young me as irredeemably twee. Didn't have enough patience to cope with The Haunted Man either, and it's only in recent years I've come to appreciate him at all. My favourites to date are the usual The Signalman and A Christmas Carol along with a story I found in a children's book under the title of The Ghost In The Bride's Chamber (most likely the same as The Ghost Chamber in this book?). I seem to remember Hugh Lamb ran another good 'un under the title of The Black Veil in Victorian Tales Of Terror though it's a blank to me just now. Could be that one is a straight, non-supernatural horror story?

"bad"? Nothing that I can see. I don't particularly like it is all. That certainly doesn't make it "bad" any more than it makes stuff I happen to enjoy "good".

The two paperbacks do indeed make up the content of the hardback, collated into one volume.

I think the issue with Dickens ghost stories is that he was very liberal in how he used them. Many of them strive for humour, sentimentalism, or redemption, rather than outright terror.

Although, that being said, The Signal-Man is one of the creepiest doppleganger tales I've had the pleasure to read. It's completely devoid of Dickens' usual devices. It's humourless, absent of any symbolic names or places, and doesn't tie up any of its loose ends. Whilst the most atypical of his ghost stories, it remains the most effective. I know the letters of Charles Dickens have been published in recent years. I'd love to see if their was any correspondence about that tale.

I dont know why, but ven though it is good, Ive never been that much impressed by The Signal-Man .Maybe I should re-read it?

I do rate the Signalman myself, partly because it generates a good, doom-laden atmosphere; and mostly because it isn't a crude moral parable, unlike many of his other tales. The Haunted Man was just a much less polished version of A Christmas Carol in my book. And The Haunted House began well but went nowhere, if I'm thinking of the one with the framing narrative about friends having a house party in a haunted house who agree not to tell each other their experiences till their last night. It seemed to me that he just didn't finish it. And is one of (or perhaps the only) story of an experience the one with the boarding school children playing harems? Not very ghostly at all, as I recall. I haven't read a lot of the others, though, I'll give them a go now I've finally finished Oliver Onions (apologies to any fans, but dear sweet Cthulhu that was heavy going).