Story summary
Samenvatting van Griezelverhalen
- 8 min. leestijd
- 8 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
A portrait in an ebony frame steps down to a lonely man, and the price of her love is his soul.
3 months free · unlimited eBooks, audiobooks and summaries, and print and large print at cost
Nothing to pay today · We mailen je voordat je betaalt · Online opzeggen in twee klikken
Griezelverhalen in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 1 h 35 min1 h 15 min fast, 1 h 55 min slow
- Lengte
- 22.700 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Makkelijk short sentences, plain words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1893by E. Nesbit
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
3 maanden gratis
Ontvang de volledige samenvatting van Griezelverhalen, gratis
- 200.000+ klassiekers als e-books, luisterboeken en samenvattingen in 15 minuten, en gedrukte boeken, ook in grote letters, tegen drukkosten
- Tot 5 lezers bij je thuis met één plan
Griezelverhalen in short
Grim Tales is a set of seven short ghost stories, each with a different shape of fear. A portrait asks for a soul. A groom swears to marry on his appointed day.
What Griezelverhalen is about
What would you give to hold the one person you have waited for all your life? In the first tale of this book, a young man scrubs a dirty old panel and finds a portrait of himself, nailed face to face with a woman whose eyes he cannot leave. Within days she is stepping out of her frame and asking for his soul.
Grim Tales gathers seven ghost stories by E. Nesbit, who died in 1924. They first appeared in magazines and come from the Victorian love of a shiver by the fireside. Nesbit sets her horrors in ordinary places, and her dead are rarely after blood. They want love, or they want to deliver a warning. Most tales are told by someone who swears it happened.
Voor wie is het?. You will love this book if you enjoy ghost stories told by a fire, old churchyards, haunted portraits, tragic love and short tales that build quickly to a chill.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A portrait steps out of its ebony frame
A struggling London journalist, Mr. Devigne, inherits seven hundred pounds a year and a furnished house in Chelsea from his Aunt Dorcas. He is fond enough of Mildred Mayhew, his landlady's daughter, to mean to marry her someday.
In the dining room he finds a fine ebony frame holding a bad print. The frame came from the attic, where an old black picture also lies. He scrubs it with a sponge and a nailbrush, tears off the leather binding, and the thick panel splits into two pictures nailed face to face. One shows Devigne himself in a cavalier's costume, a likeness he has never sat for. The other shows a woman in black velvet, with eyes that plead like a child's and command like an empress's. He hangs her portrait in the frame and avoids her gaze for days.
Then he meets her eyes and cries out that he wishes she were a woman. The frame is empty, and a warm, human hand touches his. She tells him they loved long ago, that she was tried as a witch while he was away at war, and that she sold her soul to the devil. The bargain lets her return whenever someone wishes for her. If he gives up his hope of heaven, she can live on earth as his wife.
A wish spoken half in jest has been heard in earnest.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
A bridegroom promises to come, whatever happens
John Charrington always gets what he decides on.
- 3Begin gratis met lezen
An old man remembers a lover from the churchyard
An eighteen-year-old, who thinks romance is the whole world, asks his old, lame uncle whether anything romantic ever happened to him.
- 4Begin gratis met lezen
A man walks into a dark house and sees something terrible
A man stands for an hour and a half in a dusty suburban lane, waiting.
- 5Begin gratis met lezen
A forged letter wins a wife and loses her
Arthur Marsh sits in a London sitting room with his dinner untouched.
- 6Begin gratis met lezen
A newly married couple fears a night in October
Jack, a painter, and his wife Laura, who writes verses, have little money.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
A funeral song is heard on a wedding eve
Jasper, a young musician, comes home from three years of study in Germany.
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
Love, the dead, and tellers who insist it happened
Look across the seven stories and the same patterns appear.
Read all 8 key ideas now
3 months free, then USD 0,14 a day: unlimited eBooks, audiobooks and summaries, and print and large print at cost.
- Nothing to pay today
- We mailen je voordat je betaalt
- Online opzeggen in twee klikken
Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Devigne A journalist who inherits his aunt's Chelsea house and falls under the spell of a woman in a portrait, putting his promised life with Mildred at risk.
- May Forster The prettiest girl in Brixham, who at last agrees to marry the persistent John Charrington and begs him to stay safe on the journey.
- John Charrington A determined young man who always gets what he wants and swears to keep his wedding day whatever may come.
- Uncle Abraham A lame old man who tells his young relative about the woman he met in a churchyard and promised to meet again.
- Arthur Marsh A man who marries Ida Helmont after a forged letter and then must live with his anger when she tells him the truth.
- Ida Helmont A brave, witty woman who loves Arthur so much that she risks everything on one deceit and one confession.
- Jack and Laura A painter and his writer wife, newly married, rent an ivy-covered cottage, where he learns a legend about two marble knights.
- Jasper and Kate A young musician and his childhood friend, who love each other while she is promised to a rich man to save her father.
How it ends (spoiler)
The Ebony Frame ends in a fire that destroys the house and the picture, and Devigne marries Mildred but insists only his lady was real. John Charrington is already dead when the bride returns with white hair. Abraham misses the new moon. The stockbroker's daughter is killed on the twenty-first of October. Ida is declared dead before Arthur arrives, then visits his room before being found dead on the floor. Laura is found dead holding a marble finger. Benoliel dies in a railway accident, and Kate's gaiety returns.
The whole book is coming to your plan
The full text of Griezelverhalen opens soon. Keep this summary as a file today.
Paperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way. Email me when it is printed
Vragen over Griezelverhalen
What is Grim Tales by E. Nesbit about?
It is a collection of seven Victorian ghost stories, including The Ebony Frame, John Charrington's Wedding and Man-Size in Marble. Most are told by someone who lived through the events, and many are about love that reaches past death.
Which stories are in Grim Tales?
The seven are The Ebony Frame, John Charrington's Wedding, Uncle Abraham's Romance, The Mystery of the Semi-Detached, From the Dead, Man-Size in Marble, and The Mass for the Dead. Each stands alone and can be read in one sitting.
Is Grim Tales based on a true story?
No, the tales are fiction, though their narrators insist that everything happened. Nesbit drew on folk legends, such as the marble knights who walk on All Saints' Eve, and on the Victorian taste for ghost tales in magazines.
Is Grim Tales easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that the stories are short and told in a clear, friendly voice. Each one has its own cast and setting, so you can enjoy one at a time, and the short sentences carry you swiftly through each scene.
What is the main message of Nesbit's ghost stories?
The tales suggest that love and guilt do not end at death, and that people are haunted most by their own choices. Nesbit lets the reader decide whether the ghosts are real or the mind's own creation.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Nesbit, E. Grim Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/grim-tales.
Nesbit, E. (2026). Grim tales. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/grim-tales (Original work published 1893)
Nesbit, E. Grim Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/grim-tales.
@book{nesbit2026grim,
author = {Nesbit, E.},
title = {Grim Tales},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/grim-tales},
note = {First published 1893}
}
Crime and Punishment
Wuthering Heights
Pride and Prejudice
The Iliad
Romeo and Juliet
The Picture of Dorian Gray3 maanden gratis
Ontvang de volledige samenvatting van Griezelverhalen, gratis
- 200.000+ klassiekers als e-books, luisterboeken en samenvattingen in 15 minuten, en gedrukte boeken, ook in grote letters, tegen drukkosten
- Tot 5 lezers bij je thuis met één plan
