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The Supernatural Short Stories of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens wrote a number of supernatural and horror stories, some of which were included in his longer works, while others were published in magazines. This collection gathers them together in one volume, providing an invaluable insight into the author’s storytelling apprenticeship and his steady growth towards excellence. As well as offering a further dimension to the world of his better-known masterpieces, these tales—from "A Madman’s Manuscript" to "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton" to the celebrated "The Signalman"—illustrate Dickens’s well-known love of a spooky story told around a blazing fire, the pastime of a bygone age to be rediscovered for our own delight.
160 pages, Paperback
Published April 1, 2010
21 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
Charles Dickens
12.9k books31.5k followersCharles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. 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.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. 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.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 29, 2022
not actually that spooky
December 15, 2015
I have a genuine appreciation for Dickens. He was, and to this day remains, an excellent story teller. His stories have captured the imagination of people from varying backgrounds and ages since his words first went into print.
Having said this, this book was a struggle. I enjoyed it to an extent, but, as it always is in my case, the supernatural themes were only tolerated.
I've always struggled to read ghost stories, etc, so it came as no surprise that I struggled with this. I gave it a go though and I'm glad I did.
3 out of 5 stars!
Having said this, this book was a struggle. I enjoyed it to an extent, but, as it always is in my case, the supernatural themes were only tolerated.
I've always struggled to read ghost stories, etc, so it came as no surprise that I struggled with this. I gave it a go though and I'm glad I did.
3 out of 5 stars!
September 28, 2016
I'm in holiday in the UK at the moment (Scotland to be precise), and this makes good reading when the world is wet and windy outside and the stories within the pages chill you even further to the bone.
Not typical Dickens you might think, but A Christmas Carol - one of his most influential works to me - contained that moralistic, supernatural tone that can be found in this book.
Not typical Dickens you might think, but A Christmas Carol - one of his most influential works to me - contained that moralistic, supernatural tone that can be found in this book.
February 19, 2022
I somehow managed to make it this far without reading any of the short stories outside of A Christmas Carol. These are all wonderful; Dickens has such a wry humor and such a gift for deftly drawn characters. Excellent reading.
November 17, 2013
Only for people who like Charles Dickens style of expressing things...
December 7, 2021
i love this book so much! the cover is absolutely gorgeous!
May 4, 2024
Charles Dickens is one of THOSE names who has surpassed literary superiority and has been permanently elevated above the most influential writers in history. Yet, while I can summarise many of his popular works, I shamefully have never read any. Hence, when I entered a bookstore after my books were stolen (cry), this collection of short stories caught my attention, and I decided it was time to enter his world. Unfortunately, my choice turned out to be a mistake.
I can't comment on Dickens' other projects, but there was an inescapable style trapped within each of these brief tales, which was so conversational that I sensed the author was forever aware of me as the reader. This made it difficult to fully immerse myself in the stories as if Dickens was always reminding me of our informal chat and the content was secondary. Even worse—and I recoil to submit this opinion—is that the pieces were simply not that well written.
The problem is with their similarities. Grouping texts by theme makes sense, but when every story is a ghost story told through identical voices, my tired memory refused to retain much information, especially as the book went on and the disappointment deeper sunk my focus.
I do not doubt that Charles Dickens' masterpieces warrant their accolades, and I will read those as the opportunity aligns (because if you don't know your classics, then you don't know anything). However, these fictions achieved nothing but discourage a further quest, and I am convinced Dickens was merely using these pages to warm his pen hand in the morning before moving into better-crafted ideas. I found my greatest satisfaction the moment I finally reached the end of this slog.
I can't comment on Dickens' other projects, but there was an inescapable style trapped within each of these brief tales, which was so conversational that I sensed the author was forever aware of me as the reader. This made it difficult to fully immerse myself in the stories as if Dickens was always reminding me of our informal chat and the content was secondary. Even worse—and I recoil to submit this opinion—is that the pieces were simply not that well written.
