The Closed Cabinet

by Anonymous

In the hall I was met by the housekeeper, who informed me that, owing to a misunderstanding about dates, a gentleman had arrived whom Lucy had not expected at that time, and that in consequence my room had been changed. My things had been put into the East Room, --the haunted room, --the room of the Closed Cabinet.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original wor

Genres: Horror, Short Stories

58 pages, Hardcover

Published May 23, 2010

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐

The elements of this story are a bespelled cabinet built by an old Italian cabinetmaker and cursed by an ancient witch against the progeny of the Merwyn family.


Following the advice in Cindy's review
I listened to this story on the Classic Tales Podcast via YouTube with narration done by Nancy Peterson and B. J. Harrison. It is a story told in three parts and definitely worth listening to this excellent rendition which sets the perfect mood for the story keeping the reader raptly engaged in an otherwise slow-paced story.

Evie’s cousins the Mervyns live on an ancient estate with a cursed history. Featured in this history is a room with a closed cabinet, where tradition has it that if a single woman sleeps in the room, she will die since it is rumored that two girls have died in that room when they had slept there some 150 years ago. On her third night in the room, Evie has an extremely realistic dream, where she lived through the terrifying moment of a wronged woman taking revenge against her abusive husband. She awakes with a cut on her hand from a dagger she retrieved from the closed cabinet – which was open in her dream yet is closed when she awakens.

This story is also included in the book The Lock and Key Library Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English,Julian Hawthorne (Editor), found free on Kindle.

Part I—Part 1 of 3, Ep. 867
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzaeQ...

Part II—Part 2 of 3, E. 870
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jluw2...

Part III—Part 2 of 3, E. 873 This part is labeled incorrectly it is actually Part 3 of 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLPUM...

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this book on Classic Tales Podcast in three episodes. What an outstanding performance by the two readers, BJ Harrison and Nancy Peterson! Highly recommend!

[MH · Rating 1 out of 5]

Starts out as a fairly standard gothic horror, in the style of "The Fall of the House of Usher" (I think). gets religion halfway through, and the rest is tripe. It doesn't help that its pitched as "A story of the eighteenth century", but has steam trains (making it really set in the mid- to late C19th)

[Melanie Mansfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really don’t know what to think about this little book. Written in 1923 by an anonymous author, it’s a gothic thriller set in what seems to be anywhere from the late 1800s to the 1910s or so. The concept is good, but the execution lacked depth. The height of the book, when things were to be coming together, got really confusing. It wasn’t BAD… it just wasn’t really recommendable.

[J.D. Sutter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting elements, but I didn't love it. Some parts were a little confusing to follow the way it was written.

[Marlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

A family curse, a closed cabinet, a love that could never happen. Can the curse be broken? Will she survive the encounter?

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mystery of the cursed room is solved, and all is revealed. Anonymous, listened to on The Classic Tales Podcast.