After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Charles Dickens' Christmas Ghosts

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, we are visited by three Dickensian ghosts today. One rattling chains, one made out of dark memories, and one tapping out messages on a train. Did Dickens himself believe in ghosts? What do his ghost tales tell us about the beliefs in the supernatural that were swirling around the world he lived in?Maddy and Anthony talk to Dr Frankie Kubicki, Deputy Director of the Charles Dickens Museum in London. Recorded on location in Charles Dickens' drawing room! To find out more visit: https://dickensmuseum.com/Edited by Tom Delargy, Produced by Freddy Chick, Senior Producer is Charlotte LongDiscover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up now for your 14-day free trial http://access.historyhit.com/checkout/subscribe/purchase?code=afterdark&plan=monthly

Wendy's has a new breakfast deal. Mix and match two items of your choice for only $4. Breakfast wrap, biscuit or English muffin sandwiches, small seasoned potatoes or small hot coffee. Choose two for $4 at Wendy's. Available for a limited time at participating Wendy's in Canada. Taxes extra. You don't believe in me, observed the ghost.

I don't, said Scrooge. What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses? I don't know, said Scrooge. At this, the spirit raised a frightful cry and shook its chains with such a dismal and appalling noise that Scrooge held on tight to his chair to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror when the phantom took off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, and its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast. Man of the worldly mind, replied the ghost. Do you believe in me or not?

I do, said Scrooge, I must. But why do spirits walk the earth? And why do they come to me? Hello and welcome to After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal. I'm Dr Maddy Pelling. And I'm Dr Anthony DeLaney. Today we're talking about Charles Dickens and ghosts. Dickens' ghost stories have had a massive impact on our popular culture. His ideas about ghosts have become our ideas about ghosts. Now much like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, we're going to be meeting three Dickensian ghosts, learning how he created a Christmas tradition, or not,

how he used ghosts to talk about the death of his sister and reflect on revolutionary ideas about the supernatural that were sweeping the world in his lifetime. And we're doing it, unbelievably, in his drawing room. What an absolutely incredible location. So glad that we've been able to actually do it here. Not only are Anthony and I here, but we are joined by Dr Frankie Kibitzky, the Deputy Director of the Charles Dickens Museum. Frankie, welcome to After Dark. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having us.

We're here in his space, in what was his space. And I'd love for you to be able to tell our listeners what happened in this house in the course of Charles Dickens' life. What did he experience when he was under this roof? What were the formative things that unfolded right here? Sadly, no ghosts that have been communicated to us. But otherwise, it is a really interesting space. So it's his first adult home

that he moves in with his family and he becomes a celebrated writer here. So we're sitting in the drawing room at the moment, which is the grand room. This is the entertaining room where he might have had his guests to stay after dinner for a drink or some nibbles or something. But next door is his study, which, of course, we like to think of as the work engine of this house.

So this is where he's writing his novels, he's writing his correspondence, and he's sort of creating some fantastic artworks that we know, such as Oliver Twist, The End of the Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby. So he's doing all of those things. But of course, he's a human person too. So he had his children living here, he had his wife living here. And sadly, he had one of the more formative experiences of his young life. When Dickens moved in, it was a common practice for a new wife to bring their sister to live with them, which is something I think we find quite strange today. But it was something that was quite typical in the period, the idea that the older sister could train the younger sister in how to be a great housewife, how to, you know, look after a house and strut

servants. And of course, the sister could have a bit of company because it was quite lonely being a Victorian woman at that point. Catherine Dickens wasn't allowed to go out by herself or do all the things that Dickens could do. So the idea is that she could have a bit of company. Now, at that point, Catherine's sister, Mary, moves in with the family and lives upstairs in the bedroom that you can see on the second floor. And Mary is a bit like Catherine herself or like Dickens, a fantastic character, a really interesting person. And Dickens is very fond of her. He tells her stories and all sorts of things. And he cares what she thinks of the stories that he's writing.

So they have a really good friendship and really good relationship. But sadly, when Mary was only 17, she actually passes away in this house. Wow. Okay. So there's a sense of trauma here, even if her ghost isn't here. There's a sense that this was a really formative moment for Dickens. Exactly. It's really interesting. If you're thinking in terms of the scale, Dickens, like many people in the 19th century, or many people today, had many bereavements or sadnesses or things that are really horrific to us today. He lost one of his children, all sorts of horrible things. But at that point, it's the only time really in his career that he doesn't write to deadline.

