Was It An Illusion? | A Ghost Story by Amelia B. Edwards | A Bitesized Audiobook

A schools inspector visiting a remote part of northern England has a strange encounter with an errant boy pursued by a grim and unsympathetic schoolmaster. But do either of them really exist?

Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope, aka Bitesized Audio. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me (and get access to exclusive content):

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00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:20 Was It An Illusion?
00:55:05 Credits, thanks and further listening

Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831–1892) was a prolific journalist, traveller and Egyptologist, as well as a hugely popular English novelist of the Victorian era. Born in London she was well educated at home by her Irish mother, and showed early promise as a writer as well as demonstrating skill in several other areas, including painting and musical composition. She devoted herself to writing professionally from the early 1850s, producing novels including 'My Brother's Wife' (1855) and 'Barbara's History' (1864). She also travelled widely, in particular with her companion Lucy Renshawe, and published several travelogues, including 'A Thousand Miles up the Nile' (1877), which is still widely read and admired today.

Aside from her travel writing she is best remembered today for her many short stories with ghostly, supernatural and mysterious themes, many of which were contributed anonymously to literary magazines. Charles Dickens regularly invited her to compose seasonal tales for his annual Christmas numbers of 'All the Year Round' between 1860 and 1866, including probably her best known and most reprinted story, 'The Phantom Coach' (1864). It's unclear why she didn't contribute any stories to the publication between 1867 and 1870 – it's possible Dickens rejected her 1866 story 'The Four-fifteen Express' as too long, so she took it elsewhere – but his son, Charles Dickens junior, invited her to return after Dickens's death in 1870.

'Was it an Illusion?' was her last published ghost story, and first appeared in 'Arrowsmith's Christmas Annual' in 1881.

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2023