And Peace Shall Come to Canterville: Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost”
by Jeff Baker
For Halloween, a look at a story by the legendary Oscar Wilde. Maybe his most famous story. A tale that blends laughs, chills, wonders and a tale of redemption. It’s been adapted in various media with varying degrees of success, but there’s nothing like the original short-story.
“The Canterville Ghost” was first serialized in 1887 in “The Court And Society Review” and collected in Wilde’s book “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime” a few years later. It takes the classic ghost story and turns it on its ear.
Hiram Otis, “the American Minister,” an Ambassador not a Reverend, moves his lively family into Canterville Chase, the ancestral home of the noble Canterville family. Think of it as Downton Abbey with a very active ghost. The Otises include Mrs. Otis, the twins, Washington the eldest son “christened Washington by his parents in a moment of patriotism which he never ceased to regret,” and fifteen-year-old daughter Virginia.
Wilde starts the ghostly ball rolling almost immediately as the Otises notice a nasty stain on the carpet. (“Blood has been spilt on that spot,” Mrs. Umney the housekeeper informs them.) Unfazed by blood or the legend that the stain cannot be removed for long, Hiram Otis promptly pulls out a bottle of stain remover and promptly wipes away the stain, standing up triumphantly in victory over centuries-old grit.
There is a sudden clap of thunder and Mrs. Umney promptly faints.
This scene brings on Wilde’s fine sense of humor and sets the tone for much of what follows as not only do the modern Americans tackle Old World ghostliness but they do it with New World innovations like the perfectly-named “Pinkerton’s Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent.” Wilde had toured America twice and he knew what to satirize and how to do it.
What follows are scenes that should remind the reader of a Road Runner cartoon as the ghost attempts to scare the Americans night after night and is thwarted by the innocent and well-intentioned Mr. and Mrs. Otis and the prankish twins who are the ones who actually set traps for the ghost.
Oh and as for our ghost…
Sir Simon de Canterville was a Sixteenth-Century ancestor of the family who stabbed his wife to death, hence the bloodstain, and seemingly disappeared years later as no body was found. Definitely dead, since his ghost began making appearances soon after. (We find later that Sir Simon was done in by his late wife’s vengeful brothers.)
Part of the comedy of the story is Sir Simon’s use of almost-theatrical guises for his ghostly appearances, he proudly recounts them to himself including;
…Red Reuben, or the Strangled Babe, his debut as Gaunt Gibeon, the Blood-Sucker of Bexley Moor and the furore he had excited one lovely June evening by merely playing ninepins with his own bones upon the lawn-tennis ground…
After we have some more fun, the tone of the story abruptly shifts, becoming sweet, a bit sad and actually redemptive. Wilde handles this masterfully and there are scenes and descriptions of fantastic elements such as figures in a tapestry shouting a warning…
So find the story online or in a collection somewhere and read it this month. Maybe introduce this masterpiece to a young reader who has never heard of it before.
And Wilde would, I am sure, want you to remember he was an Irish writer. And the Irish know how to deal with their ghosts…
—end—
Jeff Baker blogs about Fantasy, Sci-fi and horror and other sundry matters around the thirteenth of each month. He first read “The Canterville Ghost” in Grade School and he would have left the house at the sight of the bloodstain. He has a story in the recent Live Real Press anthology “Five Seconds Of Power” and he regularly posts fiction on his blog https://authorjeffbaker.com/ and wastes time on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ Blue Sky https://bsky.app/profile/jeffbakerauthor.bsky.social and Mastodon (as “Mike Mayak.”) https://mastodon.otherworldsink.com/@MikeMayak
Happy Halloween, everybody!