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Если вы знакомы с творчеством Чарльза Диккенса, то старая добрая Англия вам хорошо известна и дорога. Этот сборник рассказов, как и любые другие произведения великого англичанина, никого не оставит равнодушным.
Содержание:
Житейская борьба
Мистер Минс и его кузен
Превосходный случай
Семья Тоггсов
Горацио Спаркинс
Черное покрывало
Дуэль
Домашний спектакль
Содержание:
Житейская борьба
Мистер Минс и его кузен
Превосходный случай
Семья Тоггсов
Горацио Спаркинс
Черное покрывало
Дуэль
Домашний спектакль
Audiobook
First published January 1, 2000
8 people are currently reading
249 people want to read
About the author
Charles Dickens
12.7k books31.4k followersCharles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
December 20, 2024
Imagine if you will …
An energetic and confident young man; one with a flair for writing, a passion for the dramatic, and a missionary-like zeal to right society’s wrongs. He wanted fame and was bursting with ideas. But his education had been patchy, and although of a good family, he had had to bear the ignominy of having a father in debtors’ prison. Pushing his childhood horrors deep in his memory, he worked in a law office as a junior clerk and then became a court reporter, reporting on Parliamentary debates, and travelling all over England to cover election campaigns for a newspaper. And with an eye for a wider audience to appreciate his talents, he began to submit sketches for periodicals.
These early works are patchy. Some are frivolous and silly, some display savage cynicism, and some are self-indulgently melodramatic. Sometimes he was so keen to reveal the unsavoury truth behind workhouses, hospitals, and those who lived their lives on the streets, that all he did was to write dreary depressing accounts. But this was a young man, learning his craft. Nobody knew the great works that this young man had before him.
For this young man was Charles Dickens. And he was just 24 years old.
The Black Veil was this young writer’s first proper story. It is not just a description: a sketch, nor is it an entertaining interlude. It is a finished narrative, with an intriguing beginning, story arc and satisfying resolution. And it is very well written. If you enjoy Victorian gothic tales, those classed as “sensational fiction”, with a high degree of mystery and slowly building suspense, you will probably enjoy this one. You may not even recognise the author’s style from this short piece, although it is all there, embryonically. It owes a great deal to the tales of terror which had been published in “Blackwood’s Magazine” from 1817 onwards, and which Charles Dickens read around the time this story was written, in 1836. Oddly, Nathaniel Hawthorne also wrote a gothic story round the theme of a black veil, in the same year, called “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
“the street-door was opened; a low talking succeeded, accompanied with a shuffling noise of footsteps, along the passage and on the stairs, as if two or three men were engaged in carrying some heavy body to the room above.”
The plot of The Black Veil is sinister, ominous, brooding and melodramatic. It concerns a young physician who has only recently begun in practice. He sits alone, “more than half asleep and less than half awake”, on a dismal winter night. His thoughts wander to his beautiful sweetheart, Rose, and he muses about proposing to her, and bringing her to set up house in this remote, poverty-stricken hamlet. The young doctor, sunk in thought, dreams on of Rose, when “a corpulent round-headed boy” who acts as his assistant, tries to nudge him awake. He has a patient, the boy says. And what a patient!
Disturbing thoughts creep into our imaginations with this mysterious first caller: “a singularly tall woman, dressed in deep mourning … carefully muffled in a black shawl, as if for the purpose of concealment; and her face was shrouded by a thick black veil.”
The veil is ominous. What terrors might lie hidden here? What does it signify: is this figure in mourning, or does it portend death? The doctor’s thoughts are muddled by drowsiness, and the boy is scared. Is this a woman or a man—or not human at all—an apparition? The Grim Reaper himself?
The veiled presence speaks in a low deep voice, with a desperate earnestness, and implores the young doctor for his assistance. The young doctor is solicitous, and keen to help, as his visitor seems distressed and ill. However, he is assured that this request is not for his caller. It is made on behalf of a patient who, strangely, cannot be seen immediately. The doctor is shocked, and when he learns that the man is in deadly peril, he points out that it would be much better if he could see the patient immediately. But the veiled visitor insists that the patient can only be seen on the following morning, by which time he will be “beyond the reach of human aid”. How can this be? Does his visitor have a premonition? Are they mad? Surely the young doctor will sense the danger, and not pursue this strange, reckless idea.
However the young doctor promises to call at 9 o’clock in the morning, at a particular house in Walworth he has been given directions to. The mysterious visitor leaves, and he speculates as to what this can all mean. As do we. Was this a woman, or perhaps an apparition? The young doctor considering, thought to himself that there had been cases of people who had been troubled with a foreboding of their own death, but never that of another person. Could it be a plot to murder someone? Or was the woman herself insane?
