Victorian Christmas Horror

Featuring work by Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Clara Venn and Hume Nisbet, this collection of nine enduring stories - some well-known, others less familiar - evoke the many spirits of Christmas. Featuring misty journeys to distant loved ones, Christmas Eve manifestations and lonely, frost-filled vigils.

A disgraced scholar. A silent village. And a bell that listens to the dark. Winter, 1888. Exiled by a professional scandal to the frozen coast of Wales, Alastair Finch has accepted a lonely commission: cataloging the library of the late, eccentric Baronet of Portmeirion. Trapped in the drafty Gatehouse Library by a relentless blizzard, Alastair finds his only company is the whistling wind and the rhythmic scratching of his own pen. Until he discovers the Vigil-Bell Log. Hidden among the archives, the leather-bound journal belonged to a missing bell-ringer who vanished on Christmas Eve five ...

The fire is warm. The house is rich. The chimney is hungry. London, 1888. The fog tastes of coal and the frost is thick enough to stop a heart. For twelve-year-old Thomas, a masterless chimney sweep with a dying sister, the holiday season isn't a celebration. It is a death sentence. Desperate for the coin to buy medicine, Thomas accepts a contract at Bentree Manor. The estate is a fortress of Gothic opulence, isolated on the edge of the frozen Heath. Lord Bentree demands the Master Flue be cleared before the Yule Log is lit at midnight, and he pays in gold. But the chimney at Bentree Manor ...

It’s strange what you can miss if you don’t care to look. You really should, you know; you ought to keep your wits about you, lest someone step forth from the shadows and give you a fright. I speak from experience, believe me. One bitterly cold December morning, snobbish theatre critic Lionel Smallwood and his wife Frances find themselves enjoying the wares of the Victorian Christmas market in the Dorset town of Grimstone Peverell. Chilled to the marrow, they retire to the town’s minster where they are accosted by a pious and enthusiastic guide. Eager to acquaint them with every ...

It's almost All Hallow's Eve in the year 1690 and accusations are flying in Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony. The villagers are certain their healer Abigail is a witch, a crime punishable by death. Nathaniel isn't only the acting Chief Magistrate, but an expert in recognizing witchcraft. He ought to be—as a secret wizard himself. With Salem calling for Abigail's conviction, he knows that neither his magic alone nor his position will be sufficient to protect her. Oh, he believes her protestations that she isn't a witch. “Yet, Abigail. You are not a witch…yet.” Awakening her powers is ...

A no-nonsense governess returns to the family home at Christmas to celebrate the season and an upcoming wedding but learns of a curse affecting the men of the family. 'At Chrighton Abbey' is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

Lost on the moors on a snowy night, a gentleman boards a passing coach with relief. Then he takes a closer look at his fellow passengers. 'The Phantom Coach' is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

Stranded on some marshes, a gentleman out hunting is forced to spend Christmas Eve inside a rotting, beached shipwreck. 'A Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk' is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

'The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall' is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.

A Polish historian visiting Italy falls in love with a 16th-century femme fatale, who murdered a series of enthralled husbands and lovers. When he experiences visions of the beautiful Medea Da Carpi, it slowly turns his scholarly fascination into a fatal obsession.

A pair of sisters travel to Waddonscombe in Cornwall where they enjoy their hosts’ ghost stories around the manor house fire. A cliché, perhaps? Yet events may not play out entirely as expected.

Keen to improve his prospects, a man impersonates a fellow traveller who had changed his mind about an engagement to a wealthy young woman. But he begins to regret his decision when he learns every suitor must face an unknown horror that the family has harboured for generations.

Alone in his garrett on Christmas Eve, an artist uncovers a beautiful but disturbing portrait with strange powers. 'The Old Portrait' is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known.