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The Signalman: A Ghost Story for Christmas
Revive a spooky, old Christmas tradition.
Reading a ghost story on Christmas Eve was once as much a part of traditional Christmas Celebrations as turkey, eggnog and Santa Claus.
First published in 1866 for a special Christmas issue of ALL THE YEAR ROUND, Charles Dickens' THE SIGNALMAN has since fallen into obscurity. An eerie story of isolation, dread and supernatural visitation, this book is a small treasure, meant to be read aloud on a cold, dark winter night.
Reading a ghost story on Christmas Eve was once as much a part of traditional Christmas Celebrations as turkey, eggnog and Santa Claus.
First published in 1866 for a special Christmas issue of ALL THE YEAR ROUND, Charles Dickens' THE SIGNALMAN has since fallen into obscurity. An eerie story of isolation, dread and supernatural visitation, this book is a small treasure, meant to be read aloud on a cold, dark winter night.
51 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1866
128 people are currently reading
3166 people want to read
About the author
Charles Dickens
12.4k books30.8k 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 847 reviews
July 9, 2025
Choo-Chooooo
An old watchman works the night shift in a lonely isolated shack in the midst of the countryside; his job being the signal-man for the local train that passes through the area. A job mostly chill and uneventful, if not for that strange shadowy figure that appears every now and then at the dark mouth of the train tunnel. A presence that foreshadows ill-fated events. A presence that foreshadows death.
This was not that bad, all things considering. Certainly had all the vibes of one of Ambrose Bierce's short stories. Charles Dickens certainly knows how to paint apretty gloomy picture when he wants to, although in a not unfrequently convoluted kind of way, which I'm not particularly fond of.
Somewhat predictable on the whole, but still good. My mind wandered at the beginning, for which I'm grateful since it allowed me to write a small draft for a short story of my own, which will probably be ready in a few years, once I get tired of procrastinating it enough.
I'm not a fan of Dickens at all, but I think this shortie may prove interesting for those inclined for his writings. So be my guest if you want to try it.
It’s public domain. You can find it HERE.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1866] [28p] [Horror] [2.5] [Not Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
★★★☆☆ A Christmas Carol.
★★★☆☆ The Signal-Man. [2.5]
-----------------------------------------------
Chuu-Chuuuuu
Un viejo vigilante trabaja en el turno de la noche en una solitaria choza aislada en el medio de los campos; su trabajo ser el señalizador para un tren local que pasa por la zona. Un trabajo mayormente tranquilo y sin incidentes, si no fuera por esa extraña sombría figura que aparece de vez en cuando en la oscura boca del túnel del tren. Una presencia que presagia acontecimientos macabros. Una presencia que presagia la muerte.
Esto no estuvo tan mal, dentro de todo. Ciertamente tiene toda la vibra de uno de los cuentos cortos de Ambrose Bierce. Charles Dickens ciertamente sabe cómo pintar unlindo sombrío cuadro cuando quiere, aunque no pocas veces de una manera terriblemente enrevesada, de la que no soy particularmente adepto.
Algo predecible en general, pero igual bueno. Mi mente divagó al principio, lo cual agradezco ya que me permitió escribir un pequeño borrador para un cuento propio, que probablemente estará listo en algunos años, cuando me haya cansado de posponerlo lo suficiente.
No soy fanático de Dickens para nada, pero creo que este corto puede resultar interesante para aquellos que disfrutan de sus escritos. Así que adelante si querés intentarlo.
Es dominio público, lo pueden encontrar ACA.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1866] [28p] [Horror] [2.5] [No Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
An old watchman works the night shift in a lonely isolated shack in the midst of the countryside; his job being the signal-man for the local train that passes through the area. A job mostly chill and uneventful, if not for that strange shadowy figure that appears every now and then at the dark mouth of the train tunnel. A presence that foreshadows ill-fated events. A presence that foreshadows death.
This was not that bad, all things considering. Certainly had all the vibes of one of Ambrose Bierce's short stories. Charles Dickens certainly knows how to paint a
Somewhat predictable on the whole, but still good. My mind wandered at the beginning, for which I'm grateful since it allowed me to write a small draft for a short story of my own, which will probably be ready in a few years, once I get tired of procrastinating it enough.
I'm not a fan of Dickens at all, but I think this shortie may prove interesting for those inclined for his writings. So be my guest if you want to try it.
It’s public domain. You can find it HERE.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1866] [28p] [Horror] [2.5] [Not Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
★★★☆☆ A Christmas Carol.
★★★☆☆ The Signal-Man. [2.5]
-----------------------------------------------
Chuu-Chuuuuu
Un viejo vigilante trabaja en el turno de la noche en una solitaria choza aislada en el medio de los campos; su trabajo ser el señalizador para un tren local que pasa por la zona. Un trabajo mayormente tranquilo y sin incidentes, si no fuera por esa extraña sombría figura que aparece de vez en cuando en la oscura boca del túnel del tren. Una presencia que presagia acontecimientos macabros. Una presencia que presagia la muerte.
Esto no estuvo tan mal, dentro de todo. Ciertamente tiene toda la vibra de uno de los cuentos cortos de Ambrose Bierce. Charles Dickens ciertamente sabe cómo pintar un
Algo predecible en general, pero igual bueno. Mi mente divagó al principio, lo cual agradezco ya que me permitió escribir un pequeño borrador para un cuento propio, que probablemente estará listo en algunos años, cuando me haya cansado de posponerlo lo suficiente.
No soy fanático de Dickens para nada, pero creo que este corto puede resultar interesante para aquellos que disfrutan de sus escritos. Así que adelante si querés intentarlo.
Es dominio público, lo pueden encontrar ACA.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1866] [28p] [Horror] [2.5] [No Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
December 6, 2019
A first person narrator meets a mysterious signal man who tells him he sees a spectre appearing every time something bad happens. The signal man is downcast because he couldn't any train accidents shown by the spectre. One time the signal man is missing as our first person narrator wants to see him. What happened to him? Fine ghost story with some eerie elements in it. A classic and recommended for some spine tingling moments.
December 19, 2023
Story 14/72 from Black Water 1 (The Anthology of Fantastic Literature) read together with The Short Story Club
Charles Dickens needs no introduction, I suppose. This story also seems to be popular although I've never heard of it before starting Black Water anthology. A signalman (for trains) sees some sort of a spectre who predicts tragedies. The signalman tells the story to a stranger, the narrator, who, at first, does not believe him. it was spooky but I've read better Dickens.
Charles Dickens needs no introduction, I suppose. This story also seems to be popular although I've never heard of it before starting Black Water anthology. A signalman (for trains) sees some sort of a spectre who predicts tragedies. The signalman tells the story to a stranger, the narrator, who, at first, does not believe him. it was spooky but I've read better Dickens.
February 24, 2023
A signalman, working in an isolated area near a tunnel, tells his story to a visitor of the apparitions that haunt him. Sinister tale by Charles Dickens, free on Audible and a great performance.
April 13, 2025
Charles Dickens’s The Signal-Man is a well-nigh perfect ghost story: one of my favourite stories of all time. It has a disjointed, eerie feel right from the start, with unearthly events which are inexplicable without recourse to the supernatural. There is a sense of dislocation, and foreboding heightened by its being rooted in the familiar. There is a ghastly premonition of death
— and not just in the story.
I first watched this story on television in 1976, as the BBC’s “Ghost Story for Christmas” starring Denholm Elliott. Every Christmas the BBC used to dramatise a short story by M.R. James, just as the author himself used to write just one each year, and read it to his friends sitting round the fire in his Oxford College rooms. We'd anticipated and watched them since we were teenagers.
This one wasn't familiar to me, but both my husband and I loved it! We were totally gripped and absorbed by it, and found enough of mystery and dread in the strange occurrences without needing anything else. There was an immense sense of foreboding, and it felt like a premonition, but we couldn't see how. It was claustrophobic, and having no back story added to this feeling. And the ending was a complete shock.
I was staggered to then see the credits at the end and learn that it was not a story by M.R. James, but by Charles Dickens. It was the first dramatisation in the series by a different author. And yet only years later did I realise how significant and prescient it had been for Charles Dickens.
A railway is essentially a practical thing; a way for getting from A to B, with a known, physical destination. But this story has far more to do with destiny itself than a geographical destination. It feels fatalistic, showing in different guises an immutable, predestined series of events in time, rather than a journey to a place. Precognition, dread, uncertainty, a sense of responsibility and guilt — and finally a desperate feeling of impotence, all play into the characters’ sense of helplessness, as we watch the tragic chain of events gradually unfold. Is everything predetermined as we are told? And as the final moments reveal new perceptions, a shiver of horror descends through us, and we begin to wonder afresh.
No. 1 Branch Line: The Signal-man, (to give it its full title) has a cast of just two main characters: the narrator and the unnamed signal-man of the title. The gradually building tension they feel is palpable to us too, and the story feels claustrophobic throughout. The setting? Just a few square feet at the entrance to Hell. Well … perhaps that is a little too fanciful, but this apparently straightforward ghost story certainly owes its origins to its author’s personal hellish experience.
In the afternoon of June 9, 1865 an elderly man was travelling by the boat train from Folkestone in Kent to London, accompanied by his mistress Nelly Ternan and her mother, Frances. Railways were still in their infancy, and the man was a keen enthusiast; the party travelled in a First Class carriage. Today however, was not to be a pleasurable journey. There was a hideous accident. Some rails had been removed for routine maintenance, and as the train passed over a viaduct near Staplehurst, the train jumped a gap in the line. The cast iron viaduct fractured, and most of the carriages skewed dramatically, and fell into the river below.
Our three travellers were in the first carriage which derailed sideways, but did not completely fall into the river. Their carriage was suspended at a precarious angle, held by the coupling of the coach in front, and supported by the remains of the viaduct structure. Ensuring that the other two were safe, the man showed remarkable courage, losing no time in helping to rescue other passengers, at the risk of his own life. He climbed out of his compartment through the window, and then looked after as many of the victims as he could, giving them brandy and water. Some died in his arms. Eventually an emergency train to London arrived.
An investigation revealed that the accident had been due to a signalman’s negligence. What became known as the “Staplehurst Rail Crash” took the lives of ten people, and left forty injured. The directors of the South Eastern Railway were so impressed with the man’s bravery, that they presented him with a piece of plate, to mark their appreciation for his assistance in the aftermath of the horrific rail accident.
The man, of course, was Charles Dickens.
Only after the emergency services arrived, did he go back into the carriage to get the manuscript he was working on — the next installment of what was destined to be his final completed novel,“Our Mutual Friend”. Amazingly, it was published as planned, in the same month. But the entire experience affected Charles Dickens greatly, and contributed to the illness which led to his death. He was traumatised, reliving the experience over and over again. He completely lost his voice for two weeks. Afterwards, he was always nervous when travelling by train, and avoided it whenever he could. Charles Dickens, the confident, great train-lover, had what amounts to a kind of phobia. His son stated that he “never fully recovered” from the shock, trying for all his life after this event, to drive away his inner demons.
The famous author tried to dispel the memories, using his best powers of story telling to convert them into something he could accept. This story is on its own in all his oeuvre. There is no humour, for one thing. No cheeky sprites here, or the sexton Gabriel Grub’s goblins. No compassion, or jollity, as in the Spirits of “A Christmas Carol”. There is no wicked smile on the face of the author writing this piece. The spectre here is in deadly earnest.
The timing is key. Every year, Charles Dickens’s public clamoured for his latest Christmas book, and every year he obliged. After “A Christmas Carol” came four more annual Christmas books, and then each year afterwards he obliged with a special Christmas story. This was one in a long line: a sort of “branch line”. Charles Dickens also seems to have had in mind the “Clayton Tunnel crash”, a major disaster which occurred in 1861. Readers of “The Signal-man” five years later, would have been very familiar with the tragedy in Clayton Tunnel.
The story forms a part of the collection “Mugby Junction” a collaborative set of short stories written in 1866 by Charles Dickens, Charles Collins, Amelia B. Edwards, Andrew Halliday, and Hesba Stretton. The other authors each contributed an individual story to the collection, and Charles Dickens devised the frame structure “Mugby Junction” with three pieces to start: “Barbox Brothers”, “Barbox Brothers and Company”, and “Main Line: The Boy at Mugby”.
No. 1 Branch Line: The Signal-man is the fourth and last story written by Charles Dickens himself for this collection. The four subsequent stories by his collaborators are titled “No. 2 Branch Line …” and so on. The whole, “Mugby Junction”was first published in an Extra Christmas Edition of Charles Dickens’s own monthly magazine, “All the Year Round” in 1866, the year after the Staplehurst Rail Crash.
The story starts off kilter:
“'Halloa! Below there!’
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole.”
Straightaway our focus is directed to the signal-man. It is he, oddly unresponsive and preoccupied, whom we concentrate on. He is far “below”, at the foot of a deep chasm of a railway cutting, in the bowels of the earth. Nearby is a vast, black tunnel, dimly lit by a single red signal lamp. And yet who has called? It is the first person narrator. Back we zoom, to inhabit the viewpoint character’s vision once more — but our attention is immediately derailed, by:
“a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down.”
A monstrous, overpowering force, gone as swiftly as it came. A fast steam train. “He”, yet again, then swerving back to “I”.
“Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?”
And as the signal-man reluctantly indicates a zigzag path, the narrator descends:
“through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down”. So we settle for the narrator’s viewpoint: his telling of uncanny events, accepting his curiosity as natural, and the signal-man’s edginess as a result of inhabiting such a “solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw”.
And what a hellish place this is. A veritable Dante’s Inferno of a hole, a:
“dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.”
We follow the conversation between the two, and learn just why the signal-man is emotionally exhausted, and full of angst. He has great intelligence, despite his menial position, and has studied Science and Philosophy whilst confined in his hut. This signal-man does not seem the type given to morbid fantasies. He is, the narrator observes: “one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity”. And yet …
The stories he tells, which he swears are the truth, of a spectral visit before tragedy, defy belief in any logical sense. He knows this himself, and is self-consciously evasive; unwilling to share them, only being persuaded at the narrator’s insistence. He is “exact and vigilant”, as the narrator says, so why does he get these warnings, he wonders. Why has he been chosen to have this terrible responsibility? “What does the spectre mean?”
What does it all mean — and what can he possibly do about these events outside his control?
“His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life.”
One, two, three stories in a subsequent visit. Do we believe them? With the signal-man’s obsessive overriding sense of duty preventing him from escaping this purgatory, Charles Dickens seems to be telling us that the only thing which we can be held responsible for in life is our own fate.
The narrator shrugs the stories off. The signal-man is, he says, torturing himself unnecessarily over what he perceives to be his failure at the job. These events are all mere coincidence:
“The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.”
A bell. A light. Everyday warnings but made other-worldly: ghastly portents when enforced solitude and anxiety cause the imagination to run wild. A telling gesture.
Premonitions. Foretellings of doom. A phantom figure whose appearance presages disasters. I’m not going to tell you the story: it’s a ghost story. If you really want to know, read the blurb — or better still read the story itself. It will only take you a few minutes. And the ending will turn all your careful, rational explanations on their head, and leave you wondering just where the boundaries of our responsibilities lie.
Do we believe the narrator is credible, and unbiased? He seems trustworthy and logical, echoing our scepticism in acknowledging the strangeness of the events. He says, as we would ourselves, that the were a “remarkable coincidence”. One of the most disturbing but telling moments in this story is when the narrator hears as testimony a phrase which he had only imagined . He never actually spoke these words out loud, and yet there they are: another indication that these tragic events were predetermined or fated to happen. Everything else, including free will, is just an illusion. Either than or the narrator himself is part of the haunting.
Or perhaps the message here is a simple moral imperative: not to settle for less than your potential. We cannot be responsible for the whims of fate, but if we complacently accept our lot in society, and do not strike out, we will ultimately sink into a hell which devours individuality and crushes potential. Nor can we expect to save everyone — a lesson which Charles Dickens had learned the hard way only recently. Plus of course, he had had to fight his background and early experience, to get to the point he wanted. He is telling us that if nothing else, at least you can ascend, and rise above what life has tried to deal you.
However, the later fictions of Charles Dickens are nothing if not ambiguous. We can even read them as “jolly good yarns”: straightforward spooky stories, if we wish. Certainly this is one of his most popular short stories. The signal-man is haunted, either by some supernatural phenomenon, or by his own precognitive power, or whatever you choose to believe. Or he is himself a spirit. But is the narrator as reliable as we think? Who is he? Where has he come from and why? Elsewhere in “Mugby Junction” he is referred to as “The Gentleman from Nowhere”. Is he too a phantom?
And is either of these a fictional incarnation of Charles Dickens himself? Or are they both aspects of him? We know after all, how much Dickens loved his doppelgängers.