The problem is with their similarities. Grouping texts by theme makes sense, but when every story is a ghost story told through identical voices, my tired memory refused to retain much information, especially as the book went on and the disappointment deeper sunk my focus.
I do not doubt that Charles Dickens' masterpieces warrant their accolades, and I will read those as the opportunity aligns (because if you don't know your classics, then you don't know anything). However, these fictions achieved nothing but discourage a further quest, and I am convinced Dickens was merely using these pages to warm his pen hand in the morning before moving into better-crafted ideas. I found my greatest satisfaction the moment I finally reached the end of this slog.
October 24, 2023
The only reason I feel this book deserves a four-star is because it's not the best of his work and how do I accurately rate Nicholas nickleby or any other great works by him if I'm going to give this one a five-star I can't full stop that being said the stories are more fun than they are scary I don't really find them to be scary to like whimsical and three of which were from the Pickwick papers and I've already read the Pickwick papers so I don't even know that any of these stories were new to me it was a fun cute little collection. What I really liked though was at the end there was a little bit of a biography of Charles Dickens who until having read that little bit at the end about him had no idea about anything about him or even what it looked like he looks like one of my ex-boyfriends lol. He seems like a regular flawed individual who really knew how to write. And I feel like most writers are probably flawed in their own ways and I myself write a little bit and I'm terribly flawed so it makes sense and also seems like he had some real melancholy in there I didn't realize he had 10 children. It was eye-opening to learn a little bit about him and get a glimpse into what his real life was like. I also now see where his writing about Young boys who want to come into wealth comes from. He really made his dreams happen and that's a real trait to look up to. I'm glad that I revisited these stories if anything and they're worth a read at least once.
November 16, 2020
Creepy, weird, exactly what you'd expect from short stories from Dickens that have supernatural elements. Some are ghost stories, some are hauntings, some are other-worldly creatures. Like most short stories, you get dropped into the middle of a tale and have very little introductory time before the plot has taken over. Setting is usually provided, character background rarely. I never quite understood why the brother and sister choose to live in the unkept haunted house, for example. No explanations are ever given for the supernaturals, no attempt at rationalizing or anything. You accept it or you have to if you want to accept the story. Good for a windy winter night or Halloween if you're looking for some classic hair tingling.
April 4, 2025
This collection holds an interesting list of stories dealing with the supernatural. It was exciting to read the story “A Confession Found in a Prison in the Time’ written in 1841 that inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
September 17, 2020
I never knew he wrote this book until I found it by accident in my local library (when we could browse and no virus thing was around).
November 23, 2023
I read the first three stories and his bio, and called it good. I used to be fascinated by Dickens' stories, but not so much now.
January 8, 2025
Charles Dickens is best known for his novels, most of which were serialised and contain characters and plots from all strata of Victorian society. Apart from "A Christmas Carol", one of his masterpieces, his shorter fiction is less well known, yet many of his short stories and novellas are worth reading and feature the same skills he shows in his longer work. Given that he began his literary career as a journalist, and continued to write journalism throughout his life, his ability to not only observe behaviour but to transfer those observations so effectively to the page should be no surprise.
Much of his shorter fiction contained supernatural elements and there are several collections of these stories available, one of which is the Flame Tree collection entitled "Supernatural Short Stories", which contains many of his best shorter fiction. The stories range from very short pieces that today would probably be classed as "flash fiction" to the much longer novellas, including the justifiably famous "A Christmas Carol". A few of these stories originally appeared in his first novel "Pickwick Papers", others appeared in periodicals including the two he edited "Household Words" and "All The Year Round" and a few were published posthumously.
One of my favourites is the spooky, atmospheric and thought provoking "The Signal Man" which a while back was dramatised for TV. "The Magic Fishbone" is the sort of fairy tale Hans Christian Andersen might have written if he'd had Dickens' sense of humour. Its message on the importance of patience and of not wasting gifts is balanced by the comic descriptions that prevent it from becoming sentimental moralising.
