Skip to content
Ghosts and goblins are usually not the first things that come to our minds when we think about Christmas, but if we peruse Victorian literature we find all sorts of spooky stories set and told explicitly during the Christmas season. During this time, the modern concept of Christmas was still being formed, and many of the Christmas traditions that we might feel are ancient were not yet etched in stone. The myths of the time are centered on stories of those who had passed away and on encounters with the unknowable during the dark and cold winter months. Sharing ghost stories was particularly important during Christmas Eve, on which people often stayed up late into the night, huddled around the fireplace with good company, and maybe even a little tipsy—a perfect setting for some 1800’s campfire storytelling.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol in Prose, 1843
Dickens, Charles. Dickens' Christmas story of goblins who stole a sexton, 1836
Dickens, Charles. The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, 1845
Dickens, Charles. The Haunted House, 1859
Dickens, Charles. The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, 1848
Phillpotts, Eden. My Christmas Dream, 1899
Jerome, Jerome K. Told After Supper, 1891