‘Tis the haunting season, and inspired by the Charles Dickens Museum’s upcoming ghost story readings, Litro reads a story a day from a collection of Dickens’ many ghostly tales – none of which contain the words ‘Christmas’ or ‘Carol’ in their title.
Day 1: ‘A Madman’s Manuscript’, an excerpt from The Pickwick Papers.
The highlights: Murder, insanity, greed, unrequited love and solitary confinement, all within the span of about seven pages. Poe-esque at its outset, the story takes a turn from the psychological to the supernatural – or are these one and the same?
A tip: Best to avoid during your daily commute, lest certain passages – ’how fast he would have run if he had known that the dear friend who sat close to him, sharpening a bright, glittering knife, was a madman with all the power and half the will to plunge it into his heart. Oh, it was a merry life!’ – lead you to eye your fellow passengers with far more circumspection and suspicion than usual.
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