The stolen party Book

I have to admit that I never knew Dickens had written a good amount of ghost stories. Like most of the people I was only familiar with "A Christmas Carol" and for a long time I thought that this was the ONLY supernatural story he ever wrote. The book which I read published by "Oldstyle Tales press" gave me the opportunity to read some of his other ghost stories, 3 of which I consider to be his absolute masterpieces. Some of his ghost stories were serialised in his novels like "The Pickwick Papers" and "Master Humphrey's Clock" due to which they probably got away with public attention.I am reviewing them in short in chronological order with rating-

1- Christmas Ghosts- This short introduction to ghost storytelling traditions of the victorian era was excerpted from his essay titled "The Christmas Tree" and mostly serves as a prologue for his tales to follow. While not a story in itself it builds up the interest in the reader for the tales to follow.

2- The Lawyer and the Ghost- This 2 page short story is excerpted from "The Pickwick Papers" Chapter 21. This was one of the first ghost stories Dickens wrote and is mostly humorous in nature through which Dickens critiques Victorian society. This short tale follows a man who rents a dirty inn chamber and encounters the ghost of the room's former resident at night. The rest of the story follows his conversation with the apparition on the conditions of misery, poverty and death. For Dickens's first foray into the supernatural its not bad at all. Rating- 3/5.

3- The Ghost of the Mail or The story of the Bagman's Uncle- Once again this was excerpted from "The Pickwick Papers" Chapter 49. The story follows a bagman narrating the story of his uncle who wanders one night while drunk into a junkyard full of abandoned and derelict coaches. Slowly they start to take a life of their past selves and the uncle finds himself in an adventure. Once again, this was a humorous story. It dealt with the themes of reality and imagination, fantasy and reverie though for me it started to drag on after a while. My rating- 2/5.

4- The Madman's Manuscript- Excerpted from "The Pickwick Papers " Chapter 11 , this story follows a murderer as he recounts the things he did to gain his sense of justice from the "sane" people for the crimes against him. A very good written creepy story which reminded me of Guy De Maupassant's disturbing tale "Diary of a Madman". After reading the complete story its hard for the reader on whom to side with. My rating- 3/5.

5- The Goblins who stole a Sexton- Excerpted from " The Pickwick Papers " chapter 29 this tale is the true precursor to "The Christmas Carol". We follow a lonely sexton who gets abducted by a crew of goblins on the night of Christmas when he is digging up a grave at night far away from his town. His short experience closely parallels those of Ebenezer Scrooge. Easily overshadowed by Dickens's later work its still an okay story. My rating- 2/5.

6- Baron Koeldwethout's apparition-Excerpted from "Nicholas Nickleby" Chapter 6, from this point onwards we start to see Dickens stories evolve and get more serious in tone. The story follows a wealthy Baron who after marrying starts to become overwhelmed by the responsibilities of his married life to the point of committing suicide. On the night of the suicide, he comes face to face with the apparition of suicide itself and starts contemplating on his decision. It deals with the themes of depression and failing relationships. My rating- 4/5.

7- The Mother's Eyes- Excerpted from "Master Humphrey's Clock" Chapter Two this tale inspired Poe to write his famous horror story "The Tell Tale Heart". The story follows a man who has a hatred for his sister in law. When she dies she entrusts the custody of her son in his hands, who slowly starts to see his mother's eyes in him. They haunt him day and night till he decides to murder the little boy and bury him in his own garden backyard. However, sin and repentance starts to take a toll on him and he starts to wonder about his fate. While not as grim as Poe's writing its still a creepy tale and should be recognised as a precursor to Poe's tale. My rating- 3/5.

8- To be read at Dusk- One of my favourite stories from this collection. This story requires careful analysis and lots of literary interpretations to even understand what is going on. Dickens plays with the idea of ghosts and their existence on all the levels you can imagine. A man sitting outside a convent on a mountaintop overhears 5 couriers as they begin to narrate ghost stories to each other which are told to us. This is a very very unsettling story with themes of supernatural existentialism, fruedian analysis of id and ego , identity and physical self and the thin line between the natural and supernatural. The ending is shockingly horrifying and left me looking over my shoulder when it was done. My rating- 5/5.

9- The Hanged Man's Bride- Another story which starts on a humorous note and starts to get spooky. An old man narrates the tale of a hanged person to two people who decide to spend a night in a haunted room. While the story was told in a pretty creepy manner, the ending was a bit predictable. My rating- 3/5.

10- Captain Murder and the Devil's Bargain or Nurse's stories- Narrated to Dickens by her childhood nanny, it is never sure whether he wrote this or they were his Nanny's stories. Nevertheless we are given two stories here. The first story is of a man who is a cannibal and resorts on marrying beautiful women and eating them, until one woman decides to take her revenge on him in a pretty gruesome manner.
The other story is about a man who decides to bargain with the devil like all his ancestors did and gets his fair share of punishment. The story is pretty lovecraftian in essence. My rating- 4/5.

11- The Trial for Murder or To be Taken with a grain of Salt- This is also one of my favourites from the bunch. A man is called upon jury duty on a murder trial. Strangely two days before his summons to the court, he had witnessed a supernatural experience with both the murdered man and the murderer. The trial case is very intriguing to read and inspired the horror writer M.R. James to write "Martin's Close", which was another supernatural court room drama. Highly common in themes with "To be read at Dusk", this one's highly recommended. My rating- 5/5.

12- The Signalman- Finally, this was Dickens's most grimmest and bleakest horror story. Inspired by surviving a near death experience on a rail road car accident, in which Dickens, his mistress and his mother travelled, he helped many survivors after the derailment though many of them died in his arms and he was traumatised for life which reflects in this story.
A nameless narrator offers companionship to a lone railway signalman who confides in him of a deadly apparition who haunts him at night near the red light next to the tunnel by warning him in cryptic messages, which immediately follows a railroad disaster. With the overbearing sense of responsibility of his duties the apparition starts to take a toll on his mental and physical health until he decides to prevent another disaster when the apparition appears for a third time. The ending is one of the most shocking things of the story and is of the finest examples of humanity crumbling under the mechanics of industrial revolution damning it to isolation and insanity in an endless purgatory. Very haunting. My rating- 5/5.

That concludes the short horror stories in this book and i really liked the illustrations of M. Grant Kellermeyer in each and every story. I highly recommend this particular edition as these stories are nicely holed up in one book and you won't have to buy other books to complete your Dickens horror story collection.