The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, credited to Charles Dickens, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, by Charles Dickens. Read by Ruth Golding. The last of Dickens' Christmas novellas (1848), The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain centres around Professor Redlaw, a teacher of chemistry, whose personal life has been marred by sorrow and, he feels, by wrongs done to him in his past. He is haunted by his ghostly twin, who offers him the opportunity to forget completely all 'sorrow, wrong and trouble', claiming that this will make him happier. Redlaw wavers, but finally accepts this offer, discovering too late that there are conditions attached to it which cause him to infect with this unwanted 'gift' nearly everyone with whom he comes in contact. The story is populated by Dickens' archetypal comic figures - the Swidgers, who are servants of the college, and the hard-working but poor Tetterby family who run a nearby shop. As tends to be the case with these Christmas books, this one is awash with sentimentality, so suspend your 21st century cynicism for a few hours if you listen.

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
• Author credits: Charles Dickens
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 7
• Listed recording duration: 4:14:34

Catalogue topics

• fiction
• novella
• Christmas
• ghost
• sorrow
• memory
• Tetterby
• Swidger

Track guide

1. 1 Chapter 1 The Gift Bestowed, Part 1 — 42:19
2. 2 Chapter 1 The Gift Bestowed, Part 2 — 27:24
3. 3 Chapter 2 The Gift Diffused, Part 1 — 35:20
4. 4 Chapter 2 The Gift Diffused, Part 2 — 31:48
5. 5 Chapter 2 The Gift Diffused, Part 3 — 42:22
6. 6 Chapter 3 The Gift Reversed, Part 1 — 42:03
7. 7 Chapter 3 The Gift Reversed, Part 2 — 33:21

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.