Tales For Christmas Eve

Tales for Christmas Eve examines the intrusion of the uncanny into the everyday, highlighting how fear can seep through ordinary interactions and domestic spaces. Through witty correspondence and subtle emotional shifts, the narrative reveals how the familiar becomes unsettling when appearances mask deeper disturbances. The tension between rationality and belief is navigated through the lens of social manners, as characters attempt to maintain composure in the face of inexplicable events. This juxtaposition of humor and discomfort emphasizes the fragility of control and the absurdity of trying to manage the unexplainable through etiquette and logic. The supernatural is not presented with overt terror but as a quiet, creeping presence that disturbs routine and distorts perception. The setting of a seemingly perfect home becomes a vessel for exploring isolation, unease, and the struggle to reconcile known experience with what defies explanation. Emotional vulnerability is cloaked in charm, while dread simmers beneath surface politeness, offering an exploration of fear as both psychological disturbance and social disruption.

Rhoda Broughton was a Welsh novelist and short-story writer. Her early works were known for their sensationalism, thus critics often overlooked her later, stronger work, despite her being dubbed the "queen of the circulating libraries." Her novel Dear Faustina (1897) is known for its homoeroticism. Her novel Lavinia (1902) portrays a supposedly "unmanly" young man who wishes he had been born a woman. Broughton was a granddaughter of the 8th baronet, hence she descended from the Broughton family. She was Sheridan le Fanu's niece, and he helped her begin her literary career. Rhoda Broughton was born on November 29, 1840, in Denbigh, North Wales, the daughter of the Rev. Delves Broughton, youngest son of the Rev. Sir Henry Delves-Broughton, 8th baronet, and Jane Bennett, daughter of George Bennett, a prominent Irish barrister. Rhoda Broughton acquired an interest in reading as a young girl, particularly poetry. She was influenced by William Shakespeare, as seen by the frequent citations and allusions in her works. Presumably, after reading Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie's The Story of Elizabeth, she decided to test her own talent. Broughton, in turn, introduced Mary Cholmondeley to her publishers in 1887.