"The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain" is possibly Dickens' take on the Faustus story (in legend, Dr Faustus sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge, but the gift itself was tainted and the doctor's use of it achieved nothing). In the Dickens' story, a man wishes he could lose his memory of all the bad things that have happened to him and the ghost who haunts him agrees to wipe such memories from his mind. But there is a catch: the gift is infectious, so everyone he meets will receive the gift whether they want it or not. There is another catch: the law of unexpected consequences. One of the effects of wiping people's memories is the loss of all they learned from their mistakes and those of others, experiences that make us the people we are. Consequently, people who had been friendly, helpful and in loving relations become quarrelsome, short-tempered and selfish. You will have to read the story to see how it is resolved.
One of the most fascinating stories is "The Haunted House". I think it is influenced by 14th century Italian writer Boccaccio, whose "Decameron" features a group of people who have locked themselves in a mansion in order to avoid the Black Death and who tell each other stories to pass the time. In the Dickens story, a couple who have rented a house thought to be haunted invite various friends to stay with them, each of them instructed at the end of the stay to recount the tales of any supernatural beings they have met. However, Dickens takes the idea much further than Boccaccio. In "The Decameron" all the stories are written by Boccaccio himself. But Dickens invites several other contemporary writers to take the part of the different characters and to write their own accounts of their experiences. This means that every tale is actually written in a different voice, with one of the contributions being in verse.
The writers involved include two who had Dickens to thank for their careers taking off: Elizabeth Gaskell (author of "North and South", "Ruth", etc) and Wilkie Collins (whose most famous books are the thrillers "The Moonstone" and "The Woman In White"). I suspect that Canadian writer Margaret Atwood got the idea for the lockdown novel "Fourteen Days" from the Dickens novella: Atwood outlined the theme of "Fourteen Days" to other writers who agreed to contribute narratives for the book, some of whom are among America's most famous living writers such as John Grisham, Celeste Ng and Scott Turow.
"The Haunted House" isn't the only collaboration. The thrilling action-packed "A Message From the Sea" was written with Wilkie Collins (with whom Dickens had previously written a play).
All the qualities that make Dickens such a great and always popular writer can be found in these short stories. His understanding of the comic, his love of the grotesque, his belief in social justice, his atmospheric descriptions and his love of both the melodramatic and sentimental are all here. As with his novels, one moment he can leave you laughing, the next in tears, the next angry, the next shivering with fear. And what would Christmas be without Dickens?
Much of his shorter fiction contained supernatural elements and there are several collections of these stories available, one of which is the Flame Tree collection entitled "Supernatural Short Stories", which contains many of his best shorter fiction. The stories range from very short pieces that today would probably be classed as "flash fiction" to the much longer novellas, including the justifiably famous "A Christmas Carol". A few of these stories originally appeared in his first novel "Pickwick Papers", others appeared in periodicals including the two he edited "Household Words" and "All The Year Round" and a few were published posthumously.
One of my favourites is the spooky, atmospheric and thought provoking "The Signal Man" which a while back was dramatised for TV. "The Magic Fishbone" is the sort of fairy tale Hans Christian Andersen might have written if he'd had Dickens' sense of humour. Its message on the importance of patience and of not wasting gifts is balanced by the comic descriptions that prevent it from becoming sentimental moralising.
"The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain" is possibly Dickens' take on the Faustus story (in legend, Dr Faustus sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge, but the gift itself was tainted and the doctor's use of it achieved nothing). In the Dickens' story, a man wishes he could lose his memory of all the bad things that have happened to him and the ghost who haunts him agrees to wipe such memories from his mind. But there is a catch: the gift is infectious, so everyone he meets will receive the gift whether they want it or not. There is another catch: the law of unexpected consequences. One of the effects of wiping people's memories is the loss of all they learned from their mistakes and those of others, experiences that make us the people we are. Consequently, people who had been friendly, helpful and in loving relations become quarrelsome, short-tempered and selfish. You will have to read the story to see how it is resolved.
