Today I finished reading The Uninhabited House by Charlotte Riddell, a chilling ghost story published in Routledge's Christmas Annual for 1875 (and now widely available in paperback). The characters in Riddell's narrative try to uncover the mystery surrounding a haunted house just outside London, and we quickly find that the story is just as much of a detective/mystery tale as it is a ghost tale. As one young man bravely inhabits the vacant house in an attempt to discover its secret, the novel becomes very suspenseful, and I noticed that I was turning the pages quicker and quicker to find out what would happen. In a Victorian society that venerated domesticity, home and hearth, it is easy to see why The Uninhabited House (from its title alone) would have unnerved contemporary readers; add the threat of a ghost to the plot and I imagine there might have been a few Victorians having sleepless nights. Mrs. Riddell's ghost stories were popular in the nineteenth century, though today few people today have heard of her, or read her works. The formidable image of her above seems to match her preferred genre of writing; the raised black collar reminds me of Dracula (eep!). Do you like reading ghost stories? Would you read them with the lights on, or beside a flickering candle? I'd love to hear.
