The Haunted Man and The Ghost’s Bargain to give the book its full title is the fifth and final Christmas book by Charles Dickens. I have a copy as part of my collected volume of Christmas Books published by Gerald Duckworth Ltd in 2005 as part of their failed series of facsimile reproductions of the famed 1937 Nonesuch Press collected Dickens. I say failed as there was originally supposed to be twenty four volumes published at a rate of six a year from 2005 but six years later only twelve books had appeared (six in 2005, three more in 2008, and a final three in 2011) before the project was abandoned. The private Nonesuch Press Dickens was one of the finest editions of his collected works ever produced and was limited to just 877 sets, the odd number being due to the inclusion with each set of an original engraved steel plate from the first edition printed by Chapman and Hall Ltd. They had 877 plates in storage, all of which were purchased by Nonesuch and included in a box made to look like one of the books. As I don’t have the several thousand pounds needed to buy one of these sets nowadays, the Duckworth reprint looked like a good option until they stopped printing them. Happily they did include all five of the Christmas stories, combined in one large book as one of the first six volumes printed.
I must admit that apart from ‘A Christmas Carol’, which I read regularly and reviewed on Christmas Day five years ago, the other four Christmas tales by Dickens are ones I have rarely, if ever, dipped into. I’m pretty sure that I have never read ‘The Haunted Man’ before but I really enjoyed it now that I have finally done so. The story concerns a chemist, and lecturer in the subject, Mr Redlaw whose home and teaching establishment occupies part of an old educational building in a somewhat poor and rundown, but otherwise unidentified, part of London.
His dwelling was so solitary and vault-like,—an old, retired part of an ancient endowment for students, once a brave edifice, planted in an open place, but now the obsolete whim of forgotten architects; smoke-age-and-weather-darkened, squeezed on every side by the overgrowing of the great city, and choked, like an old well, with stones and bricks; its small quadrangles, lying down in very pits formed by the streets and buildings, which, in course of time, had been constructed above its heavy chimney stacks; its old trees, insulted by the neighbouring smoke, which deigned to droop so low when it was very feeble and the weather very moody;
From Chapter one: The Gift Bestowed
One of the joys of reading Dickens is his power of description, in a few words he has created a vision of the building occupied by Redlaw and his servants and I can see it clearly in my minds eye. The servants consist of a man and wife along with the mans aged father who continually, and comically, keeps repeating that he is eighty-seven whilst hanging the holly for Christmas Eve. But what of Redlaw, why are we concerned with him? Well he is the haunted man of the title and unusually, in an interesting twist of the traditional ghost story, he is haunted not by the dead but by himself, or at least a simulacrum of himself. Mr Redlaw is a troubled man, deeply wounded by the death of his sister and apparently unable to recover from that loss and it is to apparently offer succour that the phantom has appeared. It suggests that forgetfulness would be the best solution but it is not simple forgetfulness of his sister that is part of the gift it is so much more and the power to continually pass on this ‘gift’ even unwillingly. After great indecision Redlaw consents.
The second chapter appears at first to have abandoned Mr Redlaw as we move to the nearby Jerusalem Buildings, an even more rundown part of the neighbourhood, and the home of the Tetterby’s, A small man running a decrepit shop that has tried, and failed, to make money with all sorts of endeavours. Indeed the only thing that the Tetterby’s have succeeded in is the production of children, of which there are a great many and very little money to go round to support them leading to possibly my favourite and most typically Dickensian passage in the book, the description of their meal for Christmas Eve.
There might have been more pork on the knucklebone,—which knucklebone the carver at the cook’s shop had assuredly not forgotten in carving for previous customers—but there was no stint of seasoning, and that is an accessory dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheating the sense of taste. The pease pudding, too, the gravy and mustard, like the Eastern rose in respect of the nightingale, if they were not absolutely pork, had lived near it; so, upon the whole, there was the flavour of a middle-sized pig.
From Chapter two: The Gift Diffused
Into this poor but happy home comes Mr Redlaw in search of a student of his whom he has been told is unwell and lodging with the Tetterby’s but brought with him is his curse of forgetfulness of familial ties which leads to fractiousness of the children and more concerning wonders between themselves as to why Mr and Mrs Tetterby ever married each other. He spreads his contamination of discontent between the student and his carer before fleeing into the night so as not to cause more disagreements amongst those whom until his arrival were not just content but happy with their lot.
I’m going to say no more regarding the story except to recommend that you read it as it is wonderfully written, as I would expect from Dickens, and the denouement in chapter three is as unexpected as it is heart warming. If you can’t find a physical copy of the book it is available here on Project Gutenberg.
Merry Christmas
The illustrations of the original book included here are from another out of print edition, a beautiful leather bound facsimile of the original produced in a limited edition run of just 3750 copies by the Folio Society in 2008, this is somewhat more tricky to track down but it is a beautiful thing to own and read. It comes in a lovely box with a ribbon to lift the book out with.
Ramblings on my bookshelves 