It has such a huge impact on him. He can't finish his latest part of Oliver Twist. And you can see really, you know, this is a hugely upsetting moment. A lot of people have speculated on how Dickens responds to it and the fact he takes it so personally. But you've got to think at that point, you know, he's meant to be protecting Mary. He's meant to be the adult, the protector, the gentleman of the household. And he feels really that he's let her down. It's one of those moments where you're reminded when you're in these really incredible spaces of the feelings that were

encapsulated within these four walls. The idea that Dickens himself goes to one of those windows following her death, looks out, what's he feeling? What's he thinking? What's he seeing? What's happening behind him? What are the sounds he's hearing upstairs as people lay out his sister-in-law? It makes these spaces so incredibly unique because the experiences, despite the fact that we all have an idea of what grief feels like, the experiences are still unique and nowhere else can replicate that like this particular space can. It's wonderful. and i think one of the things i really love about this house is of course it's laid out as a home so you start to think about him as a person how he lived his relationships with his family you know very mundane things

about you know how he wrote his letters how many stairs he would have climbed up and down every day but i also love it because of the big windows you get a sense of the season and the lighting and of course that's really interesting, you know, thinking about technology and all that sort of part of domestic life as well. And I think in that way, you feel kind of a bit more connected to him and connected to the Victorian period. And you can see his relationship to the city outside. You can look out of the same windows and see the London that's similar to the London that Dickens could see.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, Dickens chose this house because he was very interested in the location. It was very easy to get to the theatre. It was very easy to get to his publisher. He was still in the middle of it. Saffron Hill, which was famously where Fagin's lair was based, is only around the corner. And I think, you know, that is something that really influenced Dickens. You're sort of teak by jowl with the sort of fancy or the less fancy or the criminal or all the people that are in London, which makes London such an amazing city. You mentioned a few moments ago about the seasons and him watching the seasons

change out of the window. If you haven't noticed, or if you haven't noticed the listeners that can't see what we're seeing, we are surrounded by some incredibly deep red velvets and some greenery and lovely Christmas trees, some holly, red berries. We are in the season of Christmas right now. And I think people have this idea that Dickens brings together Christmas plus ghost stories. How accurate is that? Is this something that comes from an older tradition or is it something that he invents? Absolutely. I think most people when they think of Charles Dickens, they think of a Christmas carol. And of course, this is one of, you know, I think the English language's most famous ghost stories, or at least one of the most adapted and well known today. And Dickens, you know, he creates

this mammoth success, it really cements his celebrity. But what Dickens is doing is he's not inventing this idea, he's actually reading the zeitgeist and reading what people are already doing, but he's just put it into book form. So it's very interesting. Dickens had always been interested in ghost stories and he's always told his own ghost stories. But with The Christmas Carol, we see it put in a novella form that became incredibly successful. So he's not so much inventing it, but just putting it on paper and kind of popularising it. What really interests me I think about A Christmas Carol other than its popularity and the immense success that it enjoyed is just how old-fashioned it seemed even in Dickens' own time and the ghosts that he conjures I guess they owe something to a gothic tradition that maybe started 50, 60 years before. Are these

ghosts that he is drawing from stories of his own childhood? Why is he using these kinds of old fashioned specters? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's really important. I think if you think about Dickens in the ghost story, you have to go back to his own childhood. So Dickens as a child was looked after by a nursemaid who actually greatly enjoyed telling him ghost stories. so much so that he sort of later reflects that they're a bit age inappropriate and in fact he remembers being utterly terrified by them but i think that really kind of sows the seed for his own fascination in this idea of frightening someone the performance of ghost stories so that definitely is something that

really sits with dickens so much so actually he writes a series of ghost stories kind of based on those that he was told as a child called the nursemaid stories, or the nurse's stories, I should say. And it's really interesting because that always stays with him. Also, as a young teenager, he sort of got really into horror magazines in a way that I think lots of people could identify with. It's very relatable. I think we can relate to that. It's called the Terrific Register and he got sort of very interested in it and so all of these things kind of mix up as he's growing