The truth, I believe, is that Charles Dickens haunted himself. Whether or not this story provided some sort of catharsis, there is no getting away from one simple fact. Charles Dickens had foretold his own doom …
Chillingly, Charles Dickens was to die exactly five years after the Staplehurst rail disaster, to the very day. How remarkable — and how incredibly poignant. Everyone is fated to die, and no one knows exactly how, or when their death will occur. Or do they?
— and not just in the story.
I first watched this story on television in 1976, as the BBC’s “Ghost Story for Christmas” starring Denholm Elliott. Every Christmas the BBC used to dramatise a short story by M.R. James, just as the author himself used to write just one each year, and read it to his friends sitting round the fire in his Oxford College rooms. We'd anticipated and watched them since we were teenagers.
This one wasn't familiar to me, but both my husband and I loved it! We were totally gripped and absorbed by it, and found enough of mystery and dread in the strange occurrences without needing anything else. There was an immense sense of foreboding, and it felt like a premonition, but we couldn't see how. It was claustrophobic, and having no back story added to this feeling. And the ending was a complete shock.
I was staggered to then see the credits at the end and learn that it was not a story by M.R. James, but by Charles Dickens. It was the first dramatisation in the series by a different author. And yet only years later did I realise how significant and prescient it had been for Charles Dickens.
A railway is essentially a practical thing; a way for getting from A to B, with a known, physical destination. But this story has far more to do with destiny itself than a geographical destination. It feels fatalistic, showing in different guises an immutable, predestined series of events in time, rather than a journey to a place. Precognition, dread, uncertainty, a sense of responsibility and guilt — and finally a desperate feeling of impotence, all play into the characters’ sense of helplessness, as we watch the tragic chain of events gradually unfold. Is everything predetermined as we are told? And as the final moments reveal new perceptions, a shiver of horror descends through us, and we begin to wonder afresh.
No. 1 Branch Line: The Signal-man, (to give it its full title) has a cast of just two main characters: the narrator and the unnamed signal-man of the title. The gradually building tension they feel is palpable to us too, and the story feels claustrophobic throughout. The setting? Just a few square feet at the entrance to Hell. Well … perhaps that is a little too fanciful, but this apparently straightforward ghost story certainly owes its origins to its author’s personal hellish experience.
In the afternoon of June 9, 1865 an elderly man was travelling by the boat train from Folkestone in Kent to London, accompanied by his mistress Nelly Ternan and her mother, Frances. Railways were still in their infancy, and the man was a keen enthusiast; the party travelled in a First Class carriage. Today however, was not to be a pleasurable journey. There was a hideous accident. Some rails had been removed for routine maintenance, and as the train passed over a viaduct near Staplehurst, the train jumped a gap in the line. The cast iron viaduct fractured, and most of the carriages skewed dramatically, and fell into the river below.
Our three travellers were in the first carriage which derailed sideways, but did not completely fall into the river. Their carriage was suspended at a precarious angle, held by the coupling of the coach in front, and supported by the remains of the viaduct structure. Ensuring that the other two were safe, the man showed remarkable courage, losing no time in helping to rescue other passengers, at the risk of his own life. He climbed out of his compartment through the window, and then looked after as many of the victims as he could, giving them brandy and water. Some died in his arms. Eventually an emergency train to London arrived.
An investigation revealed that the accident had been due to a signalman’s negligence. What became known as the “Staplehurst Rail Crash” took the lives of ten people, and left forty injured. The directors of the South Eastern Railway were so impressed with the man’s bravery, that they presented him with a piece of plate, to mark their appreciation for his assistance in the aftermath of the horrific rail accident.
The man, of course, was Charles Dickens.
Only after the emergency services arrived, did he go back into the carriage to get the manuscript he was working on — the next installment of what was destined to be his final completed novel,“Our Mutual Friend”. Amazingly, it was published as planned, in the same month. But the entire experience affected Charles Dickens greatly, and contributed to the illness which led to his death. He was traumatised, reliving the experience over and over again. He completely lost his voice for two weeks. Afterwards, he was always nervous when travelling by train, and avoided it whenever he could. Charles Dickens, the confident, great train-lover, had what amounts to a kind of phobia. His son stated that he “never fully recovered” from the shock, trying for all his life after this event, to drive away his inner demons.
The famous author tried to dispel the memories, using his best powers of story telling to convert them into something he could accept. This story is on its own in all his oeuvre. There is no humour, for one thing. No cheeky sprites here, or the sexton Gabriel Grub’s goblins. No compassion, or jollity, as in the Spirits of “A Christmas Carol”. There is no wicked smile on the face of the author writing this piece. The spectre here is in deadly earnest.
The timing is key. Every year, Charles Dickens’s public clamoured for his latest Christmas book, and every year he obliged. After “A Christmas Carol” came four more annual Christmas books, and then each year afterwards he obliged with a special Christmas story. This was one in a long line: a sort of “branch line”. Charles Dickens also seems to have had in mind the “Clayton Tunnel crash”, a major disaster which occurred in 1861. Readers of “The Signal-man” five years later, would have been very familiar with the tragedy in Clayton Tunnel.
The story forms a part of the collection “Mugby Junction” a collaborative set of short stories written in 1866 by Charles Dickens, Charles Collins, Amelia B. Edwards, Andrew Halliday, and Hesba Stretton. The other authors each contributed an individual story to the collection, and Charles Dickens devised the frame structure “Mugby Junction” with three pieces to start: “Barbox Brothers”, “Barbox Brothers and Company”, and “Main Line: The Boy at Mugby”.
No. 1 Branch Line: The Signal-man is the fourth and last story written by Charles Dickens himself for this collection. The four subsequent stories by his collaborators are titled “No. 2 Branch Line …” and so on. The whole, “Mugby Junction”was first published in an Extra Christmas Edition of Charles Dickens’s own monthly magazine, “All the Year Round” in 1866, the year after the Staplehurst Rail Crash.
The story starts off kilter:
“'Halloa! Below there!’
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole.”
Straightaway our focus is directed to the signal-man. It is he, oddly unresponsive and preoccupied, whom we concentrate on. He is far “below”, at the foot of a deep chasm of a railway cutting, in the bowels of the earth. Nearby is a vast, black tunnel, dimly lit by a single red signal lamp. And yet who has called? It is the first person narrator. Back we zoom, to inhabit the viewpoint character’s vision once more — but our attention is immediately derailed, by:
“a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down.”
A monstrous, overpowering force, gone as swiftly as it came. A fast steam train. “He”, yet again, then swerving back to “I”.
“Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?”
And as the signal-man reluctantly indicates a zigzag path, the narrator descends:
“through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down”. So we settle for the narrator’s viewpoint: his telling of uncanny events, accepting his curiosity as natural, and the signal-man’s edginess as a result of inhabiting such a “solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw”.
And what a hellish place this is. A veritable Dante’s Inferno of a hole, a:
“dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.”
We follow the conversation between the two, and learn just why the signal-man is emotionally exhausted, and full of angst. He has great intelligence, despite his menial position, and has studied Science and Philosophy whilst confined in his hut. This signal-man does not seem the type given to morbid fantasies. He is, the narrator observes: “one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity”. And yet …
The stories he tells, which he swears are the truth, of a spectral visit before tragedy, defy belief in any logical sense. He knows this himself, and is self-consciously evasive; unwilling to share them, only being persuaded at the narrator’s insistence. He is “exact and vigilant”, as the narrator says, so why does he get these warnings, he wonders. Why has he been chosen to have this terrible responsibility? “What does the spectre mean?”
What does it all mean — and what can he possibly do about these events outside his control?
“His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life.”
One, two, three stories in a subsequent visit. Do we believe them? With the signal-man’s obsessive overriding sense of duty preventing him from escaping this purgatory, Charles Dickens seems to be telling us that the only thing which we can be held responsible for in life is our own fate.
The narrator shrugs the stories off. The signal-man is, he says, torturing himself unnecessarily over what he perceives to be his failure at the job. These events are all mere coincidence:
“The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.”
A bell. A light. Everyday warnings but made other-worldly: ghastly portents when enforced solitude and anxiety cause the imagination to run wild. A telling gesture.
Premonitions. Foretellings of doom. A phantom figure whose appearance presages disasters. I’m not going to tell you the story: it’s a ghost story. If you really want to know, read the blurb — or better still read the story itself. It will only take you a few minutes. And the ending will turn all your careful, rational explanations on their head, and leave you wondering just where the boundaries of our responsibilities lie.
