Customer Reviews

The Haunted House

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Charles Dickens (1812-70) is widely remembered today as an author of high quality, socially conscious literature. However, another work of Dickens was his weekly literary magazine called All the Year Round, which was published from 1859 to 1895. In 1854, Dickens decided to revisit the theme of his wildly successful Christmas novels - five books that began with A Christmas Carol.

This book is a collection of eight short stories from All the Year Round, taking the form of a group of people spending three months in a haunted house, and then discussing their experiences. The authors of the stories are quite a mixed bag. First of all three of the eight stories were written by Mr. Dickens himself. Then, there was Hesba Stretton (1832-1911) an author of children's books, George Augustus Sala (1828-95) a journalist and author, Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-64) a poet of some renown, Wilkie Collins (1824-89) the famous novelist and playwright, and Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-65) a very famous English novelist.

Overall, I found this to be an entertaining short story collection. Yes, the styles of the stories do vary widely, with Ms. Procter's obviously being in the form of verse. The stories were all written during the early part of the Victorian Era, and as such are more in the form of Victorian popular literature, rather than modern horror literature. If you like Victorian literature, then you will no doubt like this book, but if you don't...well, I would recommend you give this one a pass.

This book was an unexpected delight. I had never even heard of it before when I found it in a bookshop in London. It sounded rather interesting, and I was intrigued by the collaboration of Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins (along with a few others) with Charles Dickens. On first glance, I thought it was simply a collection of short stories, but I was surprised to discover how they all worked together. It appears to be a sort of creative experiment, and for me at least, I found that it works.
I began reading this just before Halloween, thinking it an appropriate time, but it may have been more appropriate around Christmas because the story is very much connected with that holiday. I was expecting something Gothic in nature, based on the tittle, but what I received was even more pleasurable and I can't wait to share it with others. It is not really a scary story, but rather an enjoyable and interesting exploration of the creative mind.

Quite a disappointing book. I was hoping for a much better story. This book is a collection of stories by several different authors. Some of the authors are downright bad. I enjoyed the chapters written by Dickens and Sala. Do not read the book if you're expecting a haunting or scary tale...haunting or scary this book is not. Boring is more appropriate. It should not be presented as a Dickens book as it is a collection, perhaps inspired by Dickens, but not written entirely by him.

I ORDERED THIS BOOK BUT HAVE NOT RECEIVED IT AS OF 6/25

I THOUGHY IT MIGHT BE BACK ORDERED