Resumen
Resumen de Cuentos macabros
Para quién es
For readers who love short ghost stories, Victorian atmosphere and dark love tales, and anyone who knows Nesbit only from her children's books.
De qué trata este libro
Grim Tales is a book of ghost and horror stories by E. Nesbit, first published in 1893. Nesbit is better known today for children's books such as The Railway Children. Here she writes for grown readers, and she writes to unsettle them. The tales are short, quick and plain in manner, and each is built to deliver a chill.
The stories belong to the Victorian taste for the ghost story, told by the fire on a long winter night. Churches, old houses, lonely roads and love that will not stay buried are the usual ground. Nesbit does not pile up gore. She lets a calm voice describe ordinary people, then lets something wrong enter the room. In the next few minutes you will meet the habits of her horror, hear about some of the best-known tales, and learn why they still work. First, the mood that holds the whole book together.
En este resumen
- 1A children's author writes for the darkFree
- 2A stone knight and a quiet cottage
- 3A bridegroom who is not quite himself
- 4Haunted objects and old desires
- 5Love, loss and the dead who return
- 6How Nesbit builds a chill
Idea clave 1 de 6
A children's author writes for the dark
E. Nesbit was a working writer who turned her hand to many kinds of story. In the early 1890s she was writing for magazines and needed to earn a living, and the ghost story sold well. Grim Tales gathers her tales of fear into one volume. They show a side of her that readers of her later children's classics may not expect.
The book belongs to a long English habit. Victorian readers loved to be frightened in comfort. Magazines printed ghost stories at Christmas, and families read them aloud. Nesbit knows this setting and writes for it. Her tales often open as if a friend were telling you something that really happened.
That friendly start is a trick. The narrator speaks in plain, even words, mentions a house, a village or a wedding, and gives you no reason to worry. Then a small detail slips out of place. A servant refuses to stay. A friend behaves oddly. A picture or a stone looks a little too alive.
The collection is also about love, which sets it apart from many ghost tales. Young couples, engagements, marriages and old loves appear again and again. The dead in these stories are rarely just monsters. They want something, and what they want is often tied to a promise or a bond. Keep that in mind as we look at the stories themselves.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Laura
- Laura is a cheerful young wife who moves with her husband into a cheap country cottage in Man-Size in Marble.
- Mrs Dorman
- Mrs Dorman is the couple's housekeeper in Man-Size in Marble, uneasy about the local legend surrounding the church tomb.
- May Forrest
- May Forrest is the young bride in John Charrington's Wedding, devoted to her passionate fiance and anticipating their marriage.
- John Charrington
- John Charrington is May Forrest's proud and jealous fiance, a man whose love for her is intensely felt.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 24,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 1 h 40 min
- Listening time2 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Cuentos macabros
What is Grim Tales by E. Nesbit about?
It is a collection of short ghost and horror stories first published in 1893. The tales deal with haunted places, returning dead, old legends and doomed love, all told in a plain, calm Victorian voice.
Is Grim Tales the same E. Nesbit who wrote The Railway Children?
Yes. Edith Nesbit is best known for children's books, but she also wrote adult fiction, including these ghost stories. The tone is much darker, though her clear and lively storytelling is the same.
What is the most famous story in Grim Tales?
Man-Size in Marble is the tale most often singled out. It tells of a young married couple in a country cottage and a local legend about two marble knights in a nearby church.
Is Grim Tales scary or hard to read?
The language is easy and the stories are short. The fear is quiet and atmospheric rather than graphic, so it suits readers who like creeping dread more than blood or violence.
When was Grim Tales written and what is its setting?
It appeared in 1893, in the late Victorian period. The stories are fiction, set in English villages, country houses and towns, and they draw on the era's love of ghost tales.