The Canterville Ghost

When the American Minister Hiram B. Otis purchases the English country estate of Canterville Chase, Lord Canterville issues a warning: the property is occupied by a specter. This ghost has chased off the younger servants and frightened a dowager duchess into a permanent fit by placing two skeleton hands on her shoulders. Otis, arriving from a modern country where money buys everything, is unfazed. He agrees to take the spirit and the furniture at a valuation.

The resident ghost, Sir Simon, expects his dramatic manifestations to send the new tenants fleeing into the night. Instead, he faces a family that refuses to be frightened by European superstitions, answering his centuries-old haunting with pragmatic American solutions.

First published in 1887, Oscar Wilde’s novella is a parody of gothic horror and a comedy of transatlantic manners. It has since become one of his most widely adapted works for the screen and stage.