The next morning he set off for the house in Walworth:
“a straggling miserable place enough, even in these days; but, five-and-thirty years ago, the greater portion of it was little better than a dreary waste, inhabited by a few scattered people of questionable character, whose poverty prevented their living in any better neighbourhood, or whose pursuits and mode of life rendered its solitude desirable. Very many of the houses … were of the rudest and most miserable description.
… his way lay across a marshy common, through irregular lanes, with here and there a ruinous and dismantled cottage fast falling to pieces with decay and neglect. A stunted tree, or pool of stagnant water, roused into a sluggish action by the heavy rain of the preceding night, skirted the path occasionally;”
The few people he saw looked miserable, lonely and poverty-stricken; as dreary and filthy as their surroundings. The narrator comments that this was a place:
“for the worst and most depraved characters. Even the streets in the gayest parts of London were imperfectly lighted, at that time; and such places as these, were left entirely to the mercy of the moon and stars. The chances of detecting desperate characters, or of tracing them to their haunts, were thus rendered very few”.
This was an age when resurrection men or “bodysnatchers” were becoming notorious. All Charles Dickens’s readers will have known about the murders committed by Burke and Hare in Edinburgh in 1828, for the purpose of selling the corpses to Robert Knox, for dissection at his anatomy lectures. Doctors needed bodies for dissection, and this sparked off groups of body snatchers in London in the 1830s; grave robbers who sometimes also committed murder in order to obtain these lucrative bodies. But the young doctor was not to be deterred, and would not turn back. And his disturbed thoughts increase, as do our own feelings of dread, as he tries to find his destination through the desolation and squalour.
The ghastly denouement, when it comes, is a masterpiece of horror, akin to that of Edgar Allan Poe. The tension is palpable, and the descriptions make the reader shudder.
The story ends poignantly. “For many years after this occurrence” the caring young surgeon made daily visits to the and made donations of money, to aid and support them.
Some of these early pieces were collected together and published in 1836, in a volume called “Sketches by Boz”. Later, when he had achieved more stature and fame, Charles Dickens was to excuse himself with the words:
“They comprise my first attempts at authorship. I am conscious of their often being extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing obvious marks of haste and inexperience.”
However, with The Black Veil, we see no such immaturity. It is a story full of slowly mounting tension; there is an uneasy atmosphere and understated horror, allied with compassion for society’s underclass. In fact Charles Dickens wrote The Black Veil after a visit to Newgate Prison, on 5th November 1835. It is as absorbing and convincing as any gothic short story written by a master, and as macabre as Edgar Allan Poe—who incidentally, he much admired. With a mere three years between them, the two authors were to become good friends. Charles Dickens’s descriptions are equally powerful, without being excessively revolting to the reader.
It seems very strange then, that The Black Veil was never published on its own, before being included in the “Sketches”. In fact the author had proposed to John Macrone, his publisher, that this dark short story could be used as a “filler” for the first two volumes of “Sketches by Boz”, along with another sketch “A Visit to Newgate”: a companion piece which he had specifically written for this purpose.
In his massive biography of Dickens, Peter Ackroyd says of the “Sketches”:
“We see, in miniature, the formation of the artist, reacting to the events of the life around him, using them and being used in turn.”
Indeed we do. The Black Veil is as well crafted and convincing a gothic tale as that of many, far more experienced, writers. It feels authentic, because Charles Dickens knew these squalid areas of London well. He used to view all the bodies dragged up from the river Thames, in the morgue. He regularly visited prisons, and hospitals to see the conditions of the sick and dying. Just over three years later he was to attend a public hanging, writing a letter to “The Times” newspaper making it abundantly clear that he deplored the whole process. The baying crowd’s responses were more appropriate to street entertainment. Public hangings were to be banned in England in 1868, although continuing far later in some other parts of the world.
We have no idea of the ghastly truth in this story, and are misdirected throughout. By setting it a few decades earlier, the author was able to give the story a chilling gothic feel, and heighten the melodrama, which appealed to the readers of the time. However, being Charles Dickens, he was also able to capture and portray social problems of the day: specifically the deplorable living conditions and terrible consequences of poverty. The young doctor, kind and caring to those less fortunate than himself, from beginning to end, is appealing, and engages our own sympathies in turn. Charles Dickens was beginning his life-long fight for justice for the poor.