Do we believe the narrator is credible, and unbiased? He seems trustworthy and logical, echoing our scepticism in acknowledging the strangeness of the events. He says, as we would ourselves, that the were a “remarkable coincidence”. One of the most disturbing but telling moments in this story is when the narrator hears as testimony a phrase which he had only imagined . He never actually spoke these words out loud, and yet there they are: another indication that these tragic events were predetermined or fated to happen. Everything else, including free will, is just an illusion. Either than or the narrator himself is part of the haunting.
Or perhaps the message here is a simple moral imperative: not to settle for less than your potential. We cannot be responsible for the whims of fate, but if we complacently accept our lot in society, and do not strike out, we will ultimately sink into a hell which devours individuality and crushes potential. Nor can we expect to save everyone — a lesson which Charles Dickens had learned the hard way only recently. Plus of course, he had had to fight his background and early experience, to get to the point he wanted. He is telling us that if nothing else, at least you can ascend, and rise above what life has tried to deal you.
However, the later fictions of Charles Dickens are nothing if not ambiguous. We can even read them as “jolly good yarns”: straightforward spooky stories, if we wish. Certainly this is one of his most popular short stories. The signal-man is haunted, either by some supernatural phenomenon, or by his own precognitive power, or whatever you choose to believe. Or he is himself a spirit. But is the narrator as reliable as we think? Who is he? Where has he come from and why? Elsewhere in “Mugby Junction” he is referred to as “The Gentleman from Nowhere”. Is he too a phantom?
And is either of these a fictional incarnation of Charles Dickens himself? Or are they both aspects of him? We know after all, how much Dickens loved his doppelgängers.
The truth, I believe, is that Charles Dickens haunted himself. Whether or not this story provided some sort of catharsis, there is no getting away from one simple fact. Charles Dickens had foretold his own doom …
Chillingly, Charles Dickens was to die exactly five years after the Staplehurst rail disaster, to the very day. How remarkable — and how incredibly poignant. Everyone is fated to die, and no one knows exactly how, or when their death will occur. Or do they?
November 13, 2022
Having only just discovered that Charles 'The Word Wizard' Dickens was the person who coined the term "butterfingers", I remembered that this pocket-sized ghost story was still waiting patiently for me in the wings.
And, knowing that an hour spent in the company of Dickens is never an hour wasted, I settled down to read, replete with a cup of Earl Grey and a lemon muffin…
The narrator of this Gothic tale, a man of good breeding, encounters a tunnel-eyed and rather taciturn railway signalman whose haunted demeanour evokes an air of foreboding.
Dickens went slightly off-track to bring us this ghostly yarn, and what happens next might have you second-guessing every nuanced signal.
Thanks to Kimber and Fran for the reviews that sent me here.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4
And, knowing that an hour spent in the company of Dickens is never an hour wasted, I settled down to read, replete with a cup of Earl Grey and a lemon muffin…
The narrator of this Gothic tale, a man of good breeding, encounters a tunnel-eyed and rather taciturn railway signalman whose haunted demeanour evokes an air of foreboding.
Dickens went slightly off-track to bring us this ghostly yarn, and what happens next might have you second-guessing every nuanced signal.
Thanks to Kimber and Fran for the reviews that sent me here.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4
November 22, 2017
The Reading for Pleasure book club has an annual Read Dickens at the Holidays challenge. As I am in crunch time to meet reading goals for the year and still wanted to participate, I selected The Signalman, which is at most 15 pages in text. The version I chose, which was part of the anthology Classic Ghost Stories by Dickens and Others, was only 13 pages long; hence, my reason for choosing a kindle edition of this story because it most closely fits the pages read number of the story I read. So, I still got to participate in the challenge, and reading this story so short, I got a pining to read even more Dickens next year, after reading A Christmas Carol earlier this month.
At first glance, this story is not a holiday story. It is by all means a spooky, paranormal, ghost story which I try to stay away from or I will get nightmares. Reading the descriptions of most editions, we find out that in Dickens time it was a tradition to read a ghost story on Christmas Eve. Perhaps, this was his impetus for creating his three ghosts in A Christmas Carol in the first place. Here, we have an experienced railroad signalman who is plagued by visitations by supernatural beings. They flash red lights, give warnings of impending doom as well as visions of dead bodies, and scare the wits out of him. It gets to the point where he needs a companion to keep him company on his night shift so as not to risk getting too spooked to complete his nightly work shift.
This story, even in the longest editions, can be read in mere minutes. It is definitely spooky and does not offer a holiday feel at all. Yet, it does speak to the depth of Dickens' story telling ability as most of his stories focus on the ills of London society, so this was out of the norm, at least in comparison to the classics that most readers are familiar with. Do read The Signalman, especially if you enjoy scary stories. And do check out The Reading for Pleasure Book Club. Aside from offering this Dickens challenge, of which I may add another story to my repertoire, it is the most friendly, diverse, and non stressful place on Goodreads. It is well worth a look. Wishing everyone a happy holiday, whichever one you may observe, season.
At first glance, this story is not a holiday story. It is by all means a spooky, paranormal, ghost story which I try to stay away from or I will get nightmares. Reading the descriptions of most editions, we find out that in Dickens time it was a tradition to read a ghost story on Christmas Eve. Perhaps, this was his impetus for creating his three ghosts in A Christmas Carol in the first place. Here, we have an experienced railroad signalman who is plagued by visitations by supernatural beings. They flash red lights, give warnings of impending doom as well as visions of dead bodies, and scare the wits out of him. It gets to the point where he needs a companion to keep him company on his night shift so as not to risk getting too spooked to complete his nightly work shift.
This story, even in the longest editions, can be read in mere minutes. It is definitely spooky and does not offer a holiday feel at all. Yet, it does speak to the depth of Dickens' story telling ability as most of his stories focus on the ills of London society, so this was out of the norm, at least in comparison to the classics that most readers are familiar with. Do read The Signalman, especially if you enjoy scary stories. And do check out The Reading for Pleasure Book Club. Aside from offering this Dickens challenge, of which I may add another story to my repertoire, it is the most friendly, diverse, and non stressful place on Goodreads. It is well worth a look. Wishing everyone a happy holiday, whichever one you may observe, season.
December 5, 2018
charles dickens wrote about one billion christmas stories; enough to populate both A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire AND Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire, and doubtless more than are included there. big on christmas, that dickens was. and yet this story, originally published in a "special christmas issue" of All the Year Round, perversely has nothing to do with christmas at all; it is just an everyman/anyday ghost story. dickens was so punk rock he only wrote about christmas when he wanted to, on his terms. oi oi oi!
it's fine. it's about a man who decides that the local signalman is lonesome and barges into his little signalman box and then determines to visits him every day afterwards. which, were i the signalman, is an intrusion i would hate very much, but this signalman's got bigger problems than a presumptuous box-guest because ghooooooosts!!! viiiiiisions!!! premoniiiiiitions!!!
it's not scary, it's not shocking - it goes where you expect it's gonna go, but hey - it's christmas! you're half drunk on mulled wine and eggnog, watching the snow fall outside, wearing your new jammies and only half-listening to whomever is reading this aloud at your xmas eve ghost story gathering. plus, you don't want to get too scared, or you'll never get to sleep and santa won't come and bring you all the loot you earned being so good this year.
and you were very good this year. i noticed.
mission statement copied from my review for One Who Saw:
this holiday season, i am going to read through 'seth's christmas ghost stories' line on biblioasis, and i encourage you to do the same. the books are so cute and tiny, you can stuff someone's stocking or dreidel with 'em! the cover art and interior illustrations are by seth, and they are seasonally spoooooky, blending the spirit of halloween with christmas cheer the way nature, and jack skellington, intended.
three more to go!
come to my blog!
it's fine. it's about a man who decides that the local signalman is lonesome and barges into his little signalman box and then determines to visits him every day afterwards. which, were i the signalman, is an intrusion i would hate very much, but this signalman's got bigger problems than a presumptuous box-guest because ghooooooosts!!! viiiiiisions!!! premoniiiiiitions!!!
it's not scary, it's not shocking - it goes where you expect it's gonna go, but hey - it's christmas! you're half drunk on mulled wine and eggnog, watching the snow fall outside, wearing your new jammies and only half-listening to whomever is reading this aloud at your xmas eve ghost story gathering. plus, you don't want to get too scared, or you'll never get to sleep and santa won't come and bring you all the loot you earned being so good this year.
and you were very good this year. i noticed.
mission statement copied from my review for One Who Saw:
this holiday season, i am going to read through 'seth's christmas ghost stories' line on biblioasis, and i encourage you to do the same. the books are so cute and tiny, you can stuff someone's stocking or dreidel with 'em! the cover art and interior illustrations are by seth, and they are seasonally spoooooky, blending the spirit of halloween with christmas cheer the way nature, and jack skellington, intended.
three more to go!
come to my blog!
