Thursday, November 10, 2011

Best Ghost Story #2 from 1800-1849 is "The Deaf and Dumb Girl" that was Published Anonymously

2nd_best_story

My pick for the second best story from 1800-1849 will come as a surprise because it is very likely you have never heard of it. Its title is "The Deaf and Dumb Girl" and I found it published anonymously in an obscure magazine. In my next post I will give away the top ghost story in this countdown.

Best_ghost_stories-frontcover

2 comments:

Loviatar said...

I know this post is from a while ago but I have some info you'd be interested in regarding ths story. I'm a researcher for the ISFDB (Internet Science Fiction & Fantasy Database) & love tracking down stories. I actually managed to trace this tale. It is translated from a French story titled 'La fille spectre' first published in 1833 by Comtesse de Bradi & published in English the same year as The Spectre Girl' for both The Atheneum and The Dublin Weekly Journal. It was also published as 'The Little Dead Woman' in 1836 without crediting de Bradi. When it was republished as 'The Deaf and Dumb Girl' a couple of the names were changed-M. Maurice to M. Jules and Madame Pinguet to Madame Venet. I've found a few stories where names & places were changed when republished & it's a real pain. The same thing happened with 'Seddik Ben Saad' in your fantasy collection Middle Unearthed. It was reprinted twice in 1845-as 'The Magician and the Favourite' in Ainsworth's Magazine & as "The Magician' in The London Journal' with Ben Saad renamed Youssouf in both publications.

Anonymous said...

Hi Loviatar,

Thanks for your comment and your excellent research. With the lack of copyright protection at that time it is not surprising that there was so much copying going on. So many original SF stories came from French authors in this time period.

Best,
Andrew