It is a persuasive piece of Victorian fiction imbued with moral consciousness. This young journalist and clerk, at the start of his writing career, perfectly conveys some of society’s evils through a compulsive and thrilling tale. And this is what raises The Black Veil above being merely an entertaining gothic story.
An energetic and confident young man; one with a flair for writing, a passion for the dramatic, and a missionary-like zeal to right society’s wrongs. He wanted fame and was bursting with ideas. But his education had been patchy, and although of a good family, he had had to bear the ignominy of having a father in debtors’ prison. Pushing his childhood horrors deep in his memory, he worked in a law office as a junior clerk and then became a court reporter, reporting on Parliamentary debates, and travelling all over England to cover election campaigns for a newspaper. And with an eye for a wider audience to appreciate his talents, he began to submit sketches for periodicals.
These early works are patchy. Some are frivolous and silly, some display savage cynicism, and some are self-indulgently melodramatic. Sometimes he was so keen to reveal the unsavoury truth behind workhouses, hospitals, and those who lived their lives on the streets, that all he did was to write dreary depressing accounts. But this was a young man, learning his craft. Nobody knew the great works that this young man had before him.
For this young man was Charles Dickens. And he was just 24 years old.
The Black Veil was this young writer’s first proper story. It is not just a description: a sketch, nor is it an entertaining interlude. It is a finished narrative, with an intriguing beginning, story arc and satisfying resolution. And it is very well written. If you enjoy Victorian gothic tales, those classed as “sensational fiction”, with a high degree of mystery and slowly building suspense, you will probably enjoy this one. You may not even recognise the author’s style from this short piece, although it is all there, embryonically. It owes a great deal to the tales of terror which had been published in “Blackwood’s Magazine” from 1817 onwards, and which Charles Dickens read around the time this story was written, in 1836. Oddly, Nathaniel Hawthorne also wrote a gothic story round the theme of a black veil, in the same year, called “The Minister’s Black Veil”.
“the street-door was opened; a low talking succeeded, accompanied with a shuffling noise of footsteps, along the passage and on the stairs, as if two or three men were engaged in carrying some heavy body to the room above.”
The plot of The Black Veil is sinister, ominous, brooding and melodramatic. It concerns a young physician who has only recently begun in practice. He sits alone, “more than half asleep and less than half awake”, on a dismal winter night. His thoughts wander to his beautiful sweetheart, Rose, and he muses about proposing to her, and bringing her to set up house in this remote, poverty-stricken hamlet. The young doctor, sunk in thought, dreams on of Rose, when “a corpulent round-headed boy” who acts as his assistant, tries to nudge him awake. He has a patient, the boy says. And what a patient!
Disturbing thoughts creep into our imaginations with this mysterious first caller: “a singularly tall woman, dressed in deep mourning … carefully muffled in a black shawl, as if for the purpose of concealment; and her face was shrouded by a thick black veil.”
The veil is ominous. What terrors might lie hidden here? What does it signify: is this figure in mourning, or does it portend death? The doctor’s thoughts are muddled by drowsiness, and the boy is scared. Is this a woman or a man—or not human at all—an apparition? The Grim Reaper himself?
The veiled presence speaks in a low deep voice, with a desperate earnestness, and implores the young doctor for his assistance. The young doctor is solicitous, and keen to help, as his visitor seems distressed and ill. However, he is assured that this request is not for his caller. It is made on behalf of a patient who, strangely, cannot be seen immediately. The doctor is shocked, and when he learns that the man is in deadly peril, he points out that it would be much better if he could see the patient immediately. But the veiled visitor insists that the patient can only be seen on the following morning, by which time he will be “beyond the reach of human aid”. How can this be? Does his visitor have a premonition? Are they mad? Surely the young doctor will sense the danger, and not pursue this strange, reckless idea.
However the young doctor promises to call at 9 o’clock in the morning, at a particular house in Walworth he has been given directions to. The mysterious visitor leaves, and he speculates as to what this can all mean. As do we. Was this a woman, or perhaps an apparition? The young doctor considering, thought to himself that there had been cases of people who had been troubled with a foreboding of their own death, but never that of another person. Could it be a plot to murder someone? Or was the woman herself insane?
The next morning he set off for the house in Walworth:
“a straggling miserable place enough, even in these days; but, five-and-thirty years ago, the greater portion of it was little better than a dreary waste, inhabited by a few scattered people of questionable character, whose poverty prevented their living in any better neighbourhood, or whose pursuits and mode of life rendered its solitude desirable. Very many of the houses … were of the rudest and most miserable description.