December 21, 2022
“Halloa! Below there!”
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the line.”
As this eerie short story unfolds, we meet a signalman whose seemingly ordinary life also involves swimming in the murky waters of otherworldly happenings. Will he react to what appears to be a supernatural warning in time to effect a change? Or is a change even possible?
Dickens was a master of the written word. In the space of eighteen pages, he has spun a tale that made me wonder what I would do should I be presented with a preternatural omen.
Many thanks to Fran for digging up this spooky tale! See her review HERE.
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the line.”
As this eerie short story unfolds, we meet a signalman whose seemingly ordinary life also involves swimming in the murky waters of otherworldly happenings. Will he react to what appears to be a supernatural warning in time to effect a change? Or is a change even possible?
Dickens was a master of the written word. In the space of eighteen pages, he has spun a tale that made me wonder what I would do should I be presented with a preternatural omen.
Many thanks to Fran for digging up this spooky tale! See her review HERE.
December 14, 2023
I read it for the second time, now with the Portuguese translation from deepl.com, which is better than Google Translate. A very thrilling short story.
Wikipedia: "The railway signal-man of the title tells the narrator of an apparition that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The signalman's work is at a signal-box in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident."
Wikipedia: "The railway signal-man of the title tells the narrator of an apparition that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The signalman's work is at a signal-box in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident."
April 28, 2024
|| 3.0 stars ||
Oh, how creepy!
This story follows a man who says he is being haunted by a ghost who keeps warning him before terrible tragedy strikes. The man is beside himself because the ghost appeared before him again, and he now fears danger is looming ahead. Yet, the man does not know how to stop the upcoming tragedy from happening, nor does he know what the danger entails. He is scared and wants to do something to help, but knows he is useless to do anything. He is terribly frustrated because why would the ghost warn him without telling him what he can do to prevent the tragedy?
He confides his troubles to a complete stranger, who comes to the conclusion that the man’s senses must be betraying him, and that the man’s illusions of the ghost’s appearances and coinciding previous tragedies have to simply be a coincidence. Still, the stranger doesn’t want to outright call the man crazy, or expose his secret to others, especially since the man seems intelligent and controlled in all other aspects. Thus, the stranger decides to let it be for the time being. However, the next night something happens that proofs the stranger wrong, and it certainly has dire consequences...
I think the reason this story worked so well for me is because I never figured out if the man’s loneliness made him see things that weren’t there, or if maybe he truly was being haunted by something supernatural. It all depends whether the end could be seen as a coincidence... Could it? I’m not sure. Perhaps the man’s fear and paranoia made him do things that led to this end. It could also be that the man’s own certainty of a fatal ending simply willed it into being. So many options, but no clear answer.
Oh, how creepy!
This story follows a man who says he is being haunted by a ghost who keeps warning him before terrible tragedy strikes. The man is beside himself because the ghost appeared before him again, and he now fears danger is looming ahead. Yet, the man does not know how to stop the upcoming tragedy from happening, nor does he know what the danger entails. He is scared and wants to do something to help, but knows he is useless to do anything. He is terribly frustrated because why would the ghost warn him without telling him what he can do to prevent the tragedy?
He confides his troubles to a complete stranger, who comes to the conclusion that the man’s senses must be betraying him, and that the man’s illusions of the ghost’s appearances and coinciding previous tragedies have to simply be a coincidence. Still, the stranger doesn’t want to outright call the man crazy, or expose his secret to others, especially since the man seems intelligent and controlled in all other aspects. Thus, the stranger decides to let it be for the time being. However, the next night something happens that proofs the stranger wrong, and it certainly has dire consequences...
I think the reason this story worked so well for me is because I never figured out if the man’s loneliness made him see things that weren’t there, or if maybe he truly was being haunted by something supernatural. It all depends whether the end could be seen as a coincidence... Could it? I’m not sure. Perhaps the man’s fear and paranoia made him do things that led to this end. It could also be that the man’s own certainty of a fatal ending simply willed it into being. So many options, but no clear answer.
December 16, 2023
I liked the ghostly business in this Dickens story better than the far more famous three ghosts of A Christmas Carol. Everything here is compact, dark, ominous and non moralizing. Save me from long teary works like The Old Curiosity Shop.
The signalman in this story is a haunted man working a job that has turned unpleasant and there is no light at the end of the tunnel for him—except that ominous red one. Dickens himself had been in a scary train wreck the year before this story was published in 1866. He had been left dangling in a train car over a river with his teenage girlfriend (he was 53 at the time) as well as her mother. Creepy thought to add to this little horror story.
I think we need to revive interest in the appreciation of Victorian Christmas ghost stories. This would be great read out loud in a darkened room (only the reader should have a little light), with big-eyed children by the fireside. No video games allowed.
The signalman in this story is a haunted man working a job that has turned unpleasant and there is no light at the end of the tunnel for him—except that ominous red one. Dickens himself had been in a scary train wreck the year before this story was published in 1866. He had been left dangling in a train car over a river with his teenage girlfriend (he was 53 at the time) as well as her mother. Creepy thought to add to this little horror story.
I think we need to revive interest in the appreciation of Victorian Christmas ghost stories. This would be great read out loud in a darkened room (only the reader should have a little light), with big-eyed children by the fireside. No video games allowed.
December 15, 2020
Dickens does well to set up a chilling tale of a cautionary specter within an ominous atmosphere. The things seen and not seen, and heard and not heard, only add to the dubiousness of the signalman's recounting. At the end you'll find that some questions have been answered, while others have only just formed. You're left to examine your own perceptions and beliefs as well as imagine your own response in the face of a ghostly apparition such as this.
January 12, 2025
داستانى بسيار كوتاه وخوشخوان از چالز ديكنز كه واگويه ها و تصورات ذهنى والبته حقيقى از فردى را نشان مى دهد كه تصويرى از مرگ وفرجام خود آن شخص است .
July 13, 2024
میدلمارچ مسبب شد تا داستانهای کوتاهی رو هر هفته در پروسهی خوانش لحاظ کنیم. پی ببریم که نویسندهای همدورهی جورج الیوت چطور جهانبینی منحصربهفردشون رو به قلم درمیآوردن. چه مشخصهها و وجه اشتراکاتی دارن و تفاوتها از چه قرارن. در نهایت یه تصویر کلی از دورهی ویکتوریایی در حد توان و وقتی که داریم شکل بگیره. اولین داستان هم از دیکنر رقم خورد.
من هیچ آشناییای جز دیدن سرود کریسمس نداشتم و این اولین تجربهی چشیدن قلمش بود.
خوندن این داستان میتونه لذت دوچندانی رو القا کنه. از این بابت که طرز نگاه خواننده میتونه به چند طریق شکل بگیره. واقعگرایانه به اثر نگاه و تحلیل کنه و یا اینکه نگاه سوررئالی به قضایا داشته باشه. هر دو دیدگاه قابل تأمل و بررسی هستن و بدون لو دادن ازشون میگم.
دیکنز در داستان کوتاه سیگنالمن که با ترجمهی علامتچی توسط ابراهیم یونسی برای فارسیخوانان چاپ شده از المانهایی استفاده میکنه که در آثار ماوراءالطبیعی هم به چشم میخوره. به طور مثال بو، رنگ، تغییرات آبوهوایی، پیشینهی سیگنالمن، اشارات مکرر به شبح و... موجبات این رو پدید میارن که ذهن به سمت داستانی سوررئال کشیده بشه و به همین ترتیب جوابهای مبهمی هم بتونه بپذیره. بخش زیر میتونه یه اشارهی کوچیکی باشه:
از طرفی همین رگهها و کدهایی که استفاده میکنه رو طوری به کار میگیره تا با نگاه منطقی هم جور دربیاد. به طور مثال چنین مسئلهای با تجربهی زیستی نویسنده رنگ و بوی دیگهای به خودش میگیره. اگر پس از خوانش اثر، عنوان زیر رو سرچ کنین، متوجه خواهید شد چه ارتباطی بین نوشتار و زندگیش وجود داره:
Staplehurst rail crash
در ارتباط با خود داستان، سیگنالمن و شخصیت اصلی با هم مواجه میشن و ارتباطی شکل میگیره که سوالات جالب و پیچش داستانی جالبتری رو به ارمغان میاره. راوی محو تماشای وظایف و سبک زندگی سیگنالمن و سیگنالمن، در جدال با واقعیت و شاید خیال.
