I study English literature and read too much. Concise reviews of the ridiculous miscellany of my reading choices. Sometimes also things I watch and listen to. But mostly read.
Sunday, 25 December 2016
The Uninhabited House by Mrs. J. H. Riddell
I don't celebrate Christmas, so I've been curled up with a collection of Victorian ghost novels, waiting for the New Year's festivities. This is a really standard and fun popular Victorian novel, with its share of humour, some weak horror, and cute romance. I wouldn't say it's something everyone should read, but as I study Victorian literature, I was really interested in it. I was especially interested in how the humorous element gradually drained out of the story and how 'modern' the ghost was (by which I mean it wasn't an ancient ancestral ghost or anything, but a new one that played with the gas lighting). The haunting was also talked about in monetary terms, which I found really different, and I think the novel is relevant in terms of the rise of clerks as a profession and further development of the middle classes in the Victorian era.
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