… his way lay across a marshy common, through irregular lanes, with here and there a ruinous and dismantled cottage fast falling to pieces with decay and neglect. A stunted tree, or pool of stagnant water, roused into a sluggish action by the heavy rain of the preceding night, skirted the path occasionally;”
The few people he saw looked miserable, lonely and poverty-stricken; as dreary and filthy as their surroundings. The narrator comments that this was a place:
“for the worst and most depraved characters. Even the streets in the gayest parts of London were imperfectly lighted, at that time; and such places as these, were left entirely to the mercy of the moon and stars. The chances of detecting desperate characters, or of tracing them to their haunts, were thus rendered very few”.
This was an age when resurrection men or “bodysnatchers” were becoming notorious. All Charles Dickens’s readers will have known about the murders committed by Burke and Hare in Edinburgh in 1828, for the purpose of selling the corpses to Robert Knox, for dissection at his anatomy lectures. Doctors needed bodies for dissection, and this sparked off groups of body snatchers in London in the 1830s; grave robbers who sometimes also committed murder in order to obtain these lucrative bodies. But the young doctor was not to be deterred, and would not turn back. And his disturbed thoughts increase, as do our own feelings of dread, as he tries to find his destination through the desolation and squalour.
The ghastly denouement, when it comes, is a masterpiece of horror, akin to that of Edgar Allan Poe. The tension is palpable, and the descriptions make the reader shudder.
The story ends poignantly. “For many years after this occurrence” the caring young surgeon made daily visits to the and made donations of money, to aid and support them.
Some of these early pieces were collected together and published in 1836, in a volume called “Sketches by Boz”. Later, when he had achieved more stature and fame, Charles Dickens was to excuse himself with the words:
“They comprise my first attempts at authorship. I am conscious of their often being extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing obvious marks of haste and inexperience.”
However, with The Black Veil, we see no such immaturity. It is a story full of slowly mounting tension; there is an uneasy atmosphere and understated horror, allied with compassion for society’s underclass. In fact Charles Dickens wrote The Black Veil after a visit to Newgate Prison, on 5th November 1835. It is as absorbing and convincing as any gothic short story written by a master, and as macabre as Edgar Allan Poe—who incidentally, he much admired. With a mere three years between them, the two authors were to become good friends. Charles Dickens’s descriptions are equally powerful, without being excessively revolting to the reader.
It seems very strange then, that The Black Veil was never published on its own, before being included in the “Sketches”. In fact the author had proposed to John Macrone, his publisher, that this dark short story could be used as a “filler” for the first two volumes of “Sketches by Boz”, along with another sketch “A Visit to Newgate”: a companion piece which he had specifically written for this purpose.
In his massive biography of Dickens, Peter Ackroyd says of the “Sketches”:
“We see, in miniature, the formation of the artist, reacting to the events of the life around him, using them and being used in turn.”
Indeed we do. The Black Veil is as well crafted and convincing a gothic tale as that of many, far more experienced, writers. It feels authentic, because Charles Dickens knew these squalid areas of London well. He used to view all the bodies dragged up from the river Thames, in the morgue. He regularly visited prisons, and hospitals to see the conditions of the sick and dying. Just over three years later he was to attend a public hanging, writing a letter to “The Times” newspaper making it abundantly clear that he deplored the whole process. The baying crowd’s responses were more appropriate to street entertainment. Public hangings were to be banned in England in 1868, although continuing far later in some other parts of the world.
We have no idea of the ghastly truth in this story, and are misdirected throughout. By setting it a few decades earlier, the author was able to give the story a chilling gothic feel, and heighten the melodrama, which appealed to the readers of the time. However, being Charles Dickens, he was also able to capture and portray social problems of the day: specifically the deplorable living conditions and terrible consequences of poverty. The young doctor, kind and caring to those less fortunate than himself, from beginning to end, is appealing, and engages our own sympathies in turn. Charles Dickens was beginning his life-long fight for justice for the poor.
It is a persuasive piece of Victorian fiction imbued with moral consciousness. This young journalist and clerk, at the start of his writing career, perfectly conveys some of society’s evils through a compulsive and thrilling tale. And this is what raises The Black Veil above being merely an entertaining gothic story.
June 5, 2021
The year is 1800. Evening. It is raining and the mist is cold and damp. A young doctor is taking comfort by his fireplace when he has an unexpected visitor. A mysterious woman in mourning clothes with a black veil over her face shows up at his door.
There is something chilling about the situation: the inclement wet weather, the black veil, the request. It kept me glued to the narrative. This is the Dickens I know – the powerful, atmospheric writing that makes tangible a place or scene or character.