up as an adult and kind of create this idea of his ghost story. So yeah there's definitely lots of references kind of feeding into the creation of Marley's ghost and all the other ghosts that kind of haunt that story. You've touched there on some of the other ghosts that Dickens colours his world with. What do you think is the difference between those ghosts and the ghosts that really endure in the popular imagination, such as Marley's ghost, such as the ghost in A Christmas Carol? Do you have any opinions, ideas, theories as to why some have really latched onto the public imagination? So I think the Christmas Carol is really interesting because it is a story of redemption. And that is really the heart of it. He's using ghosts to teach people lessons.

And, you know, you see this amazing transformation of Scrooge. So I think in that way, there's a benevolence to the ghost which appeals to people. And even if you don't really like ghosts, they're sort of good ghosts. And I think also with Dickens, he just writes great characters. So if you're thinking of all the different ghosts of, you know, Christmas, present, future, they are characters in themselves, even though, of course, one of them famously doesn't speak. And I think, you know, that creates a humanness to a ghost, which I think adds a resonance to it. But I think for me, it is this idea of redemption and the benevolence of the ghosts that perhaps speak to people that are sceptic or speak to people that are very scared of ghosts in a way that perhaps other

ghost stories doesn't. And they sell too, right? That's the thing. Dickens is trying to make a living. We can, I think, forget that sometimes with the distance of 150 plus years where we're thinking he's creating art, which of course he is, and enduring art, but he's also trying to make a living. Absolutely. And I think this is such an important factor if you're thinking about his Christmas stories, which are predominantly the ghost stories, and also, of course, you know, Christmas Carol, which is the most successful, famous of them all, is that the sort of genesis for that story is very interesting. It comes from his desire to really help poor children and children that are suffering at the hands of bad working practices. He decides that actually, you know, he was going to write a pamphlet but that is not

going to cut it that's not going to get enough attention so he decides to write a story and so you know that is one element of a Christmas Carol but the second element which is really important and sometimes gets overlooked is the fact that actually his previous novel Martin Chelswick really doesn't do very well it's's not very successful. And he's worried, his publishers are worried that he can't create another success. So, you know, A Christmas Carol is really trying to create the success that he needs, but also to create some money for him in a base level.

So it's a really interesting book because you've got all of these different elements. And I suppose if you start to think further along, so A Christmas Carol is in 1843, he writes Christmas sort of ghost stories right up until 1867, because they are so popular and people want to read them and they want to buy them. One thing, Frankie, that really interests me about Dickens is that the ghosts that he writes, they stay with him throughout his career. And he writes A Christmas Carol to begin with

with these ghosts that are from his youth from his childhood from the generations before him but he introduces us over the course of a huge successful career to all kinds of ghosts and ghosts that really shape shift through that period and they reflect the anxieties of the Victorian age the hopes I guess of Dickens, but of the society that he's living in. Absolutely. I think you can see in some ways a sort of trajectory in Dickens's writing where he becomes sort of darker as he ages. He grapples with his own fame and his own family problems and all sorts of things. And I think this is reflected through all his writing. But of course, it's reflected in his ghost stories as well. For me, one of my personal favourites, which perhaps speaks to that is The Signalman so this is written in 1866 it's a really haunting tale I won't talk too much about

it because it's a short one and I really want people to go and read it but it's about a signalman who you know suffers a ghostly incident but what I really think is so powerful about that one is it isn't as redemptive or joyful of a Christmas carol, but equally it's sown within his own experiences as well. The year previously, he's in a terrible train crash. And actually, it's interesting. So ghost stories, almost like he's working through his own trauma. And again, like you say, a lot of these anxieties of the period of modernization of all of these

things are coming out within this fantastic festive ghost story i have to say the signalman is my favorite dickens ghost story and yet there's something there about ghostliness around modern technology and i think that's maybe not unique to dickens but it's certainly something that he introduces us to is this idea that ghosts can be part of the modern world you know we think of ghosts today Anthony you're talking about this home that we're in and the tangibility of the past but I think often Dickens gives us ghosts in our own moment in his own moment certainly and I think there must have been something so satisfying and terrifying for his readers in the 19th century to come across those ghosts that were appearing, albeit in fiction, in real

