Having moved into an abandoned haunted house, the narrator, undaunted by the warnings of the locals, invites a party of friends over, setting them the task of driving out the ghosts from the various rooms and reporting back on Twelfth Night. The resulting ghost stories form the basis of a thrilling narrative. For this work, commissioned for his periodical "e;All the Year Round"e;, Dickens enlisted some of the period's most famous writers, including Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins, to collaborate with him on this Victorian supernatural classic. For this work, commissioned for his periodical "e;All the Year Round"e;, Dickens enlisted some of the period's most famous writers, including Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins, to collaborate with him on this Victorian supernatural classic. This edition contains a wealth of material about the author's life and works, notes and a bibliographic section.

A literary phenomenon in his lifetime and renowned as much for his journalism and public speaking as for his novels, Charles Dickens (1812 - 70) now ranks as the most important Victorian writer and one of the most influential and popular authors in the English language. His memorable and vividly rendered characters and his combination of humour, trenchant satire and compassion have left an indelible mark on our collective imagination.