دورهای که دیکنز ازش میگه و تصویری که ارائه میده هم به خصوص در ارتباط با داستان مهمه. در قرن نوزدهم و با ایجاد راهآهن، بریتانیا از پیشگامان انقلاب صنعتی تلقی میشد. مزایا و معایبی هم داشت که در داستان به یکی دو مورد اشاره میشه. به طور مثال:
post-traumatic stress
یه اقتباس هم با همین عنوان در سال ۱۹۷۶ توسط بیبیسی داره که میتونین اگه خیلی پیگیرین لحاظ کنین.
در نهایت این داستان وقتی که شرایط ناخوشی رو سپری میکردم، دلهرهی عجیبی بهم تزریق کرد. جهان پر از سیگنالهایی هست که میفرستیم و دریافت میکنیم. کسی چه میدونه کدوم یکی حکم زندگی رو داره و یا مرگ. کدوم رو میشه پشت گوش انداخت یا به کدوم باید توجه نشون داد. مثل خوابی که نمیدونی بابت ظن و گمان شکل گرفته یا داره بهت کد میده اما نمیگه چه کاری در برابرش انجام بدی. مثل وقتی که تو دلت انگار رخت میشورن و از علتش بیاطلاعی. هم میتونه صرفا یه اتفاق عادی تلقی شه و هم نشانهای که انگار از آینده بهت خبر میده. کسی چه میدونه...
من هیچ آشناییای جز دیدن سرود کریسمس نداشتم و این اولین تجربهی چشیدن قلمش بود.
خوندن این داستان میتونه لذت دوچندانی رو القا کنه. از این بابت که طرز نگاه خواننده میتونه به چند طریق شکل بگیره. واقعگرایانه به اثر نگاه و تحلیل کنه و یا اینکه نگاه سوررئالی به قضایا داشته باشه. هر دو دیدگاه قابل تأمل و بررسی هستن و بدون لو دادن ازشون میگم.
دیکنز در داستان کوتاه سیگنالمن که با ترجمهی علامتچی توسط ابراهیم یونسی برای فارسیخوانان چاپ شده از المانهایی استفاده میکنه که در آثار ماوراءالطبیعی هم به چشم میخوره. به طور مثال بو، رنگ، تغییرات آبوهوایی، پیشینهی سیگنالمن، اشارات مکرر به شبح و... موجبات این رو پدید میارن که ذهن به سمت داستانی سوررئال کشیده بشه و به همین ترتیب جوابهای مبهمی هم بتونه بپذیره. بخش زیر میتونه یه اشارهی کوچیکی باشه:
So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.
از طرفی همین رگهها و کدهایی که استفاده میکنه رو طوری به کار میگیره تا با نگاه منطقی هم جور دربیاد. به طور مثال چنین مسئلهای با تجربهی زیستی نویسنده رنگ و بوی دیگهای به خودش میگیره. اگر پس از خوانش اثر، عنوان زیر رو سرچ کنین، متوجه خواهید شد چه ارتباطی بین نوشتار و زندگیش وجود داره:
Staplehurst rail crash
در ارتباط با خود داستان، سیگنالمن و شخصیت اصلی با هم مواجه میشن و ارتباطی شکل میگیره که سوالات جالب و پیچش داستانی جالبتری رو به ارمغان میاره. راوی محو تماشای وظایف و سبک زندگی سیگنالمن و سیگنالمن، در جدال با واقعیت و شاید خیال.
The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.
دورهای که دیکنز ازش میگه و تصویری که ارائه میده هم به خصوص در ارتباط با داستان مهمه. در قرن نوزدهم و با ایجاد راهآهن، بریتانیا از پیشگامان انقلاب صنعتی تلقی میشد. مزایا و معایبی هم داشت که در داستان به یکی دو مورد اشاره میشه. به طور مثال:
post-traumatic stress
یه اقتباس هم با همین عنوان در سال ۱۹۷۶ توسط بیبیسی داره که میتونین اگه خیلی پیگیرین لحاظ کنین.
در نهایت این داستان وقتی که شرایط ناخوشی رو سپری میکردم، دلهرهی عجیبی بهم تزریق کرد. جهان پر از سیگنالهایی هست که میفرستیم و دریافت میکنیم. کسی چه میدونه کدوم یکی حکم زندگی رو داره و یا مرگ. کدوم رو میشه پشت گوش انداخت یا به کدوم باید توجه نشون داد. مثل خوابی که نمیدونی بابت ظن و گمان شکل گرفته یا داره بهت کد میده اما نمیگه چه کاری در برابرش انجام بدی. مثل وقتی که تو دلت انگار رخت میشورن و از علتش بیاطلاعی. هم میتونه صرفا یه اتفاق عادی تلقی شه و هم نشانهای که انگار از آینده بهت خبر میده. کسی چه میدونه...
December 29, 2023
“Steeped in the glow of an angry sunset.”
A spooky short story by Dickens. Even though I’m familiar with the infrastructure of railways, cuttings, tunnels, and signal boxes, I found some of the initial details unengaging and the story itself takes a while to build up steam. Before that, it’s atmospheric in an unsettling and claustrophobic way.
“The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down.”
The narrator comes across a lonely signalman who is haunted by premonitions to the extent:
“The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.”
The signalman has a similar thought about the other man.
After that, there is a neat but tragic symmetry to what happens.
Image: The opposite of a claustrophobic train: “Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway” by JMW Turner (Source)
“On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air.”
Real life inspiration
This was published in 1866 and might have been inspired by an infamous accident five years earlier, the Clayton Tunnel rail crash, and more especially the Staplehurst rail crash. Dickens was on the train that derailed at Staplehurst. He tended the wounded, published this story a year later, but reportedly never fully recovered from the trauma. He died on the fifth anniversary of the derailment.
Short story club
I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
A spooky short story by Dickens. Even though I’m familiar with the infrastructure of railways, cuttings, tunnels, and signal boxes, I found some of the initial details unengaging and the story itself takes a while to build up steam. Before that, it’s atmospheric in an unsettling and claustrophobic way.
“The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went down.”
The narrator comes across a lonely signalman who is haunted by premonitions to the extent:
“The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.”
The signalman has a similar thought about the other man.
After that, there is a neat but tragic symmetry to what happens.
Image: The opposite of a claustrophobic train: “Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway” by JMW Turner (Source)
“On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air.”
Real life inspiration
This was published in 1866 and might have been inspired by an infamous accident five years earlier, the Clayton Tunnel rail crash, and more especially the Staplehurst rail crash. Dickens was on the train that derailed at Staplehurst. He tended the wounded, published this story a year later, but reportedly never fully recovered from the trauma. He died on the fifth anniversary of the derailment.
Short story club
I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
December 19, 2024
This is an illustrated edition of one of my favourite supernatural stories. I also love the excellent Denholm Elliott BBC TV version from 1976 as it does the short story justice.
This edition contains some simple, yet pleasant, illustrations to accompany the text. Still my favourite story by Charles Dickens.
This edition contains some simple, yet pleasant, illustrations to accompany the text. Still my favourite story by Charles Dickens.
September 6, 2022
Buen relato de Dickens al estilo Poe, aunque le falta tensión narrativa.
Un hombre que trabaja como guardavía le relata a nuestro narrador una historia sobre un espectro que se le presenta algunos días al lado de las vías del tren. La presencia del espectro coincide con funestas circunstancias.
-------------------
Good Poe-style Dickens story, although it lacks narrative tension.
A man who works as a signalman tells our narrator a story about a spectre that appears to him some days by the railway tracks. The spectre's presence coincides with dire circumstances.
Un hombre que trabaja como guardavía le relata a nuestro narrador una historia sobre un espectro que se le presenta algunos días al lado de las vías del tren. La presencia del espectro coincide con funestas circunstancias.
-------------------
Good Poe-style Dickens story, although it lacks narrative tension.
A man who works as a signalman tells our narrator a story about a spectre that appears to him some days by the railway tracks. The spectre's presence coincides with dire circumstances.
July 8, 2025
Charles Dickens is a favourite author of mine. Yet, I haven't read many short stories written by him. I have read his Christmas short stories of course and have liked them very much, but in general, I never felt drawn to his short stories as I had to his novels. However, reading The Signalman made me think that perhaps, the problem is with me, that I was expecting a neatly tied story like those in his novels, which they didn't provide most of the time. Because of this reason a sort of a void between me and the story, an inability to connect, left me disappointed. However, The Signalman made me think differently. Now I feel that Dickens's focus in his short stories was not to tie up the story neatly with a well-rounded conclusion, but rather to create a powerful story with an interesting premise, which draws the readers quickly to the story irrespective of whether he has provided answers to the questions raised or whether he ended them on a vague note. It was for the readers to figure after their own reflections; a total contrast to his novels.
