Publisher's Synopsis
While the three ghosts that visited Ebenezer Scrooge was Charles Dickens' most famous apparitions, his interest in the supernatural did not end there. Three Ghost Stories is just that: a collection of three different stories that are true Gothic classics. The three stories, The Signal Man, The Haunted House and The Trial for Murder were sensational for their time and continue to hold up well, thanks to Charles Dickens' superb skills at storytelling. The Signal Man is the most well known of the three, chronicling the haunting of a railroad signal man who is visited by a ghost just before a tragic event is to happen on the railway. If you like Dickens and tales of spectres and the supernatural, you'll love Three Ghost Stories. Charles Dickens was the foremost English novelist of the Victorian era and considered one of the English language's greatest writers; he was acclaimed for his rich storytelling and memorable characters, and achieved massive worldwide popularity during in his lifetime. His first full novel, The Pickwick Papers, brought him immediate fame and this continued right through his career. He maintained a high quality in all his writings and, although rarely departing greatly from his typical "Dickensian" method of always attempting to write a great "story" in a somewhat conventional manner (the dual narrators of Bleak House are a notable exception). He experimented with varied themes, characterizations and genres. Some of these experiments were more successful than others and the public's taste and appreciation of his many works have varied over time. He was usually keen to give his readers what they wanted, and the monthly or weekly publication of his works in episodes meant that the books could change as the story proceeded at the whim of the public.
