The Judge's House

"The Judge's House" is a classic ghost story by the Irish author Bram Stoker. The story was first published in the December 5, 1891, special Christmas issue of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News weekly magazine. It was later republished in Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914). The short story has since appeared in many anthologies. In the story, a student arrives in a small town looking for a quiet place to stay while preparing for his examination. Making light of the local superstitions, he moves into an old mansion where a notorious hanging judge once lived. He is comfortably settled and engrossed in his work when, in the middle of the night, he is visited by an enormous rat with baleful eyes. As soon as the giant rat appears, other rats that infest the old house fall silent. When the great rat returns on the second night, the student begins to feel uneasy. He soon learns why the locals fear the Judge's House. "The Judge's House" was adapted as a radio play for the Hall of Fantasy show in 1947. The dramatization is largely faithful but contains some simplifications. CBS Radio Mystery Theater aired an episode based on the story in 1981. The CBS version presents the story as a recollection by an American scholar of events that took place while he was in England to work with a former schoolmate. A modernized stage adaptation of the story premiered in Dublin in 2013. The story has also been adapted for comic books.