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Charles Dickens

‘The Signalman’ (1866) is a short story by the English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870). In the story, a practical-minded narrator meets a railway worker who has been seeing supernatural visions. The narrator doubts the man at first, but at the story’s conclusion a strange event makes him a believer.

Alistair Lock

Andrews UK Limited

Victorian Ghosts

The Signalman

Edith Nesbit

John makes up his mind to marry May Forster, the prettiest young woman in the village. After John asks her to marry him several times, May finally agrees. John says that his love for May is so great that he would come back from the dead if that was what she wanted him to do. Two days before his wedding, John leaves to visit his seriously ill godfather. May begs him not to go because she has a feeling that something bad will happen. John reassures her that nothing will prevent him from arriving at his wedding on time.

John Charrington's Wedding

Henry Wood

Daniel, a young man and son of the late bailiff, with rather superior ways of a gentleman but no money to back them up becomes involved in a love triangle. Engaged to Maria, a plain looking girl but with proper manners, Daniel begins stepping out on the sly with a pretty young woman from France called Harriet (really Henriette, but a name too difficult for the villagers to remember). Maria decides to have it out with him, so she follows him one night. She catches him coming out of the barn of a neighbour, who also happens to be narrator of the story, with a sack of grain in hand. Maria lets loose as only a woman scorned might. The next day Daniel goes missing, and Maria, now repentant for her promise to turn him in to the authorities, sees him walking in the wooded area near the barn, but he doesn't see her. It transpires she saw him well after he hanged himself in those same woods.

Sam Devereaux

Reality or Delusion

Perceval Landon

A British gentleman is traveling from London to Brindisi, in India. On the train, he meets a man named Colvin, who asks to share his cabin on the ship they’re both taking. 

In India, Colvin used to be friends with an Englishman named Broughton. They both moved back to England, where Broughton settled down, married, and moved into Thurnley Abbey, an ancient manor that was rumoured to be haunted. These rumours were fed by the previous owner, who hated people. Broughton doesn’t fully believe in the ghost, and even if it exists, he seems unworried.

Skip forward six months. Colvin gets a letter from Broughton asking him to come to his house - he needs help. Colvin does, and passes a pleasant evening at a dinner party Broughton hosts. Then it’s time for bed.

Then, of course, Colvin sees a ghost. It’s a skeleton wrapped in in rags, hovering at the foot of his bed…

Thurnley Abbey

M.R. James

In the story, a young, scientifically-minded college professor finds an old bronze whistle while exploring the ruins of a Knights Templars' preceptory. That night, he blows on the whistle and a vision comes to him of a dark expanse with a lonely figure in its midst. The sound also appears to call up a gust of wind, but the sensible professor dismisses it as a coincidence. More strange incidents follow, however, to shake his disbelief in the supernatural.

Katy Maw

Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad

Gertrude Atherton

In Gertrude Atherton’s The Striding Place, the concept of identity and a lonely death are addressed. Weigall remembers talking with Wyatt about the soul and afterlife. Wyatt states, “If I had my way, I should stay inside my bones until the coffin had gone into its niche, that I might obviate for my poor old comrade the tragic impersonality of death.” The characters wonder about death and the destination of the human soul when it occurs. Weigall does not believe that the marshy bog, The Strid, has taken his friend, but when he sees a hand raised above the surface of the water, he knows it must be him and he desperately and quickly saves him. When he tries to resuscitate Wyatt, he sees that there is no face on the body. This is an extreme metaphor for the loneliness and/or mystery of death.

The Striding Place

Oscar Wilde

The American Otis family moves into the old English country house Canterville Chase. They are warned that the house is haunted before they move in but are unconcerned at first. They soon accept that the ghost is real but are not frightened by it. The ghost, who had been frightening all those who stayed at Canterville Chase for three hundred years, takes the Americans' unwillingness to be scared by him as a great insult. He grows to despise them all, except for the teenage daughter Virginia, who he feels is different from the rest of her family. At the end of the story, the ghost asks for Virginia's help to lift the curse which is on him and allow him to rest in peace.

Natalie Chisholm

The Canterville Ghost

Elizabeth Gaskell

The narrator - the old nurse of the title - is an old family retainer who has worked in the service of the same family for three generations. She tells the young children about a dark incident that she experienced in the company of the children’s mother, when she was a young woman and visiting her mother’s ancestral home 

This story hits all the marks of a classic ghost story: an isolated manor, creepy music sounding from a disused organ, ghostly apparitions begging to be let inside. Despite all the hallmarks of a ghost story, the true horror of the story is in the very real, all-too-capable cruelty people and in their inability to right the wrongs of the past, showing readers how ghosts are not the only beings capable of creating terror.

The Old Nurse's Story

Edith Wharton

How do you know if you’ve seen a ghost? Maybe you’ll never know. But an American couple seeking an idyllic retirement in and English country house do find out… eventually.

Afterward is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

With music by Benedict Edwards.

Leonora Haig

Afterward

Thomas Street Millington

Being awoken by noises in the night is disturbing enough, but the chilling voice heard one night during Mr Browne’s Italian travels was enough to make insomnia preferable.

No Living Voice is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

With music by Benedict Edwards.

Chris Kaye

No Living Voice

F. Marion Crawford

The charming but nonetheless creepy tale of Nina, a little girl’s doll, who repays the kindness shown her after she is damaged in a fall.

The Doll’s Ghost is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

With music by Benedict Edwards.

Amy Rockson

The Doll's Ghost

Florence Marryat

A determined and strong-minded young lady plagues Sigismund Braggett for his professional attention and friendship - then becomes very put out when he refuses to introduce her to his wife. Even her untimely death seems to be no obstacle to her intent.

The Ghost of Charlotte Cray is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

With music by Benedict Edwards.

The Ghost of Charlotte Cray

F. G. Loring

Extracts from a diary report first-hand the uncovering of a tomb and the nightly wanderings of the vampire previously encased within. Attempts to lay her to rest are about as successful as you might expect…

The Tomb of Sarah is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less wellknown.

With music by Benedict Edwards.

The Tomb of Sarah

Amelia B. Edwards

In this well-known classic, a school inspector travelling to the village of Pit End wonders whether the things he’s seeing are products of his imagination or something supernatural. There’s a rational answer, but is it the right one?

Was It an Illusion is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

With music by Benedict Edwards.

Was It an Illusion

A young man’s inheritance includes more than a house when an ebony-framed painting of a beautiful woman starts to exert a strange hold over its new owner. Could this lead to his tragic demise?

The Ebony Frame is a standalone enhanced audio tale from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

JD Kelly

The Ebony Frame

Charlotte Riddell

While a door that just won’t stay closed may not seem like the most terrifying of hauntings, being alone in a silent manor for days on end certainly adds to the atmosphere. A request to discover the reason for the obstinate door includes a cash motivation and newly unemployed Theophilus Edlyd readily accepts the challenge.

The Open Door is a standalone enhanced audio tale from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

Victorian Ghosts - The book series

Victorian Ghosts - The book series

Victorian Ghosts books in order

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