The Spectre of Tappington

by Richard Harris Barham

The Spectre of Tappington tells the story of a haunted house. In generations past, the owner of the house had a guest that mysteriously disappeared one night. Rumour has it that the room this guest was staying in still gets nightly visitations from the one who mysteriously disappeared. Now, the room is only used when there are no other guest rooms available. Present Day: Charles Seaforth is visiting his cousins, and they unfortunately do not have any guest rooms other than the haunted room. So in what way does this ghostly apparition manifest itself? By stealing his pants every night, of course.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Classics

20 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1840

About the author

Richard Harris Barham (6 December 1788 – 17 June 1845) was an English cleric of the Church of England, novelist, and humorous poet. He was known better by his nom de plume Thomas Ingoldsby.

Richard Harris Barham was born in Canterbury. When he was seven years old his father died, leaving him a small estate, part of which was the manor of Tappington, in Denton, Kent, mentioned so frequently in his later publication The Ingoldsby Legends. At the age of nine he was sent to St Paul's School, but his studies were interrupted by an accident which partially crippled his arm for life. Thus deprived of the power of vigorous bodily activity, he became a great reader and diligent student.

During 1807 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, intending at first to study for the Law. Circumstances, however, induced him to decide on a religious profession. In 1813 he was ordained and accepted a country curacy; he married during the next year, and in 1821 he obtained the appointment of minor canon of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, where he served as a cardinal. Three years later he became one of the priests in ordinary of the King's Chapel Royal.

In 1826 Barham first contributed to Blackwood's Magazine; and in 1837 he began to write for a recently initiated magazine, Bentley's Miscellany, a series of tales (most of them metrical, some in prose) known as The Ingoldsby Legends. These became very popular. They were published in a collected form in three volumes between 1840 and 1847, and have since appeared in numerous editions. They may perhaps be compared to Hudibras. The stories are generally whimsical, but based on antiquarian learning. (There is also a collection of Barham's miscellaneous poems, edited posthumously by his son, called The Ingoldsby Lyrics.)

Barham was a Tory politically; yet he was a lifelong friend of the liberal Sydney Smith. Theodore Hook was one of his most intimate friends. Barham was a contributor to the Edinburgh Review and the Literary Gazette; he wrote articles for John Gorton's Biographical Dictionary; and a novel, My Cousin Nicholas (1834). He died in London on 17 June 1845, after a long and painful illness.

Reviews

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books and also Old Time Radio, so when I can mix them I love to compare the two. I find many stories from the nineteenth century writers on the program "The Weird Circle"and this story aired on March 12, 1944. I recently heard this again and was ready to see if they kept it true to Barham's short story. The producers played this fairly close but a couple changes to the ending which did not make the story false. Many interesting secondary characters were left out as well as the murderous story of the past owner. I wish I could remember what book I have read in the past which had a similar foul play, maybe Uncle Silas by Sheridan left Fanu but not certain. Basically a regimental soldier who has been engaged in activities in India comes home to visit his cousins in this Radcliffe like castle were foul play occurred and his strange happenings in the dead man's room. I read a collection of his work where my highlights and notes are located. See my Richard Harris Barham shelf if interested.

Radio version
https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com...

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charles Seaforth, a soldier, has returned to England from India and is staying at Tappington Everard with his distant cousins, the Ingoldsbys. Seaforth is given a room that appears to be haunted. Each night he awakens to witness a skeletal figure parade through the room and confiscate his breeches. This happens nightly. By the third night Seaforth’s getting quite annoyed and he is also running out of breeches, so it’s up to him and his friend, Tom Ingoldsby to investigate what is happening.

[Per · Rating 2 out of 5]

https://archive.org/details/WeirdTale...
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59236...

Weird Tales reprint of a short story from The Ingoldsby Legends (full title: The Ingoldsby Legends, or Mirth and Marvels) [...] a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry written supposedly by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor, actually a pen-name of an English clergyman named Richard Harris Barham. [... F]irst printed during 1837 as a regular series in the magazine Bentley's Miscellany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ing...

[Epsilon · Rating 2 out of 5]

The conclusion was unexpected ^^'.
I feel like it doesn't deserve 2 stars, but I didn't enjoy it very much. I found it hard to read. Perhaps it was too old for me? I don't know... I could understand mostly what was going on, but it was too hard to follow. Too many characters perhaps.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Verbose and a little too long in my opinion, this quirky and humorously satirical tale about a pants-stealing ghost has its decent moments of genuine mystery and creepiness.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story opens with Lt. Charles Seaforth looking under his bed. Seems his pants have gone missing. Seaforth, visiting some cousins, is on three years’ furlough from regiment of Bombay Fencibles in the Hon. East India Company. He’s trying to meet everyone downstairs for breakfast, but the pantaloons he laid out the night before are nowhere to be found. His servant, Barney Maguire, slow in answering the bell, swears he had nothing to do with removing them. Could his cousins be playing a prank on him? They were the ones who told him that ridiculous ghost story about an ancestor who killed an unknown guest for the papers he supposedly held in his pocket. And he’s still hiding the pants of people he doesn’t know—

Please read the rest of the review here.