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    Ghost Stories
    Ghost Stories
    Ghost Stories
    Ebook125 pages1 hour

    Ghost Stories

    By Charles Dickens

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    About this ebook

    Frighteningly believable, spine-tingling stories of prophetic dreams and visions, as well as more fantastical adventures with goblins and apparitions. These short works display the imagination of a master storyteller given free rein.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSovereign
    Release dateNov 15, 2012
    ISBN9781909438071
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is the most popular and, many believe, the greatest English author. He wrote many classic novels, including David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol. Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities are available from Brilliance Audio.

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    • 4/5
      `Is it haunted,' I asked .....`Well,' cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the appearance of desperation - `I wouldn't sleep in it.' Ghost Stories (Collector's Library) throughout Charles Dickens career he often turn his hand to writing short pieces of ghostly fiction traditionally during Christmas. This beautiful book collector's edition is an enchanting way to renew or form a relationship with this author's works. The books small around A5 in size, well made with red cloth and then paper cover, gold page edges and a fine paper and print. Illustration inside are selected originals. We have a mix of stories here from his first successful pieces of work from the Pickwick Papers you will find five ghost stories all are included in this collection. Other stories some remain chilling but not all. For me the shortest of stories were the ones I loved the most, but Dickens usual traits are everywhere, style, wit, biting irony, humorous incidents and moral observation keeping them all entertaining and some creepy in just the right places. Stand outs for me The Madman's Manuscript, The Ghost in the Bride's Chamber, The Trail for Murder and The Signalman. Short Stories with a helpful short summary below of what to expect. The Queer Chair - From The Pickwick Papers - Humours Story of nightmare elements. A Madman's Manuscript - Loved this, ten pages of madness - From The Pickwick Papers The Goblins who Stole a Sexton - From The Pickwick Papers - Feels like an early draft of A Christmas Carol. Goblins in their lair. The Ghosts of the Mail - From The Pickwick Papers - Fantasy time-travel and adventure Baron Koeldwetout's Apparition - An excerpt from Nicholas Nickleby The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain - It is the fifth and last of Dickens' Christmas novellas. Dickens again playing around with elements that later went into A Christmas Carol. To be Read at Dusk - two part tale, one a supernatural riddle, the other deals with the warning spirit of a twin brother. The Ghost in the Bride's Chamber - from the lazy tour of two idle apprentices - a story about a ghost that is doomed to walk the earth for evermore. The Haunted House - Dickens invites a group of authors to stay in a haunted house. Two stories by Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell penned a story in Dickens style but its not here. The Trial for Murder - (a. k. a. "To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt") Revenge from beyond the Grave. The Signalman - Dickens wrote this tale, also known as "No. 1 Branch Line, the Signalman," after being himself involved in a train wreck in which he (and, apparently, his mistress) narrowly escaped injury - an incident that haunted him for the rest of his life. Christmas Ghosts - Light-heart and festive the author summarises his favourite stories. The Lawyer and the Ghosts - Dickens has fun with the notions of ghosts, irony by raising the question. Four Ghost Stories - A Quartet ;D The Portrait-Painter's Story - They say art should imitate life, strange one this! Andrea Bowhill

    Book preview

    Ghost Stories - Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens

    Ghost Stories

    New Bicentennial Edition

    LONDON NEW YORK MELBOURNE TORONTO

    MOSCOW CAPE TOWN AUCKLAND

    New Edition, Timeless Classics

    Published by Sovereign

    An imprint of Max Bollinger

    27 Old Gloucester St,

    London WC1N 3AX

    sales@interactive.eu.com

    www.interactive.eu.com

    This Edition

    First published in 2012

    Author: Charles Dickens

    Editor: Max Bollinger

    Copyright © 2012 Sovereign

    Cover design and artwork © 2012 urban-pic.co.uk

    All Rights Reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

    The greatest care has been taken in compiling this book. However, no responsibility can be accepted by the publishers or compilers for the accuracy of the information presented.

    British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

    Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data.

    A catalogue record for this book has been requested.

    ISBN: 9781909438064 (pbk)

    ISBN: 9781909438071 (ebk)

    Bref: GS-03

    Contents

    THE SIGNAL-MAN

    THE HAUNTED HOUSE

    THE TRIAL FOR MURDER

    INSPIRING BOOKS

    THE SIGNAL-MAN

    HALLOA! Below there!

    When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.

    Halloa! Below!

    From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.

    Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?

    He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. When such vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by.

    I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down to him, All right! and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.

    The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.

    When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

    I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.

    Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and lifted his hand.

    This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man that daunted me.

    He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel’s mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me.

    That light was part of his charge? Was it not?

    He answered in a low voice,—Don’t you know it is?

    The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.

    In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to flight.

    You look at me, I said, forcing a smile, as if you had a dread of me.

    I was doubtful, he returned, whether I had seen you before.

    Where?

    He pointed to the red light he had looked at.

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