The Signalman is a ghost/mystery story and one of the great short works I have read. It's a powerful production of his pen, and striking for being atmospheric. The story is set at a signal post in a solitary place, and Dickens brilliantly captures the dismal, depressing surroundings. He describes that the signalman hardly sees the Sun from there giving us the picture of his isolated life from the rest of the world. In addition, Dickens directs the story in such a way generating a sense of foreboding in the reader. The sense that some catastrophe will befall is constantly present in the reader's mind, and he is on pins with expectation. The twist at the end left me with goosebumps. And even though many lingering questions called for quiet reflections, the story had a powerful effect on me.
I'm not privy to Dickens's motive in writing this story. Some say it was the result of Dickens's personal experience of shock, having survived a deadly derailing accident. Whatever his reason may be, the story made me think of the human mind and its attraction to the supernatural. The Signalman, living in a solitary and dismal place had a greater attraction to the supernatural. He believed that a spectre was warning him of an impending disaster. Was that true? Or was that only a hallucination, his mind playing tricks on him? Living a world apart, in isolation, with no human contact or conversation, was the Signalman's mind impaired after all? These questions lingered in my mind long after the reading was over.
The Signalman is the kind of story that will never wear on you. It is one that gets under your skin and stays there. And it undoubtedly falls under the canon of Dickens's best works.
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
The Signalman is a ghost/mystery story and one of the great short works I have read. It's a powerful production of his pen, and striking for being atmospheric. The story is set at a signal post in a solitary place, and Dickens brilliantly captures the dismal, depressing surroundings. He describes that the signalman hardly sees the Sun from there giving us the picture of his isolated life from the rest of the world. In addition, Dickens directs the story in such a way generating a sense of foreboding in the reader. The sense that some catastrophe will befall is constantly present in the reader's mind, and he is on pins with expectation. The twist at the end left me with goosebumps. And even though many lingering questions called for quiet reflections, the story had a powerful effect on me.
I'm not privy to Dickens's motive in writing this story. Some say it was the result of Dickens's personal experience of shock, having survived a deadly derailing accident. Whatever his reason may be, the story made me think of the human mind and its attraction to the supernatural. The Signalman, living in a solitary and dismal place had a greater attraction to the supernatural. He believed that a spectre was warning him of an impending disaster. Was that true? Or was that only a hallucination, his mind playing tricks on him? Living a world apart, in isolation, with no human contact or conversation, was the Signalman's mind impaired after all? These questions lingered in my mind long after the reading was over.
The Signalman is the kind of story that will never wear on you. It is one that gets under your skin and stays there. And it undoubtedly falls under the canon of Dickens's best works.
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
December 14, 2023
"The Signal Man" is a wonderful, atmospheric ghost story by Charles Dickens. The narrator comes across a signal man working in an isolated area by a dark, damp train tunnel. He tells the narrator about two tragic train events that have been preceded by a warning from a spectre. Now the signal man senses that he is being warned again about danger, but he has no idea what to expect. The story is ominous as it builds up to the climax.
Dickens was a survivor of the Staplehurst Rail Crash of 1865 when a train derailed. The traumatic railway crash led him to avoid train travel for the rest of his life. The incident was thought to be one of the inspirations for writing "The Signal Man" in 1866.
Reread for the Short Story Club. This is one of the stories in the "Black Water" anthology.
Dickens was a survivor of the Staplehurst Rail Crash of 1865 when a train derailed. The traumatic railway crash led him to avoid train travel for the rest of his life. The incident was thought to be one of the inspirations for writing "The Signal Man" in 1866.
Reread for the Short Story Club. This is one of the stories in the "Black Water" anthology.
December 29, 2023
4★
“His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky”
A fellow who can’t sleep wanders along until he finds himself atop a hill, looking down on the train tracks and a signalman whose signal box is on the fellow’s side of a big tunnel. When he calls down and waves as the signalman, the man seems unreasonably startled.
The fellow goes down the hill for a chat, and thus begins his relationship with a troubled, haunted man. Every once in a while, he sees what seems to be a man waving wildly at him and shouting. Within a few hours or days, a catastrophe takes place nearby.
Where he spends his time at work is so grim that it’s easy to assume he’s imagining things. Dickens knows how to set an atmospheric scene.
“On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.”
Our fellow asks what’s troubling the signalman now.
“ ‘The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts.’
‘At the light?’
‘At the Danger-light.
‘What does it seem to do?’
He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of, ‘For God’s sake, clear the way!’
Then he went on. ‘I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, ‘Below there! Look out! Look out!’ It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell—’ ”
A friend of mine had occasional premonitions, but her worst I think was when she was in Canada, and they were driving past a big airport. She suddenly shivered and asked that they get out of there quickly. She felt sick and had a strong sense of dread. I believe she said it was a week later that there was a catastrophic air crash at that place. She was a nurse, so no stranger to emergencies and injuries.
It’s one thing to sense something that has already happened, like a crash or a massacre or a murder, but it’s quite another to have such a strong, specific sense of foreboding, as the signalman does and my friend did.
I don’t enjoy horror stories, but I do have a fascination for the inexplicable that feels as if it could be explained – maybe. That sixth sense when you get a chill.
I have read that this was written not long after Dickens himself was involved in a horrific train crash and never quite recovered from the horror. His haunting may have been different than the signalman’s but just as affecting.
You can read this story in a number of Dickens collections, I’m sure, or you can download a good PDF of it here:
https://shortstoryamerica.com/pdf_cla...
It is another from the Goodreads Short Story Club Group list.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
“His post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky”
A fellow who can’t sleep wanders along until he finds himself atop a hill, looking down on the train tracks and a signalman whose signal box is on the fellow’s side of a big tunnel. When he calls down and waves as the signalman, the man seems unreasonably startled.
The fellow goes down the hill for a chat, and thus begins his relationship with a troubled, haunted man. Every once in a while, he sees what seems to be a man waving wildly at him and shouting. Within a few hours or days, a catastrophe takes place nearby.
Where he spends his time at work is so grim that it’s easy to assume he’s imagining things. Dickens knows how to set an atmospheric scene.
“On either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.”
Our fellow asks what’s troubling the signalman now.
“ ‘The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has been there, now and again, by fits and starts.’
‘At the light?’
‘At the Danger-light.
‘What does it seem to do?’
He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of, ‘For God’s sake, clear the way!’
Then he went on. ‘I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, ‘Below there! Look out! Look out!’ It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell—’ ”
A friend of mine had occasional premonitions, but her worst I think was when she was in Canada, and they were driving past a big airport. She suddenly shivered and asked that they get out of there quickly. She felt sick and had a strong sense of dread. I believe she said it was a week later that there was a catastrophic air crash at that place. She was a nurse, so no stranger to emergencies and injuries.
It’s one thing to sense something that has already happened, like a crash or a massacre or a murder, but it’s quite another to have such a strong, specific sense of foreboding, as the signalman does and my friend did.
I don’t enjoy horror stories, but I do have a fascination for the inexplicable that feels as if it could be explained – maybe. That sixth sense when you get a chill.
I have read that this was written not long after Dickens himself was involved in a horrific train crash and never quite recovered from the horror. His haunting may have been different than the signalman’s but just as affecting.
You can read this story in a number of Dickens collections, I’m sure, or you can download a good PDF of it here:
https://shortstoryamerica.com/pdf_cla...
It is another from the Goodreads Short Story Club Group list.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
December 24, 2023
This is a short ghost story with an unusual setting of a signal box, a stretch of railway line and a tunnel. There is a suggestion that Dickens wrote this because he himself had been involved in a serious train accident a few years prior. The story leaves the reader to decide whether there really is a ghost or rather a figment of the signalman's imagination.
I read this with extra interest because my father was a signalman, many years ago, on a busy stretch of line outside London. I remember as a child visiting his signal box and watching him work. At that time there were levers in the box to pull which changed signals manually and make sure a train had cleared a section before the next one was allowed in. It all seems terribly antiquated now but much better than in Dicken's time! There certainly would never have been anyone wandering around on the track waving flags!
An interesting story especially if you follow up the author's own personal experience of a train crash which shows him to have been quite a hero.
I read this with extra interest because my father was a signalman, many years ago, on a busy stretch of line outside London. I remember as a child visiting his signal box and watching him work. At that time there were levers in the box to pull which changed signals manually and make sure a train had cleared a section before the next one was allowed in. It all seems terribly antiquated now but much better than in Dicken's time! There certainly would never have been anyone wandering around on the track waving flags!
An interesting story especially if you follow up the author's own personal experience of a train crash which shows him to have been quite a hero.
September 28, 2024
The Short Story Club
It seems the the horror of 'The Signal-Man' is not the supernatural but the isolation and miscommunication but I might be wrong as the author does not give a definite answer.
It seems the the horror of 'The Signal-Man' is not the supernatural but the isolation and miscommunication but I might be wrong as the author does not give a definite answer.
October 25, 2021
"Sentí una enorme piedad ante su dolor. Era la tortura mental de un hombre consciente oprimido más allá de lo que era capaz de soportar por una responsabilidad ininteligible que significaba riesgo para alguna vida"
Un guardavías, le cuenta al narrador, que durante el cumplimiento de su tarea en su solitario puesto, recibe ciertas señales cuando algo malo va a suceder en las vías. Quizá algún alma errante que hace su aparición para avisarle, o tal vez alguna premonición. Esto lo tortura enormemente porque no logra interpretar estas señales y no tienen un parámetro definido, mientras tanto las desgracias se suceden sin poder evitarlas.
Un guardavías, le cuenta al narrador, que durante el cumplimiento de su tarea en su solitario puesto, recibe ciertas señales cuando algo malo va a suceder en las vías. Quizá algún alma errante que hace su aparición para avisarle, o tal vez alguna premonición. Esto lo tortura enormemente porque no logra interpretar estas señales y no tienen un parámetro definido, mientras tanto las desgracias se suceden sin poder evitarlas.
December 25, 2020
قصة على الرغم من صفحاتها المعدودة قادرة على تحفيز أعصابك واجتذابك بشدة إلى عالمها الغريب، مختلفة عن أسلوب ديكنز المباشر المتّبع في رواياته، متمكنة ومبهرة، أحببتها وستبقى في بالي طويلاً.
من يختارون البقاء في الظل، ويكتفون من الحياة بدور المراقب المحايد، ويتركون كيانهم ليذوب في العالم من حولهم، غالباً ما يلحظون إشارات ذات دلالة. لكنهم - وفي غمرة نسيانهم لأنفسهم - قد يخطئون في تفسيرها.
عامل التحويلة شخصية وجدت مكاناً لها في قلبي.
من يختارون البقاء في الظل، ويكتفون من الحياة بدور المراقب المحايد، ويتركون كيانهم ليذوب في العالم من حولهم، غالباً ما يلحظون إشارات ذات دلالة. لكنهم - وفي غمرة نسيانهم لأنفسهم - قد يخطئون في تفسيرها.
عامل التحويلة شخصية وجدت مكاناً لها في قلبي.
May 30, 2017
I think the chances of my liking Dickens' works is in reverse proportion of their length.
Read it here:
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Charle...
Read it here:
http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Charle...
November 19, 2017
Es un relato tan corto que se lee en un suspiro y, quizá, por esto, mis dos estrellitas. De todas formas, es un buen relato 😊
March 27, 2017
I wonder if I'll ever read anything by Dickens that disappoints me! He really has a wonderful way of manipulating his reader's emotions and drawing them in to his tales which has, arguably, never been surpassed and this little Gothic charmer is no exception. A half-dozen pages long and subtitled 'To be Read at Dusk,' this is a classic miniature ghost story of dark prose and long shadows. Unsettling and masterful.
December 15, 2023
". . . what troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre mean?”
“The Signalman” is a short story by Charles Dickens that I had never read, but decided to do so when I saw a small book version designed and produced by comics great Seth. I just read it as I listened to it in the old and seemingly discarded tradition of reading aloud ghost stories among friends and families around Christmas.
The short story is about a man who encounters a railway signalman in a lonely location, who tells the story of why he is now troubled: An accident, and the ghostly spectre of a man. Driven to near-madness by what he can only assume is a supernatural event. The story has a satisfying conclusion; it’s atmospheric, and a little creepy. I’d rate it 3.5 stars as a story, bumping up this edition to four from Seth’s tasteful design. Merry scary Christmas! Well, maybe not all that scary, exactly, but certainly gloomy, a nineteenth-century gothic tale.
Here’s a very short animated film (under 4 minutes) that gets at the essence of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL-2I...
But this unabridged audio version I would sooner recommend (because it is the whole thing!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70BtL...
But even better to at the very least read it as Dickens wrote it, here as a pdf:
https://shortstoryamerica.com/pdf_cla...
“The Signalman” is a short story by Charles Dickens that I had never read, but decided to do so when I saw a small book version designed and produced by comics great Seth. I just read it as I listened to it in the old and seemingly discarded tradition of reading aloud ghost stories among friends and families around Christmas.
The short story is about a man who encounters a railway signalman in a lonely location, who tells the story of why he is now troubled: An accident, and the ghostly spectre of a man. Driven to near-madness by what he can only assume is a supernatural event. The story has a satisfying conclusion; it’s atmospheric, and a little creepy. I’d rate it 3.5 stars as a story, bumping up this edition to four from Seth’s tasteful design. Merry scary Christmas! Well, maybe not all that scary, exactly, but certainly gloomy, a nineteenth-century gothic tale.
Here’s a very short animated film (under 4 minutes) that gets at the essence of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL-2I...
But this unabridged audio version I would sooner recommend (because it is the whole thing!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70BtL...
But even better to at the very least read it as Dickens wrote it, here as a pdf:
https://shortstoryamerica.com/pdf_cla...
February 12, 2020
”Why not tell me how it could be averted – if it could have been averted?”
One of the most traumatic experiences Dickens ever went through in his life was, apart from his father making him work at Warren’s Blacking Factory when a mere child, the Staplehurst rail crash on 9th June 1865. Dickens, who was travelling with Ellen Ternan and her mother, was on the train that derailed while crossing a viaduct, and he was among those who tended the injured and the dying immediately after the accident. The catastrophe made such a deep impression on him that it left him without the use of his voice for two weeks after the event, and curiously, Dickens died to the day five years after the rail crash, in 1870.
In 1866, Dickens collaborated on Mugby Junction, a collection of short stories which was to appear in the Christmas edition of his magazine All the Year Round, with other Victorian authors, and among the contributions he made was the well-known short story The Signal-Man, for which Dickens might have derived some inspiration by his recollections of the Staplehurst rail crash, but also by what he knew of another famous railway catastrophe, the Clayton Tunnel rail crash from 1861. The Signal-Man tells us about an encounter between the narrator and the eponymous signal-man who watches a railway tunnel in a secluded segment of a railway line and who keeps being haunted by the apparition of a man calling out to him and warning him with one hand while the other is drawn across the spectre’s face as though to shut off a sight that is too gruesome to bear. It is a story Dickens composed after the last novel he completed, and while it has none of Dickens’s light humour – in fact, it has no humour at all –, it is a very suspenseful and atmospheric ghost story.
Here are some further thoughts on the story, but those who wish to enjoy the tale without too much prior information on its plot should stop here and turn to Dickens’s narration first.
One of the most traumatic experiences Dickens ever went through in his life was, apart from his father making him work at Warren’s Blacking Factory when a mere child, the Staplehurst rail crash on 9th June 1865. Dickens, who was travelling with Ellen Ternan and her mother, was on the train that derailed while crossing a viaduct, and he was among those who tended the injured and the dying immediately after the accident. The catastrophe made such a deep impression on him that it left him without the use of his voice for two weeks after the event, and curiously, Dickens died to the day five years after the rail crash, in 1870.
In 1866, Dickens collaborated on Mugby Junction, a collection of short stories which was to appear in the Christmas edition of his magazine All the Year Round, with other Victorian authors, and among the contributions he made was the well-known short story The Signal-Man, for which Dickens might have derived some inspiration by his recollections of the Staplehurst rail crash, but also by what he knew of another famous railway catastrophe, the Clayton Tunnel rail crash from 1861. The Signal-Man tells us about an encounter between the narrator and the eponymous signal-man who watches a railway tunnel in a secluded segment of a railway line and who keeps being haunted by the apparition of a man calling out to him and warning him with one hand while the other is drawn across the spectre’s face as though to shut off a sight that is too gruesome to bear. It is a story Dickens composed after the last novel he completed, and while it has none of Dickens’s light humour – in fact, it has no humour at all –, it is a very suspenseful and atmospheric ghost story.
Here are some further thoughts on the story, but those who wish to enjoy the tale without too much prior information on its plot should stop here and turn to Dickens’s narration first.
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