This very short but haunting story can be read here. The Black Veil
There is something chilling about the situation: the inclement wet weather, the black veil, the request. It kept me glued to the narrative. This is the Dickens I know – the powerful, atmospheric writing that makes tangible a place or scene or character.
This very short but haunting story can be read here. The Black Veil
October 25, 2021
"Se dice, que cuando la vida se dirige hacia su final, la escasa vida que nos queda nos es más querida que todos los tiempos anteriores, ligados al recuerdo de viejos amigos, muertos hace años, de jóvenes, niños quizá, que han desaparecido y la han olvidado a una por completo, como si una estuviese muerta"
"Como casi todo el mundo, había leído y oído hablar a menudo de casos raros, en los que el presentimiento de la muerte a una hora determinada había sido concebido. Por un momento se inclinó a pensar que el caso era uno de estos; pero entonces se le ocurrió que todas las anécdotas de esta clase que había oído se referían a personas que fueron asaltadas por un presentimiento de su propia muerte. Esta mujer, sin embargo, habló de un hombre; y no era posible suponer que un mero sueño le hubiese inducido a hablar de aquel próximo fallecimiento en una forma tan terrible y con la seguridad con que se había expresado"
3.5*
Una mujer de apariencia lúgubre(cubierta totalmente con un velo negro) se presenta ante un joven medico pidiéndole ayuda. Pero todas las circunstancias que envuelven a la situación son extrañas: La ayuda no es para la mujer en cuestión, si no para otra persona y el medico debe acudir en un momento especifico. No le es revelada mucha mas información que esta.
El medico por su sentido de vocación y empatía decide acceder y presentarse en el lugar y momento indicado, a pesar de estar envuelto en un mar de dudas
Una historia de misterio, con un dejo de tristeza y rasgos de conciencia social. Atmosférica (en un ambiente precario) y con un desenlace bastante peculiar único.
"Como casi todo el mundo, había leído y oído hablar a menudo de casos raros, en los que el presentimiento de la muerte a una hora determinada había sido concebido. Por un momento se inclinó a pensar que el caso era uno de estos; pero entonces se le ocurrió que todas las anécdotas de esta clase que había oído se referían a personas que fueron asaltadas por un presentimiento de su propia muerte. Esta mujer, sin embargo, habló de un hombre; y no era posible suponer que un mero sueño le hubiese inducido a hablar de aquel próximo fallecimiento en una forma tan terrible y con la seguridad con que se había expresado"
3.5*
Una mujer de apariencia lúgubre(cubierta totalmente con un velo negro) se presenta ante un joven medico pidiéndole ayuda. Pero todas las circunstancias que envuelven a la situación son extrañas: La ayuda no es para la mujer en cuestión, si no para otra persona y el medico debe acudir en un momento especifico. No le es revelada mucha mas información que esta.
El medico por su sentido de vocación y empatía decide acceder y presentarse en el lugar y momento indicado, a pesar de estar envuelto en un mar de dudas
Una historia de misterio, con un dejo de tristeza y rasgos de conciencia social. Atmosférica (en un ambiente precario) y con un desenlace bastante peculiar único.
September 4, 2022
Eerie and odd short story by Dickens, The Black Veil, has a creepy, atmospheric beginning which boded well for this Gothic tale, but the ending was more pathetic, than macabre.
June 2, 2021
Dickens is a master at setting up a scene: a dark, calm night, sitting by a fire, an unexpected visitor dressed all in black and with a black veil covering all her features. A gothic tale that had me feeling tense and expectant.
This is a short story ( about 30 pages), so I am not going to say any more of the plot.
I will say that it is a gripping story with a very unusual ending!
This is a short story ( about 30 pages), so I am not going to say any more of the plot.
I will say that it is a gripping story with a very unusual ending!
June 2, 2021
This is a very early short story written by Charles Dickens, otherwise known as Boz. The atmosphere is gothic and mysterious and has a wonderful ending. It's really interesting to read Dickens' early works because he is already writing about social and class differences which are themes which appear again and again in his novels.
June 5, 2021
The Black Veil is a dark, Gothic tale from the collection "Sketches by Boz." Dickens shows his empathy for the disadvantaged, and gives the story a wicked twist at the end. It's one of my favorite short stories by Dickens.
June 3, 2021
A short-story by Charles Dickens that reminds one of Poe, with its dark and somber atmosphere and its twist ending. Delightful read.
Just a note that the woman in the story is never without the veil, but the cover art shows a woman with no veil. Go figure.
Just a note that the woman in the story is never without the veil, but the cover art shows a woman with no veil. Go figure.