settings that they would have encountered. I think absolutely, because I think a lot of this idea of the ghost story is about, you know, the oral traditions or nostalgic traditions of people perhaps looking back to their childhood or what their ancestors did. But I think you're completely right. Dickens sort of then cuts them and brings them right into the present moment which adds this amazing sort of uncanny element that is something that we could all experience. I think uncanny is the word. Let's meet our second Dickensian Christmas ghost. This is from The Haunted Man published in 1848 so just a few years after the Christmas Carol, but a lot's been happening in Dickens' life between those two dates. The haunted man is called Redlaw.

Here's the scene where we first meet Redlaw's ghost while Redlaw is sitting by the fire. As the gloom and shadow thickened behind him, in that place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took by slow degrees, or out of it, there came by some unreal, unsubstantial process, an awful likeness of himself. It took no more apparent heed of him than he of it. The Christmas waits were playing somewhere in the distance and Red Law seemed to listen to the music. The phantom seemed to listen too. At length Red Law spoke without moving or lifting up his face. Here again, here again, replied the phantom. Who are you? asked Redlaw. I am he, answered the phantom, who had a sister.

The phantom, with an evil smile, drew closer to the chair and resting its chin upon its folded hands, its folded hands upon the back, and looking down into his face with searching eyes that seemed instinct with fire went on. We'll be right back. Participating Wendy's in Canada. Taxes extra. Catherine of Aragon. Anne Boleyn. Jane Seymour. Anne of Cleves. Catherine Howard. Catherine Parr. Six wives, six lives. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, I'm joined by a host of experts to tell the stories of the six queens of Henry VIII,

who shaped and changed England forever. Subscribe to and follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things you spoke about earlier, Frankie, was Charles Dickens choosing to write a novel instead of producing a pamphlet. And I think a lot of that comes down to invoking feeling and making people feel something and making people feel something of what potentially he had felt or what he was feeling and in this particular ghost ghost

story there is a clue to what he might have been feeling because he has lost a sister himself hasn't he so there is an element of truth in this for him absolutely so the haunted man is uh it The Haunted Man comes out in December 1848. Just a few months before, in September 1848, Dickens loses his older sister. They're incredibly close. She's a really talented musician. They were great friends during childhood, still extremely close. And very sadly, she died of consumption, or what we now know as tuberculosis at the age of 38. It's a really a horrific event for Dickens and something that causes some great sadness. And what I think is really interesting about The Haunted Man is, of course, the protagonist of the story, Professor Redlaw, has lost his own sister. And this is the deep cause of his own sadness throughout the story.

There's a real sort of art mirroring life in it and it's something that is you know a really poignant way of thinking about Dickens's own feelings at that time. So it's quite interesting to kind of look to real life Dickens. Talk to me Frankie a little bit about the ghost in The Haunted Man because it serves quite a different purpose doesn't it to the ghost, the three ghosts that we get in A Christmas Carol. Redlaw's ghost is Redlaw it's a doppelganger of the main character and he seems to crawl out of the fireplace and Redlaw in his grief is confronted with himself so what is this ghost doing it feels quite modern it feels quite maybe psychological is that something that Dickens is interested in? I think absolutely I think what's really interesting about the book is that it looks a lot

about memory and in that sense it is quite psychological it is the sort of hauntings of our mind compared to say you know otherworldly hauntings and in that sense I think it's quite powerful I think you're right it's darker in that sense. It's really scary. Yeah, really creepy. And I think The Ghost is definitely darker. And it is really a book about memory. And of course, when you're thinking about Christmas,

what is something that we're all haunted by at Christmas? It is the memories of loved ones we've lost or sadnesses that we might have had throughout the year as we look forward to a new year and a new beginning. I think in that sense Dickens is harping back to a very old tradition if you're thinking about more pagan ideas of rebirth but also you know being very real to the fact that a lot of us suffer from grief and in that sense we are haunted by it and that's what I think Professor Redlaw does so well it is that psychological grief that haunts us that they really are portraying. I think Charles Dickens would have been a really good guest in After Dark.

