A review by erica_lynn_huberty
The Haunted House by Charles Dickens

4.0

"The Haunted House" is an "exquisite corpse"-style novella, created by Dickens for his own literary journal, and published originally in installments. Fitting in with several of his Christmas ghost stories ("A Christmas Carole" obviously being the best loved and known), this tale is great fun because Dickens asked several of his novelist friends such as Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell to contribute a chapter. Dickens wrote the first chapter, a middle section that is shockingly experimental, and the last chapter. Each character (writer) takes turns relaying their experience staying in one of the haunted rooms of a house rented by the narrator and his sister. But is the house really haunted? Or does our imaginations, and memories, make for more realistic chills? And what part does humanity's need to connect and prevail above misfortune play in our ability to move past our past?