June 3, 2021
An atmospheric early Dickens short story, very gothic and filled with his usual clear observations of character and environment.
July 30, 2021
Dickens has written an excellent gothic tale, mysterious and suspenseful with a surprising twist of an ending that is completely unexpected. Originally written under his name Boz.
June 12, 2021
An early short story by Charles Dickens, read with the Dickensians. Many Gothic overtones, questions of class and social status, poverty. Early instances of themes to be reworked again and again in Dickens’ writing and life works.
June 23, 2021
A moody, dark story of a mysterious woman in a black veil best read at night while a great storm bashes the windows and rain beats the roof.
December 23, 2024
Tragic but beautiful and thoughtful
June 19, 2021
“The Black Veil” is a simple Gothic story on its surface, but I think it carries a bit more weight when you look deeper and unpack a few more layers of meaning. The story involves a young surgeon who—hurting for work—encounters a troubled, mysterious, woman on a cold, wet night. It appears that someone close to her is in want and need of immediate medical attention, but the mysterious woman is a bit vague and unclear to the young practitioner what exactly the circumstances are. One striking aspect to the woman is that she is wearing an ominous black veil, a symbol that will become a prominent figure in the tale.
I have to say that I am a bit of a sucker for the Gothic tradition of literature, so maybe I am a tad biased, but Dickens tale hits all the right notes. We see this in terms of the setting, mood, ambience and feel of the story. Also, the peculiarities and odd circumstances in which the woman seeks the young doctor add to the dimension of the mystery that unfolds. Without giving too much away, there is a deep level of symbolism contained in the story which we will come to understand after the final words. The black veil is not only emblematic of a hidden and secret aspect, but also serves a reminder.
I thought that Dickens tied everything together nicely and there is a touching and affecting moral contained within as well.
This story reminded me quite a bit of another story that involves a mysterious black veil, in this case Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Both stories contain a good deal of Gothic elements and symbolism and the reader having to put some of the pieces of the story together.
If you are in the mood for a story with the Gothic tradition and elements and a mysterious vibe, this one is one to check out.
I have to say that I am a bit of a sucker for the Gothic tradition of literature, so maybe I am a tad biased, but Dickens tale hits all the right notes. We see this in terms of the setting, mood, ambience and feel of the story. Also, the peculiarities and odd circumstances in which the woman seeks the young doctor add to the dimension of the mystery that unfolds. Without giving too much away, there is a deep level of symbolism contained in the story which we will come to understand after the final words. The black veil is not only emblematic of a hidden and secret aspect, but also serves a reminder.
I thought that Dickens tied everything together nicely and there is a touching and affecting moral contained within as well.
This story reminded me quite a bit of another story that involves a mysterious black veil, in this case Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Both stories contain a good deal of Gothic elements and symbolism and the reader having to put some of the pieces of the story together.
If you are in the mood for a story with the Gothic tradition and elements and a mysterious vibe, this one is one to check out.
May 21, 2021
Dark. Gothic. Mysterious. This story pulls the reader in with it's questions and puzzles.
Charles Dickens describes the scenes in detail that brings a tension to the story and keeps the reader reading.
In a few short pages, Dickens manages to convey that the poor are overlooked. They are there but not seen, not noticed, not helped. A situation that Dickens deplores and he uses this story to show a path towards, first, sight & the seeing of the plight of the poor, then healing, help and empathy.
Well written, as one expects from Dickens, and well told.
Charles Dickens describes the scenes in detail that brings a tension to the story and keeps the reader reading.
In a few short pages, Dickens manages to convey that the poor are overlooked. They are there but not seen, not noticed, not helped. A situation that Dickens deplores and he uses this story to show a path towards, first, sight & the seeing of the plight of the poor, then healing, help and empathy.
Well written, as one expects from Dickens, and well told.
August 4, 2021
3.5 stars for "The Black Veil" which had me asking all the questions, and provided all the answers. What it was missing was some unexpected, or perhaps supernatural twist.
This is a story of its times. It's difficult to put myself in an era when veils were commonplace in the Western world, and their mention, black or otherwise, always gives an air of mystery. Without giving away the ending, it, too, would have been less surprising at the time. All of which makes me wonder if the original readers felt the same sense of mystery that today's readers might experience.
This is a story of its times. It's difficult to put myself in an era when veils were commonplace in the Western world, and their mention, black or otherwise, always gives an air of mystery. Without giving away the ending, it, too, would have been less surprising at the time. All of which makes me wonder if the original readers felt the same sense of mystery that today's readers might experience.
