The Haunted House : The Mortals In The House – Charles Dickens

The Haunted House  is a portemanteau story, co-written by Charles Dickens with five collaborators including Elizabeth Gaskell, Hesba Stretton, George Augustus Sala, Wilkie Collins, Adelaide Anne Procter. It was published in the Extra Christmas Number of  his weekly periodical, All That Year Round in 1859. The Mortals In The House is the first story by Charles Dickens himself. He sets the scene. The narrator rents a house. All the servants believe it is haunted. He and his sister invite friends … They have to wait until Twelfth Night before sharing their haunted stories…

Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances,and environed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that : I had come to it direct from a railway station ; it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley. I will not say that everything was utterly common-place, because I doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly common-place people and there my vanity steps in ; but, I will take it on myself to say that anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn morning.

Related posts:

1. House Of Night Comic #1 now available
2. The ScareHouse Ranked as One of America’s Best Haunted Houses
3. Pop Evil Single In The Big House available on iTunes
4. Joshua Gray partners with Ronald McDonald House Charities to raise funds for Children on April 30
5. Jewell – There ‘s A Lady In the House !!