We return once again for Literary Christmas, a series where we explore how Christmas and the holiday season is represented in literature. While you do have some authors who explore the holidays very explicitly, like Dickens in A Christmas Carol and Louisa May Alcott in Little Women, there are others who treat the season differently. And some of these “different” treatments actually harken back to much older traditions. Today we are going to explore one of these traditions with one of my favourite authors.
Onto Literary Christmas: Edith Wharton!
Afterward by Edith Wharton
From all of my Wharton reading thus far, I cannot find Christmas as a major event in Wharton’s novels. Like Elizabeth Gaskell, she does use Christmas as a point on the calendar as a reference, but it does not appear to play a huge role. (If you do know of an instance of it in one of her novels, please let me know in the comments!)
However, she wrote a short story that is intended to be read at Christmas. Afterward is a story about a wealthy American couple who move to England and hope for a ghost to live in their house. Although there is no ghost, a mysterious man appears one day and the husband disappears shortly thereafter. (A great and quick read if you are interested!)
But why did Wharton write a short story to be read at Christmas that has nothing to do with Christmas?
Christmas Ghost Stories
The tradition of ghost stories at Christmas is actually quite old. Historically in many parts of Europe, people would sit around the burning Yule Log and tell stories. (Much like how people associate sitting around a campfire now with telling stories.)
However, it was in the nineteenth century that you see a return of the Christmas ghost story as a tradition. In the UK, Canada, and the US in particular, you see short ghost stories being written specifically to be read together at Christmas. Unsurprisingly, Charles Dickens plays a role in this, with A Christmas Carol ushering the concept of a Christmas ghost back in. Wharton and many other prolific authors wrote these to be read and enjoyed at Christmas, a different element than we are used to.
While this tradition has been largely lost in the last fifty to seventy-five years, particularly in Canada and the US, it has held on with a small group of people.
Have you read a Christmas ghost story?
Cheers,
The Historian
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