Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Brontë (written in 1833, published in 1925)
[From the manuscript the “Green Dwarf”]
Tuesday’s Tale April 30 2019
“Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits; that world is round us, for it is everywhere.” From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Did you know that a fragment of Napoleon’s coffin was given to author Charlotte Brontë?
[Napoleon’s coffin aboard La Belle Poule. The coffin was covered by a black velvet drape decorated with golden bees, eagles, and silver cross. At 8am on Sunday 18 October la Belle Poule set sail.]
Lots of legends are out there about Napoleon’s ghost haunting people. The Museum of The Black Watch has a letter describing a British soldier’s encounter with Napoleon’s ghost during the removal of Napoleon’s remains from St. Helena to France in 1840. Napoleon was said to be highly superstitious: lucky starts, omens, lucky dates, and he frequently saw a phantom he called the Red Man who appeared at the Battle of the Pyraminds, at Wagram, at his coronation, and on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo.
Perhaps because Charlotte possessed a part of Napoleon’s coffin, she was inspired to write a short story about Napoleon, not as a gallant emperor, but as a haunted emperor.
The story opens with Napoleon ready for sleep when …
‘A deep groan burst from a kind of closet in one corner of the apartment.
“Who’s there?” cried the Emperor, seizing his pistols. “Speak, or I’ll blow your brains out.”
This threat produced no other effect than a short, sharp laugh, and a dead silence followed.’
This ghost story has a bit of verbal irony, ghostly setting and mood, and the atmospherics are amusing. Not Charlotte’s best work but an enjoyable 10-minute read by one of our most beloved authors. If you are a Charlotte Brontë fan, you really must read this one.
Read the short story (10 minutes) at Gutenberg Australia
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0602171h.html
Listen to the audio on YouTube.com (8 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuJ6QCdTwtQ
Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters Emily and Anne. Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre under the pen name Currer Bell. She began writing poems and ghost stories at the age of twelve. Raised in the village of Haworth in Yorkshire, the sisters were dreamy if not lonely children. Their brother Branwell made up stories of an unreal world, writing them in tiny handwriting on small sheets of paper, which they stitched together to look like real books. The image below is by Branwell, with himself painted out.
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Other Reading Web Sites to Visit
Kirkus Mystery & Thrillers Reviews
Books & Such Bibliophilica NewYorkerFictionOnline
Lovecraft Ezine Parlor of Horror
Slattery’s Art of Horror Magazine Chuck Windig’s Terrible Minds
HorrorAddicts.net Horror Novel Reviews HorrorSociety.com
Monster Librarian HorrorTalk.com
Rob Around Books The Story Reading Ape Blog
For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed