Ghost Story Review: "A Night in a Haunted House" by Henry Ferris

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The setup of this ghost story is familiar: a dinner where young’uns (all guys in this case) joke about wanting to spend a night in a haunted house. Significantly, it’s not Halloween, but a blustery Easter season toward the end of March—you know, near April Fools’ Day. One guest, the narrator, doesn’t believe in ghosts. Come on! This is the 19th century after all! It’s long past time to give up that medieval ghost nonsense! Fenwick, his old schoolmate, believes in ghosts. He wants to spend a night in a haunted house to make a believer out of the narrator. In fact, he knows of a house that he can get permission for the two of them to stay in. Mr. Hammond, a clergyman, objects: “Mr. Fenwick, I must express my hope that you will reflect very seriously on what you are about to do, before you determine sending your friend to that awful house. And you,” he adds, addressing the narrator, “would do well not to play with things, the dark and terrible nature of which you are far from being aware of.” He then launches into the tale of how he once lived in the same house when he and his wife were first married and the terrors the ghost, a woman with club feet, inflicted on them. His story, delivered with a straight face, takes up half of the narrative. It introduces the reader to the ghost, her many forms (People who see her don’t hear her; people who hear her don’t see her), at least one of her victims, and, eventually, her story. The narrator and Fenwick are undeterred. A year later, on the night of April Fools’ (ahem): “In the gig was a basket, containing a bottle of Madeira, and other materials for a cold supper, besides a couple of books, and a brace of pistols.” On his arrival in town, any pretense of this being a serious story is tossed aside. It becomes a farce. The Madeira is the narrator’s comfort and, as it turns out, his downfall. This is an enjoyable story. It is hampered to some degree some by some clumsy aspects, but it’s funny enough, these aspects are forgivable. It’s a shame this story isn’t more well-known. One problem is authorship. The anthology I read it in attributed the story to the ever-prolific Anonymous, though raised the possibility that J. Sheridan Le Fanu wrote it. He did contribute a lot of supernatural stories to Dublin University Magazine where the tale first appeared under the name of Irys Herfner. However, it seems now, thanks to the work of S. T. Joshi, the author is Henry Ferris, a clergyman who died of typhus in 1848. The only copies of this story I could find are in anthologies for pay, both digital and paper. If anyone finds one online for free, let me know. This is a nice (if long), funny ghost story, even with its faults. _____ Title: “A Night in a Haunted House” Author: Henry Ferris (c. 1802-1848) First published: Dublin University Magazine May 1848 Source: book