July 11, 2021
This story is so much more than it first seems. It can be read in just a few minutes but it contains all the power, disgust, compassion and fire which was to ignite Dickens later work.
June 22, 2024
Listened to the audiobook narrated by Elliot Fitzpatrick, which was very enjoyable.
November 19, 2024
Charles Dickens' The Black Veil is an intriguing short story with a gothic atmosphere and a touch of mystery. The tale follows a young doctor who receives a visit from a veiled woman, leading to a grim and haunting conclusion.
The story showcases Dickens' flair for setting and character descriptions, effectively capturing the eerie mood. However, as much as the atmosphere is compelling, the narrative itself feels rushed, and the characters lack the depth seen in his longer works. The twist, while unsettling, can feel predictable to modern readers familiar with gothic tropes.
For fans of Dickens' darker side or Victorian melodrama, The Black Veil is worth a read. However, it doesn't quite reach the brilliance of his more famous works. A solid, enjoyable tale but not one of Dickens' masterpieces.
The story showcases Dickens' flair for setting and character descriptions, effectively capturing the eerie mood. However, as much as the atmosphere is compelling, the narrative itself feels rushed, and the characters lack the depth seen in his longer works. The twist, while unsettling, can feel predictable to modern readers familiar with gothic tropes.
For fans of Dickens' darker side or Victorian melodrama, The Black Veil is worth a read. However, it doesn't quite reach the brilliance of his more famous works. A solid, enjoyable tale but not one of Dickens' masterpieces.
March 7, 2024
I really love his writing but what’s the point of the story??
April 14, 2018
It has all the elements of a classic Gothic tale infused in. It's dark, mysterious and I love it.
May 8, 2022
Charles Dickens Essay by G.K. Chesterton - 3 Stars
The Black Veil - 4 Stars
The Black Veil - 4 Stars
June 12, 2021
I enjoyed the story very much, I didn't expect it would be so mysterious, and loved the way Dickens sets up a scene to be comfortable and then very quickly fill you with dread.
What made the story stand out for me was the juxtaposition of the living conditions between peoples of different social backgrounds.
And the sense of some karmic retribution to ones actions.
This almost reads like an Edgar Allan Poe short story leveled up by social commentary.
What made the story stand out for me was the juxtaposition of the living conditions between peoples of different social backgrounds.
And the sense of some karmic retribution to ones actions.
This almost reads like an Edgar Allan Poe short story leveled up by social commentary.
March 30, 2023
*read from "Sketches By Boz" on the Project Gutenberg website for #shortformclassics
March 5, 2025
Wow ... I did not expect it to hit like that. I went in thinking, "Oh, it's just another classic short story, probably a bit strange," but what I got was straight-up gothic horror meets emotional gut punch.
Right away, when you see that the woman is very insistent to visit a patient, but only in the morning, not now even though she’s clearly desperate...you know something weird is going on. And let me tell you, the suspense is real.
The atmosphere? Creepy. The writing? So detailed you can practically hear the rain against the windows and feel the cold in the air. And the twist? It’s like getting punched in the stomach, but in a good way (if that makes sense). When the doctor finally sees the patient, let’s just say things take a turn for the dark. No spoilers, but I genuinely sat there for a moment like, Did that really just happen?
One thing that really stood out to me is how Dickens doesn’t just go for a ghost story or a murder mystery - he goes deeper. It’s not about supernatural horror, but more about real human suffering, grief, and how people break under the weight of loss. The mother’s pain in this story? Brutal. And the doctor’s realization at the end? Chilling.
Also, I have to say Dickens knew how to write suspense. Even though this was written almost 200 years ago, it still feels gripping. If you like mystery with a side of emotional devastation, give this one a read. It’s short, unsettling, and honestly kind of underrated.
Right away, when you see that the woman is very insistent to visit a patient, but only in the morning, not now even though she’s clearly desperate...you know something weird is going on. And let me tell you, the suspense is real.
The atmosphere? Creepy. The writing? So detailed you can practically hear the rain against the windows and feel the cold in the air. And the twist? It’s like getting punched in the stomach, but in a good way (if that makes sense). When the doctor finally sees the patient, let’s just say things take a turn for the dark. No spoilers, but I genuinely sat there for a moment like, Did that really just happen?
One thing that really stood out to me is how Dickens doesn’t just go for a ghost story or a murder mystery - he goes deeper. It’s not about supernatural horror, but more about real human suffering, grief, and how people break under the weight of loss. The mother’s pain in this story? Brutal. And the doctor’s realization at the end? Chilling.
