Charles Dickens is known for one of the most beloved ghost stories of all time, but what if I told you that he was known to have his own ghost story in Boston, Massachusetts? During the author’s second tour of the United States, he temporarily stayed at the Parker House Hotel.
The Parker House was the most extravagant hotel in Boston at the time, boasting luxuries like hot running bathwater. When Dickens arrived on November 19th, 1867, the hotel owner Harvey Parker Jr. saw to it that the author was presented with their best suite. Located on the third floor, rooms 138-139 were his home for the next six months.
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Dickens was already a well-known name by this time, a literary celebrity if you will. He was on tour to promote A Christmas Carol. He would give readings of the tale to the public as a part of the tour. It’s said that guests heard him practicing the characters’ voices in front of the mirror, working on perfecting his oratory skills. But performance was always said to be part of Dickens’ writing process. He’d act out the dialogue as he wrote it, striving to make it as realistic and impactful as possible. He returned home in April of 1868.
Dickens passed away from a stroke on June 9th, 1870, at the age of 58. He left behind a gigantic legacy of timeless works and is widely considered the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. After his death, guests who stayed in the same rooms of the Parker House Hotel claimed to have awoken and seen him speaking in front of the mirror.
In the mid-1920s, the hotel was torn down and rebuilt with more modern design and conveniences. The door and mirror from the rooms Dickens stayed in remained on display at the Omni Parker House, though. The large mirror stands six feet tall and four feet wide at the end of a corridor on the hotel’s Mezzanine. Many claim to still see Dickens in the mirror, practicing his reading of A Christmas Carol.
According to Atlas Obscura, plaques next to and on the mirror read:
Mirror from the rooms at the Parker House occupied by Charles Dickens 1867 & 1868 authenticated by the Boston branch of the Dickens Fellowship.
Look closely and see reflections of Dickens as he practiced A Christmas Carol.
I’m of the belief that anything we look for hard enough, we’ll surely see. Knock, and the door will be opened, or in this case, look, and you shall see.