I agree. I agree. I mean, seance anyone? I know. Right. Speaking of seances, we're not about to do one. Lock us out of this house immediately. Shall we do another ghost? Yes, please. I think this is our final one, actually. This time it's a later one, and it's called The Haunted House, which we've referenced already. Published in 1857 when Dickens was 49. So the story starts with a central character, John, who is on a night train, and the gentleman sitting opposite him is being very

strange. Now that often happens on trains. That's something we can all relate to, I think. He's listening intently to the sounds of the train, apparently, and then jotting down the words and the letters in a notebook, as if it's some kind of Morse code. John finally turns to his fellow traveller and he says, I beg your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular? I have passed the night, said the gentleman contemptuously, as indeed I pass the whole of my time now in spiritual intercourse.

Well, said I, and asked if I might be favoured with the last communication. A bird in the hand, said the gentleman, reading his last entry with great solemnity, is worth two in the Bosch. Truly, I am of the same opinion, said I, but shouldn't it be Bush? It came to me, Bosch, returned the gentleman. The gentleman then informed me that Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet under the direction of Mrs Timmer and Mary Queen of Scots. Now, Frankie, what we're getting here is someone

in his story who's claiming to talk to people beyond the grave. This is another sort of 19th century phenomenon, isn't it? And it's one that Dickens has quite an interesting relationship with. He's sceptical, a little bit interested, again, sort of dallying and trying to experiment, feel his way with it. But he's not entirely sold, is he? Absolutely. So we were talking a little bit about the context of the period

that Dickens was writing in terms of his own life, but also changes that are happening in society. And one of the things, if you're looking at Dickens's ghost stories, is in the 1840s, 50s, there is a wave of interest in spiritualism. So this idea that people can communicate with the dead through a medium or there can be sort of ghostly interactions, codes or different ways of communicating with people that have passed that becomes hugely popular. Seances at this point are really popular. I believe that Queen Victoria even attended a seance. You know, it's something that is ripping through society. And of course, Dickens isn't immune to this interest.

And, you know, with the supernatural interest that we've just been discussing that he has, he sort of starts to investigate it. What's interesting about Dickens is he needs to see it for himself. And so he goes around as a good investigative journalist, trying to find ways of having ghostly encounters so he can see what it's like. How real is it? Is it something that he should be thinking about? Or, you know, is it as his leanings as a sceptic are calling to him a sort of a fraud? These people are making money out of people that are grieving, making out people that are in a lot of pain, which was something that he took really against.

of this investigative sort of bent of Dickens is on Halloween in 1859, he writes to a very famous spiritualist, someone who believed greatly in it, published books later on the subject, called William Howart. Now, Howart, as a sort of a believer, responds to Dickens. Dickens requested for a list of haunted houses that him and his good colleague, Johns Hollinghead, can go to visit and to have ghostly experiences themselves. So Harrod responds with a list of houses. And it's interesting that once Dickens says that they're not going to pay for it, the list dwindles.

It's unsurprising. It's unsurprising. But anyway, they do end up going to a pub in Holborn to see if there are any ghostly things. Now... How convenient, a pub. I know. That's what we've settled on.

Exactly. I think, you know, you could see how Dickens was sceptic there and he thought, well, I don't think I'm going to see anything, but I might as well get a pint. And, you know, they didn't have any of these ghostly happenings. And it's interesting, other places that they visit or how it recommended, people that they spoke to in the area didn't know of these hauntings. So he becomes very, very sceptical of these recommendations,

but generally the practice of spiritualists as well. Later on, obviously at this point, they're rather friendly, they're writing to each other, but later on, they have quite a large falling out around the time that Howard publishes his book in 1863 on sort of spiritualism. And Dickens really begins to call out this practice in a number of articles that are written in his journals. And in particular, he makes fun of wrappings. So this idea of the taps that you might communicate with the dead writing something along the lines of you know I might get a wrapping in my head if I drink enough port you know I might

get a wrapping in my stomach if I have a sort of dodgy pie and he starts to really tease it and Harrod gets really quite offended and they have this falling out but it's quite interesting because he starts open to it, but quickly he realises that actually this practice or a lot of the people that are claiming to be spiritualists aren't really what they say they are. It seems to me that Dickens is really intellectually engaged in this, that not only is he interested in whether or not these phenomena are real, but also he then becomes invested in proving that they're not. And it becomes part of his reputation on the line, as well as other people's. And it's something that he feels really strongly about. How much time in

his career as a writer, as a public figure, is he giving to these kinds of questions? Is this a huge part of his life, this interest in the supernatural, in spiritualism, in ghosts more broadly? Obviously, he's writing about them in his fiction, but is this dominating a huge portion of his day every day? I mean, this seems to be a huge issue for him. Dickens is a fantastic performer and that's something that really sits in all of his works.

