Charles Dickens enjoyed popularity during his lifetime than had any previous author. Much in his work could appeal to the simple and the sophisticated, to the poor and to the queen. He edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms. The Haunted House is a story published in 1859 for the weekly periodical All the Year Round. It is a portmanteau story, with Dickens writing the opening and closing stories, framing stories by Dickens himself and five other authors, like George Augustus Sala, Elizabeth Gaskell and Hesba Stretton. The story appeared in the Extra Christmas Number on 13 December 1859. Dickens began a tradition of Christmas publications with A Christmas Carol in 1843 and his Christmas stories soon became a national institution. The Haunted House was his 1859 offering. On Christmas Eve, a party of friends descends on a purportedly haunted country retreat, charged with the task of discovering evidence of the supernatural. Sequestered in their rooms for the holiday, the friends reconvene on Twelfth Night at a great feast and share their stories of the spectral encounter. Enjoy free online English audiobook “The Haunted House”, the collection of short stories about ghosts by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and others.