One of the most fascinating stories is "The Haunted House". I think it is influenced by 14th century Italian writer Boccaccio, whose "Decameron" features a group of people who have locked themselves in a mansion in order to avoid the Black Death and who tell each other stories to pass the time. In the Dickens story, a couple who have rented a house thought to be haunted invite various friends to stay with them, each of them instructed at the end of the stay to recount the tales of any supernatural beings they have met. However, Dickens takes the idea much further than Boccaccio. In "The Decameron" all the stories are written by Boccaccio himself. But Dickens invites several other contemporary writers to take the part of the different characters and to write their own accounts of their experiences. This means that every tale is actually written in a different voice, with one of the contributions being in verse.
The writers involved include two who had Dickens to thank for their careers taking off: Elizabeth Gaskell (author of "North and South", "Ruth", etc) and Wilkie Collins (whose most famous books are the thrillers "The Moonstone" and "The Woman In White"). I suspect that Canadian writer Margaret Atwood got the idea for the lockdown novel "Fourteen Days" from the Dickens novella: Atwood outlined the theme of "Fourteen Days" to other writers who agreed to contribute narratives for the book, some of whom are among America's most famous living writers such as John Grisham, Celeste Ng and Scott Turow.
"The Haunted House" isn't the only collaboration. The thrilling action-packed "A Message From the Sea" was written with Wilkie Collins (with whom Dickens had previously written a play).
All the qualities that make Dickens such a great and always popular writer can be found in these short stories. His understanding of the comic, his love of the grotesque, his belief in social justice, his atmospheric descriptions and his love of both the melodramatic and sentimental are all here. As with his novels, one moment he can leave you laughing, the next in tears, the next angry, the next shivering with fear. And what would Christmas be without Dickens?
June 12, 2022
Read so far:
A madman's manuscript--3
The bagman's story (aka The queer chair)--3
The story of the goblins who stole a sexton--2
The story of the bagman's uncle (aka The ghosts of the mail)--2
The Baron of Grogzwig--3
A confession found in a prison in the time of Charles the Second--2
To be read at dusk--2
The ghost in the bride's chamber--2
To be taken with a grain of salt (aka The trial for murder)--3
No. 1 branch line: the signalman (from Mugby Junction)--3
***
Captain murderer and the devil's bargain --2
The haunted house (Intro + The ghost in Master B's room)--2
*The haunted man and the ghost's bargain --
A madman's manuscript--3
The bagman's story (aka The queer chair)--3
The story of the goblins who stole a sexton--2
The story of the bagman's uncle (aka The ghosts of the mail)--2
The Baron of Grogzwig--3
A confession found in a prison in the time of Charles the Second--2
To be read at dusk--2
The ghost in the bride's chamber--2
To be taken with a grain of salt (aka The trial for murder)--3
No. 1 branch line: the signalman (from Mugby Junction)--3
***
Captain murderer and the devil's bargain --2
The haunted house (Intro + The ghost in Master B's room)--2
*The haunted man and the ghost's bargain --
August 5, 2015
Very dissapointed with this collection of short stories. I had high expectations based on the fact that I enjoy Dickens' writing tremendously, but even though the writing was as eloquent and gripping as expected, most stories lacked in imagination. I would have rated it worse had it not been for the last tale, which was the only one that felt adequately combine the supernatural element with an interesting plot and a fiting end.
March 18, 2015
A compilation of supernatural/ghost stories written by the one and only C. Dickens as part of his many classics as well as some individual stories. Outstanding. He could have ventured into this niche writing too as he could create wonderful mysteries but I guess, the more wider approach to human life was what won, and we have the privilege of reading the books which brought out the human condition in the most impressive and soul-touching way possible.
November 10, 2017
Could barely keep my eyes open. Once you've read Stephen King, these stories really aren't going to scare you are they. Some of them felt a bit half-hearted and predictable,boring even. Most I had to read several times as couldn't work out what was going on or my mind had started drifting and I was thinking about dinner. Disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews