Wilkie Collins, a master of Victorian suspense, gives us a compact and potent ghost story in 'L'hôtel hanté'. It’s a tale that proves you don’t need hundreds of pages to create a lasting chill.

The Story

The plot is beautifully simple. Our narrator is a man of reason who laughs at ghost stories. When friends tell him about a specific room in a Parisian hotel that is said to be haunted—a room where multiple guests have fled in terror—he scoffs. He’s so confident that he makes a bet: he will stay in that very room overnight to prove there’s nothing to fear. Armed with only his logic and a bit of bravado, he settles in. At first, it’s just an ordinary, slightly shabby room. But as night deepens, the atmosphere changes. He hears things—strange, unplaceable sounds that the rational part of his mind tries to explain away. A dragging step? Just the old building settling. A sigh? The wind in the chimney. But the sounds don’t stop; they seem to respond to his presence, growing closer and more distinct. The real horror isn’t in a sudden apparition, but in the slow, relentless dismantling of his certainty, leaving him alone with a growing, undeniable dread.

Why You Should Read It

What I love about this story is its psychological grip. Collins isn’t just writing about a ghost; he’s writing about the fear of fear itself. We’re right there in the narrator’s head as his scientific confidence crumbles. The ‘haunting’ is almost entirely auditory, which somehow makes it worse. Your mind is forced to picture what’s making those sounds, and that imagination is far scarier than any description Collins could have written. It’s a masterclass in suggestion. The setting—a grand but faded hotel—is perfect. It’s a public space that becomes intensely private and threatening, a place where you’re supposed to feel safe but suddenly feel utterly exposed.

Final Verdict

This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys classic Gothic atmosphere or a brilliantly crafted, slow-burn scare. It’s ideal if you love authors like M.R. James or Shirley Jackson, where the terror is in the unsettling mood and the fragility of the human mind. It’s also a fantastic introduction to Wilkie Collins if you’re intimidated by his longer novels like 'The Woman in White'. You can read it in one sitting, but the eerie feeling it creates will linger for much longer. Just maybe don’t read it right before a solo hotel stay.