Also, I have to say Dickens knew how to write suspense. Even though this was written almost 200 years ago, it still feels gripping. If you like mystery with a side of emotional devastation, give this one a read. It’s short, unsettling, and honestly kind of underrated.
December 21, 2022
This is a relatively short story first published in 1836, which begins with the following words:
’One winter’s evening, towards the close of the year 180, or within a year or two of that time, a young medical practitioner, recently established in business, was seated by a cheerful fire in his little parlour, listening to the wind which was beating the rain in pattering drops against the window, or rumbling dismally in the chimney.’
This story begins as this ‘young practitioner’ had returned home, and has made himself comfortable, dozing off a bit while thoughts float through his mind. Thoughts of old friends, alongside those of his concerns about his future, hopefully which includes the woman he hopes to marry one day. He hopes for at least a first patient to appear, and falls asleep with this on his mind.
The following morning, he sees a woman outside his door, her face covered by a veil, and he asks if she wishes to speak with him, and when she gestures with a nod, he invites her in.
This is how the story begins, although there is more to it. What I loved the most about this story, and what makes it a memorable read, for me, was the gothic aura that surrounded it.
November 19, 2024
Overview: A young physician is awaiting the chance to have his very first patient. A strange woman in a black veil seems to be seeking help. You see there is a young man that will need a physician's help tomorrow. He cannot see the good doctor any sooner. Will our physician be able to help his first patient? Let's find out.
Dislikes: The timeframe of this novel is a rather dark point. Sure, the eighteen hundreds did bring quite a bit to the "Enlightenment", however we had a few bad habits, even concerning capital punishment. Don't get me wrong, some crimes do need a more permanent solution, but it isn't a Saturday Matinee, fun for the whole family.
Likes: I can't really get too deep into this section, as that will spoil the story. Let's just say that the way our physician treated the woman, in the black veil, was beautiful.
Conclusion: Mr. Dickens is well known for his full-length novels. Perhaps it's time to check out some of his short stories. This one showed the beauty that humanity can show to one another. Enjoy the read.
Dislikes: The timeframe of this novel is a rather dark point. Sure, the eighteen hundreds did bring quite a bit to the "Enlightenment", however we had a few bad habits, even concerning capital punishment. Don't get me wrong, some crimes do need a more permanent solution, but it isn't a Saturday Matinee, fun for the whole family.
Likes: I can't really get too deep into this section, as that will spoil the story. Let's just say that the way our physician treated the woman, in the black veil, was beautiful.
Conclusion: Mr. Dickens is well known for his full-length novels. Perhaps it's time to check out some of his short stories. This one showed the beauty that humanity can show to one another. Enjoy the read.
October 23, 2025
It's been a while since I listened to an audiobook of a classic. Special thanks to "Classic Audiobooks with Elliot" on Youtube for his reading of this book.
I won't gloss over it. I love Charlesr Dickens, but this story was rather dull. It's weird how older stories we see people romanticising them. I suppose it keeps these stories in circulations, but there wasn't much to this story. I've glanced over some of the other reviews: and I seriously think some people are reading wayyyyy to into this story like that english teacher who tells you that every time an author mentions a colour it is for dramatic effect. Although in this story, the colour black literally is significant.
Not bad for a short story, but nothing to write home about either.
I won't gloss over it. I love Charlesr Dickens, but this story was rather dull. It's weird how older stories we see people romanticising them. I suppose it keeps these stories in circulations, but there wasn't much to this story. I've glanced over some of the other reviews: and I seriously think some people are reading wayyyyy to into this story like that english teacher who tells you that every time an author mentions a colour it is for dramatic effect. Although in this story, the colour black literally is significant.
Not bad for a short story, but nothing to write home about either.
February 27, 2023
‘The Black Veil’ originally published in the early 1830’s under Charles Dickens’ pen name Boz and the story was republished again along with other written works under the title ‘Sketches by Boz’. Dicken’s creates an eerie gothic tale in this short story ‘The Black Veil’. The reader can almost feel the night mist crawling over their body as they read this gothic tale. Interestingly, in true Dickens’ style, we are struck at the compassion the surgeon has for the ‘commoner’ of his day. A great short story by Charles Dickens.
April 18, 2022
One of the earlier works of Dickens. My most fav part would have to be the opening scene. The cold wet weather...A young doctor by the fireplace.. A black veiled lady... An unusual request.. And the mysterious tone.. Dickens made the atmosphere almost tangible. I got pulled into the narrative at once.
Overall, a delightful short story highlighting the descriptions of socio-economic division in our society.
Overall, a delightful short story highlighting the descriptions of socio-economic division in our society.
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