Best Ghost Stories Charles Dickens (Hardbound - 2018)

Interest in supernatural phenomena was high during the time of Charles Dickens. He was open-minded, willing to accept, and put to test the existence of spirits. A fascinating and lesser known side of Dickens’s work is his flair for ghost stories. He showed a fascination with ghosts and the macabre and was considered a master of this wonderful genre. Dickens’s natural inclinations towards drama and the macabre made him a brilliant teller of ghost tales.

Best Ghost Stories contains 14 of Dickens’s most interesting stories, exhibiting the full range of his gothic talents. “The Queer Chair” is a modern fairy story. The ghost, a chair who has human features rather than a spirit of the dead, could easily be some supernatural being. “A Madman’s Manuscript” is a Poe-esque tale about insanity written from the point-of-view of the lunatic. The narrator is known to be unbalanced, but the reader cannot resist the power of his madness to see what happens next.

In “The Goblin who Stole a Sexton”, Gabriel Grubb is a mean-hearted gravedigger who drinks and works on Christmas, instead of praying and celebrating, but becomes a changed man after he is captured by group of goblins and taken in their underground cave.

The most well-known is Dickens’s ghostly parable “A Christmas Carol”, of the visit to the bitter and tight-fisted miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, by three ghosts, which started the tradition of the ghost story at Christmas. “The Signal-Man”, “The Haunted House” and “The Trial for Murder” are three of Dickens’s quaint but ghostly spoofs.

Dickens’s short stories don’t compare with his novels but make nevertheless a highly interesting reading.

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed immense popularity during his lifetime. The critics and scholars recognized him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.

Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors’ prison. Notwithstanding his lack of formal education, Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, numerous short stories and non-fiction articles.

Dickens’s literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. He became an international literary celebrity within a few years and achieved fame for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and contemporary society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. His plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives.

Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His novels, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are frequently adapted. A Tale of Two Cities, is his best-known work of historical fiction. His short stories are highly interesting to read. The term ‘Dickensian’ is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.

Dickens’s creative genius has been praised by many fellow writers, including Leo Tolstoy, George Orwell and G.K. Chesterton for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterization, and social criticism.