Victorian Thriller

Twenty years ago, one foggy night, David Bowler, a tailor disappeared. Twenty years later, a ringer by the name of Easter Wells appears and finds himself instantly drawn into the tale. Intrigued by the inconsistencies surrounding the reports, Wells sets out to unravel the 20-year-old mystery. But all he has at his disposal are a bunch of Londoners and their foggy memories. As conversations flow over wine, tea, and even haircuts, Easter Wells must disentangle the right thread to put to rest a 20-year-old enigma. A murder is certain.

A young man’s inheritance includes more than a house when an ebony-framed painting of a beautiful woman starts to exert a strange hold over its new owner. Could this lead to his tragic demise?

In this well-known classic, a school inspector travelling to the village of Pit End wonders whether the things he’s seeing are products of his imagination or something supernatural. There’s a rational answer, but is it the right one? Was It an Illusion is taken from the Victorian Anthologies series featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known. With music by Benedict Edwards.

‘The Signalman’ (1866) is a short story by the English writer Charles Dickens (1812-1870). In the story, a practical-minded narrator meets a railway worker who has been seeing supernatural visions. The narrator doubts the man at first, but at the story’s conclusion a strange event makes him a believer.