The Ghost in the Clock Room: Paranormal Parlor, A Weiser Books Collection

by Hesba Stretton, Varla Ventura (Editor)

Varla Ventura, Coast to Coast favorite, Weird News blogger on Huffington Post, and author of The Book of the Bizarre and Beyond Bizarre, introduces Weiser Books’ new Collection of forgotten occult classics. Paranormal Parlor is an eerie assemblage of affordable digital editions, curated with Varla’s sixth sense for tales of the weird and unusual.

First published in 1859's Christmas edition of All Year Round, a publication edited by Charles Dickens, as a collection of tales centered around Dickens' own story about The Haunted House. Set in an abandoned house where the guests are all asked to take up residence in one of each of the rooms and spend the Twelfth Night of Christmas (once believed to be a night of highest magical power when the veil between the mortal and the sprit world was thinnest). In a Clue-like evening, each of the rooms is inhabited and Dickens published the collection of eight stories with different authors writing from the point of view of the ghosts in each room. Join Englishwoman and popular author of the 1800s Hesba Stretton aka Sarah Smith as she recalls the story of the Ghost in the Clock Room.

25 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1859

About the author

Hesba Stretton (1832-1911) was the nom de plume of Sarah Smith, an English author of children's literature. The name Hesba came from the initials of her siblings. She was the daughter of a bookseller from Wellington, Shropshire, but around 1867 she moved south and lived at Snaresbrook and Loughton near Epping Forest and at Ham, near Richmond, Surrey. Her moral tales and semi-religious stories, chiefly for the young, were printed in huge quantities, and were especially widespread as school and Sunday school prizes. She won wide acceptance in English homes from the publication of Jessica's First Prayer in 1867. She was a regular contributor to Household Words and All the Year Round during Charles Dickens' editorship, and wrote upwards of 40 novels.