A House to Let

"A House to Let" is a set of short stories by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter. It was originally published in 1858^[1] in the Christmas edition of Dickens's Household Words magazine. Collins wrote the introduction and collaborated with Dickens on the second story and ending, while Gaskell and Proctor wrote the third and fifth chapters respectively.^[2][3]

Overview

"A House to Let" was the first collaboration between the four writers, although Collins and Dickens had worked with Procter on previous Christmas stories for the magazine in 1854, 1855, and 1856. The four authors would write together again in 1859's "The Haunted House" which appeared in the extra Christmas number of All the Year Round, the successor to Household Words which Dickens had started after a dispute with his publishers.

In a letter to Collins from 6 September 1858, Dickens outlined his idea for a Christmas story. He originally envisaged the story being written by himself and Collins with his plot outline fleshed out by Collins, but was later to invite Gaskell and Procter to contribute chapters. Dickens and Collins wrote the first chapter, "Over the Way", and the last chapter "Let at Last" together, and each of the writers wrote one of the intervening chapters: Gaskell "The Manchester Marriage", Dickens "Going into Society", Procter "Three Evenings in the House" and Collins "Trottle's Report".

Plot

The plot concerns an elderly woman, Sophonisba, who notices signs of life in a supposedly empty dilapidated house (the eponymous "House to Let") opposite her own and employs the efforts of an elderly admirer, Jabez Jarber, and her servant, Trottle, to discover what is happening within.^[4]

Adaptations

A dramatisation of "A House to Let" was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 during the week of 11–15 December 2006. It was repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra during the week 26–30 December 2011, again in December 2014 and again during the week 19–23 December 2016. A further repeat on BBC Radio 4 Extra was in December 2018.

Notes

References

External links

• A House to Let at Faded Page (Canada)
• A House to Let public domain audiobook at LibriVox

• v
• t
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Charles Dickens

• Bibliography

Novels

• The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836–1837)
• Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress (1837–1839)
• Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839)
• The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841)
• Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (1841)
• The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844)
• Dombey and Son (1846–1848)
• David Copperfield (1849–1850)
• Bleak House (1852–1853)
• Hard Times: For These Times (1854)
• Little Dorrit (1855–1857)
• A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
• Great Expectations (1860–1861)
• Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865)
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)

Christmas books

• A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843)
• The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In (1844)
• The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home (1845)
• The Battle of Life: A Love Story (1846)
• The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time (1848)

Short stories

• To Be Read at Dusk (1852)
• "The Long Voyage" (1853)
• "The Signal-Man" (1866)
• "The Trial for Murder" (1865)

Short story
collections

• Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People (1833–1836)
• The Mudfog Papers (1837–1838)
• Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841)

Non-fiction

• American Notes for General Circulation (1842)
• Pictures from Italy (1846)
• The Life of Our Lord (1846–1849)
• A Child's History of England (1851–1853)
• The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1861)
• Letters (1821–1870)

Plays

• The Frozen Deep (1856)
• No Thoroughfare (1867)

Journalism

• Bentley's Miscellany (1836–1838)
• Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841)
• The Daily News (1846–1870)
• Household Words (1850–1859)
• All the Year Round (1859–1870)

Collaborations

• "A House to Let" (1858)
• "The Haunted House" (1859)
• "A Message from the Sea" (1860)
• "Mugby Junction" (1866)
• No Thoroughfare (1867)

Family

Parents	John Dickens Elizabeth Dickens
Brothers	Frederick Dickens Alfred Lamert Dickens Augustus Dickens
Partners	Catherine Dickens (wife) Ellen Ternan (mistress)
Children	Charles Dickens Jr. Mary Dickens Kate Perugini Walter Landor Dickens Francis Dickens Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens Henry Fielding Dickens Dora Annie Dickens Edward Dickens

Related

• Epitaph of Charles Irving Thornton
• Bleak House
• Tavistock House
• Gads Hill Place
• Grip (raven)
• Dickens fair
• Dickens and Little Nell (statue)
• Charles Dickens in His Study (1859 painting)
• Dickens of London (1976 miniseries)
• Dickens in America (2005 documentary)
• The Invisible Woman (2013 film)
• Dickensian (2015 TV series)
• The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017 film)

• Category