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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if you could forget every sorrow, but lose the part of yourself that knows how to care?
On a cold Christmas Eve, Mr Redlaw sits alone in an old college, surrounded by books and instruments. A chemistry professor worn down by grief and resentment, he longs to escape the pain of his past. Then the Phantom appears: his own ghostly double, offering to take his painful memories away. The bargain sounds like mercy, but it comes at a price.
Charles Dickens brings Redlaw's dark wish into contact with lives full of need and affection. Milly Swidger cares for the poor and sick. The Tetterbys crowd together in their shabby home, while the young student Edmund Denham needs friends. Through them, this short Christmas tale asks whether sorrow is only a burden—or also a source of pity and forgiveness.
What you’ll discover
- A bargain by the fire Enter a dim college room where a lonely man's wish takes a ghostly shape.
- The cost of forgetting Explore the unsettling bond between painful memories and the kindness we offer others.
- Milly's quiet care Meet a gentle woman whose days revolve around people who need her help.
- A shabby, loving home Step inside the Tetterbys' crowded household, where poverty sits beside warmth and affection.
- Christmas with a shadow Discover a solemn Dickens tale that brings Gothic unease to questions of human compassion.
Who will love it
This is for readers who love Christmas stories with a shadow in them, told in a warm storyteller's voice, with comedy, poor families, and questions about memory and forgiveness.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Redlaw longs to forget his pain
- Grief can keep love alive
- The bargain carries a hidden cruelty
- Shared hardship holds the Tetterbys together
- Care becomes unwelcome when gratitude disappears
- Redlaw cannot escape the harm he carries
- Kindness and neglect reveal opposite truths
- Warmth makes the haunting matter
- Remembering pain keeps people connected
Who’s who
- RedlawA learned chemist who lives alone with old griefs and takes a ghost's offer to forget them, then fears what the gift does to others.
- The PhantomA cold copy of Redlaw himself that tempts him with forgetfulness and tells him he will spread the gift wherever he goes.
- Milly SwidgerThe gentle, practical wife of William, who nurses a sick student, rescues a street child, and treats everyone with quiet kindness.
- William SwidgerMilly's talkative husband, keeper of the college lodge, who agrees with himself all day and loves his father and wife.
- Philip SwidgerWilliam's father, eighty-seven years old, who brings holly each Christmas and treasures his memories of love and loss.
- Mr. TetterbyA small newsman in Jerusalem Buildings who tries to keep a noisy household of children in order and reads improving scraps to them.
- Mrs. TetterbyHis sturdy, warm-hearted wife, who loves her husband and children but worries about money and the cost of a hard life.
- The wild boyA ragged child with no name or home, found by Milly, who wants only food, warmth and the woman who fed him.
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The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
by Charles Dickens · 1848
A lonely chemist trades his painful memories to a ghost and finds he spreads forgetting to everyone he meets.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“When people say Dickens exaggerates, it seems to me they can have no eyes and no ears.”
In short
What if you could wipe out every painful memory you own? Would you take the offer, even if it came from a ghost wearing your own face?
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 15 min1 h 45 min fast, 2 h 40 min slow
- Length
- 31,900 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1848by Charles Dickens
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A haunted man sits alone at twilight
Everyone said Redlaw looked like a haunted man. Dickens proves it piece by piece.
Redlaw is a learned chemist who teaches eager students by day. At night he sits alone in a room that is half library and half laboratory.
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Details
- First published
- 1848
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h 30 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Dickens, Charles. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-haunted-man-and-the-ghosts-bargain.
Dickens, C. (2026). The haunted man and the ghost's bargain. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-haunted-man-and-the-ghosts-bargain (Original work published 1848)
Dickens, Charles. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-haunted-man-and-the-ghosts-bargain.
@book{dickens2026haunted,
author = {Dickens, Charles},
title = {The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-haunted-man-and-the-ghosts-bargain},
note = {First published 1848}
}
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What is The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain about?
A lonely chemist named Redlaw is haunted by memories of a betrayal and a lost sister. A phantom offers to erase his sorrow, and he agrees, only to find that the loss spreads to everyone he meets at Christmas.
Who is the Phantom in The Haunted Man?
The Phantom is a ghostly double of Redlaw himself, with his face, hair and clothes. It speaks his own thoughts back to him, then offers the bargain. Some readers see it as the shape of his gloomy mind.
What does Lord, keep my memory green mean in the story?
It is the prayer written beneath an old portrait in the college hall, whose subject endowed the institution and paid for Christmas holly. Philip loves it, and it comes to stand for keeping loved people alive in memory.
The author
Charles Dickens
1812–1870 · English novelist
Charles Dickens was an English novelist born in Portsmouth in 1812. He lived in London and later at Gad’s Hill Place in Kent, where he died in 1870. His books include The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1849–1850), and Great Expectations (1860–1861).
“The gift I have given you, you will give again, wherever you go!”
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