The Haunted and the Haunters | A Ghost Story by Edward Bulwer-Lytton | A Bitesized Audio Production

Two men and a dog attempt to outface the horrors of a London townhouse with an evil reputation, in one of the most famous of all Victorian ghost stories. This tale may have been inspired by the legends surrounding 50 Berkeley Square, infamous as "the most haunted house in London" in the nineteenth century.

A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.

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Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–1873) was a British politician and author. He served as an MP from 1831 to 1866, first as a Whig and later as a Conservative, reaching cabinet rank as Secretary of State for the Colonies under Lord Derby in 1858. A friend and contemporary of Charles Dickens, he was not in the same literary league and his output as a writer has fallen into comparative obscurity over the last 150 years. He is best remembered today for coining several popular phrases, including "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "the great unwashed", as well as for the opening clause of his 1830 novel 'Paul Clifford': "It was a dark and stormy night", which has become synonymous with cliched writing. (The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest keeps his memory alive by inviting contributors to compose deliberately bad opening sentences.)

'The Haunter and the Haunted' was first published in Blackwood's Magazine in August 1859.

A note on the text: There are at least two versions of this story in circulation, possibly more, as Bulwer-Lytton himself subsequently edited the story. This is a short version, which has been regularly anthologized. The long version, sometimes given the alternative title 'The House and the Brain', is considerably longer with a significantly expanded epilogue and conclusion.

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2019.