Reviews for Charles Dickens' Christmas Ghost Stories

The average rating for Charles Dickens' Christmas Ghost Stories based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-12-26 00:00:00 Mario Leggs Note: The stories are in reading order. The numbers indicate their order in the book. •1 The Queer Chair - The Bagman's Story Chapter 14 from The Pickwick Papers. A chair that talks and guides a tired traveller that arrives in an inn. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •2 A Madman's Manuscript Chapter 11 from The Pickwick Papers. Ramblings of a crazy man that wants to be proven crazy. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •3 The Goblins who Stole a Sexton Chapter 29 from The Pickwick Papers. A precursor story to A Christmas Carol, where instead of ghosts and spirits we have goblins and instead of a miserable rich man a miserable undertaker (sexton) who's only joy is drinking and burying. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •4 The Ghosts of the Mail - The Story of The Bagman's uncle Chapter 49 from The Pickwick Papers. A Ghost story taking place in Edinburgh when a 19th century man finds himself as a passenger on a 18th century mail-coach with 18th century people. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •5 The Baron of Grogzwig Chapter 6 from Nicholas Nickleby. A Ghost story taking place in Germany ending with an against suicide moral. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •8 To be Read at Dusk This story confused me a little bit since it was written in the style of story within a story. Didn't feel like one story but it was a good ghost story. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •9 A Ghost in the Bride's Chamber Chapter 4 from The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, a novella co-written by Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens A pretty spooky story with a scary ending, also including murder(s), hanging, and apparitions. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •10 The Haunted House Chapters 1 & 6 from The Haunted House, a portmanteau short story collection co-written by Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Elizabeth Gaskell and others. A ghost story with a (sad) twist. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •11 The Trial For Murder - To be Taken With a Grain of Salt A banker is invited as a jury member to a trial. He's able to see the ghost of the murdered man present all the (10) days of the trial. Eerie and enigmatic. Doesn't give lot's of answers ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •12 The Signalman A railway signalman is haunted by a ghost that its appearance works each time as a premonition of a tragic railway accident. With a twist at the end. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •13 Christmas Ghosts Actually the middle part of a slightly longer story by Dickens called A Christmas Tree It's more of a ghost stories catalogue than a story itself. Still interesting. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •14 The Lawyer and the Ghost Title links to a comic strip that actually sums up the story. A light comic relief ghost story with a moral, not for humans but for ghosts. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •15 Four Ghost Stories The title can't be more obvious. Four stories in one. It sounds like a Black Friday special offer. Anyway, the 1st is about an artist who paints a person he never actually met. The 2nd and 3rd are similar, both about relatives that appear as ghosts hours before the news of their deaths, and the 4th which was the most interesting of the four. Felt like a Grimm Fairy Tale. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •16 The Portrait-Painter's Story This is actually the 1st story from the previous one (Four Ghost Stories) with more elaborated detail. An artist that paints a no-living person by memory/recollection. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •17 Captain Murderer and the Devil's Bargain Keeping up with his usual format, x stories in one, we see in this story 2 gruesome bed-stories that Dickens remembers from his childhood been told by his nurse. One is about a bloodthirsty evil man (Bluebeard echoes) who kills his brides and bakes them into pies, and the other one is about a man infested by rats because of a bargain with the devil. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆½ •18 Mr Testator's Visitation Mr Testator lives in an almost empty apartment and during a search into the subterranean cellars for coal he finds a room with furniture in heaps. He decides to steal/borrow the furniture to fill his empty apartment. Then someone/something visits him. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •19 A Child's Dream of a Star A child dreams of meeting his late sister in the heavens. And this dream recurs for years until his is an old man. A story with a single theme yet poetic. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ •20 Well-Authenticated Rappings Worst story in this collection. A man is haunted from within himself by 3 different kinds of rappings/spiritual experiences ⋆ ⋆ ½ . . . . . . . . . . . I just read that this is a satire about food adulteration and the craze for spiritualism in the 1850's. So when I'll now the whole context I would be able to understand and appreciate the story more, but not today. •7 The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain The last Dickens's five novellas for Christmas. The first was A Christmas Carol. This is a story that examines a different kind of moral. A man wants to "forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble [he] ha[s] known..to cancel their remembrance..." and makes a bargain with a ghost, but the result is that he becomes a miser and he's spreading his misery around. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆½ •6 A Christmas Carol I read this story the 1st time during Christmas 2012, then the 2nd time Last Christmas (RIP George), and this was the third time. I will not exaggerate. A Christmas Carol was not just my favourite from this collection, but it is my favourite from all Dickens's books I've read. Especially the last chapter, where the joy and happiness of a saved man are overflowing. I wish the same happiness to everybody, and I don't think I need to say anything more about this story but to urge you to read it as soon as possible!! ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ Overall score 3.37/5

Review # 2 was written on 2016-03-24 00:00:00 George Taylor Who doesn't love to read Ghost stories! They are all fun and exciting unless of course, you're reading them alone in a room at night and getting pretty terrified every time you hear a meow.