He's an amateur actor. He does brilliant one-man shows towards the later sort of all of his works. He's an amateur actor. He does brilliant one-man shows towards the later sort of part of his life. He also writes his novel to be performed out loud. And all of this kind of shows you his interesting in storytelling. And I think with ghost stories, it's particularly important

because there is such power in telling a ghost story. When you have someone, it's an incredible feeling. And I think that is what really speaks to Dickens about writing the ghost stories that we know or the ghost story tradition. So in that sense, I think that really underpins Dickens' interest in it. But of course, if you're writing ghost stories or you're involved in people writing ghost stories, people start to contact you in terms of beliefs that they've had or experiences that they had and of course people start to perhaps think that Dickens does believe in ghosts and I think he starts to question it in some ways because obviously he can

see the power of a ghost story but he doesn't believe in the practice of it and I think that's a really interesting part of his drive towards the end of that period to kind of take down the spiritualists, because that's not really what he's interested in. He wants to explore it. He wants to see it for himself and he's not against it. But as the evidence grows and he visits lots of places, he meets different people and he's not found any ghosts. He starts just to really question it. different people and he's not found any ghosts he starts just to really question it i think maybe it's fair to say that what he believes in is the power these stories and these ghosts whatever you define a ghost to be these ghosts have and he sees people maybe abusing that power in the spiritualist community and taking you know advantage of of people and taking their money so maybe it's the

power that he's buying into i guess yeah absolutely yeah absolutely he believes in the power of those stories and that's what really interests him but he's also can see how people are using this medium that he uses you know for entertainment for joy and taking advantage of people I think power is a really interesting word when you think about storytelling and Dickens because we know that actually around 1844, he comes back from Italy. He's in Italy at that moment. And he tells all of his friends

his latest supernatural story, which is The Chimes. And he does this fantastic private reading for his friends. We've got a little illustration, actually, a copy of the illustration just behind you. You can see a group of people sort of gathered together. And when he's writing to his wife, telling her about this experience, he says that one of his friends, the great actor, William McCready, is really sobbing. And he writes to his wife, Catherine, and says what it is to have power,

what a thing it is to have power. And I think that really underpins his interest in this, you know, as a performer, telling a great story. So we know that Dickens never got any concrete evidence, shall we say, of hauntings or spiritualism in his life. Have you or your staff or anybody you visit here ever experienced anything that they would refer to as being unexplainable, supernatural, paranormal, however you want to phrase it? We get this question actually quite a lot.

And I always feel like such a party pooper because I have spent a lot of time in this house and a huge privilege by myself after dark. And I have had no ghostly experiences. Obviously, I spend a lot of time thinking about Dickens, communicating with Dickens in other ways. So I would hope that he would feel that he could communicate to me if he wanted to. But sadly not. It's interesting. would hope that he would feel that he could communicate to me if he wanted to um but sadly not it's interesting i think one of the things that we really have as quite a special place for lots of people that love dickens celebrate dickens love his novels love the work love adaptations anything to do with the stories that live on for dickens is they do have what could be classed as

a spiritual experience next door in the study. And that I find fascinating. So I've never seen his ghost in there. But there is a different aura when some people that are big fans of Dickens see his desk. And they are standing in his study where he wrote these great books that they love. And then they see his writing desk.

And it's a testament to the power, again, of his fiction, isn't it? That people feel some of that energy, some of that power is imbued in this setting, and that they can access it by coming here. And I think certainly being here after dark today, it does feel there is a sense of activity in the house, past activity, things that have happened, lives that have been lived here. And I think you can tap into that, I think. If you enjoyed this episode of After Dark, please follow wherever you get your podcasts. And if you really liked us, and I know you did, you definitely really liked this,

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