Among the ghost Christmas stories, The Ghosts Of The Mail by Charles Dickens is a peculiar short novel written after The Queer Chair by Charles Dickens and published in The Pickwick Paper in 1837. The story is also known as The Story Of The Bagman’s Uncle.
The Ghosts Of The Mail
The narrator of this short ghost story tells a captivating and ghostly tale about his uncle. The clever, merry, and pleasant uncle was a close friend of Tom Smart, the main character of The Queer Chair. This uncle was a mail collector, a delivery man for Tiggin and Welps, and a short and stouter man with a cheerful face. Whilst in Edinburg, the jolly uncle was invited to dinner at a family whose hosts became drunk, and he left their house to go back to his lodgings. The night was wild and gusty, and during his long walk, he found himself in an enclosure hosting old worn-out mail coaches. The uncle was fond of old-fashioned coaches and contemplated the mail coaches. These “decaying skeletons of departed mails” created an atmosphere full of dismal and chill.
The Crowd Of Ghosts At The Mail Coaches
In the quiet and deserted spot, as soon as the church bell stroke two, the sleepy uncle woke from his doze, and everything around him was lively and crowded with new mail coaches, operative drivers, horses and passengers. Although there was a vast gathering of people dressed in an old-fashioned way, it could not be possible to determine where they came from or from where they came from because they were disappearing mysteriously and quickly. The astonished uncle found himself suddenly in a carriage with a beautiful lady and two mischievous men with long swords, wearing three-cornered hats and powdered wigs. The long trip will be difficult, and the uncle will fall in love with the beautiful lady.
The Dream Felt So Real
The dream felt so real that the uncle used to refer to it as he believed he was the only person to have encountered such a crowd of ghosts of the mail. Moreover, he claimed that every night, the spirits of the mail coaches were having their journeys with horses, coachmen, and passengers. The narrator’s uncle had a unique paranormal experience, which he kept in his memories for life. What these ghosts were carrying in their bags will be an insoluble mystery. The ghost theme is the main feature of Dickens’s Christmas short stories, such as The Queer Chair and The Goblins Who Stole A Sexton. In The Ghosts of The Mail, the ghosts have an entertaining function as they appear to the uncle as a show. In the other two stories, the spirit of the chair and the goblins have the scope to redirect the main characters’ life by teaching them a better way to live and enjoy life.
