Charles Dickens, The Signalman & Other Ghost Stories Review

Overall Rating

Well-written and very witty. Great character development through use of very vivid descriptions. Exellent twists in the tales.

Very dry and slightly overwrought. Too much text elaboration. Emotionless and almost empty seeming. Hard at times to decipher the plot.

Charles Dickens, The Signalman & Other Ghost Stories - I found this collection of stories very typical of Dickens' style. Very clever and well thought out but altogether a bit too dry and without feeling. I found that the author's great manipulation of language and thorough development of plot, characters, and setting were very effective in creating tension and suspense for me, but became tiresome and were overly analytical and somewhat killed the mystical and supernatural feeling that the stories were meant to convey. As most of Dickens' works do, I found the stories left a dull and heavy sensation on my mind, and did not bring much entertainment to me. Despite of this, I found this collection of stories really displayed the author's true genius at the twist in tale and the complete and utter exellence in showing the elegance of the English language. A fair, educational, yet rather bland read.