REVIEW: The Lamp

 The Lamp
Author: Agatha Christie

A widow is looking for a home to rent. When she is offered a very nice spacious home at a low rent, she immediately inquires what is wrong with the house. Apparently, it comes with a ghost....

I absolutely LOVE haunted house tales, so this story is my favorite in these collections of shorts tales so far. It's subtle....and creepy! 

As far as I can tell, this story was first published in The Hound of Death, a collection of short stories (1933). It was not published in the United States until 1971 when it was included in The Golden Ball and Other Stories. 

I could not find an audio book version of The Hound of Death story collection, so I listened to this story as part of an audio book of The Golden Ball and Other Stories. I was delighted to discover that the book I checked out from the library (HarperAudio) actually used the narration from an earlier audio book of The Hound of Death read by Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee is a magician at reading classic ghost stories (there is a collection of MR James tales read by him on YouTube -- amazing!). 

This story was adapted into a radio play by BBC4 in 1984. It took me awhile to dredge this radio adaptation up online. Most sites had it listed (even BBC 4's site), but with no audio available. I finally found it! Internet Archive has it (of course), along with several other episodes of Haunted from BBC4. Just search the story/author on Internet Archive under audio, you will find it. The Lamp is episode 15 from July 7, 1984. The radio adaptation is full-cast with sound effects. The story is padded a bit for effect and has a few changes, but sticks to the story line pretty well. Very well done! It was totally worth the time I spent searching for it online! 

I am surprised this story was never adapted for television. One of those horror anthology shows would have been perfect -- Suspense, Night Gallery, Twilight Zone, or even Amazing Stories. Fabulous ghost story! I wish BBC or even PBS would do another Agatha Christie Hour type show and do a lot of these short stories that were never adapted for television before. 

I am SO glad that I finally am reading everything Christie wrote....I have wanted to ever since I was 9 years old and read my first Hercule Poirot novel. But some of the books were hard to find all those years ago and life got in the way.....now I have some time (kids raised!) and the internet to back me up!  Growing up in a small town with no book shop and only a very small public library made it so hard to read anything by Christie that wasn't a main stream best seller. Many of these short stories and lesser known novels are brand new to me -- I LOVE THIS! :) This bibliophile is in heaven! 

I do have a much better understanding of why it was so difficult for me as a girl to find some of Christie's works. Some were published under one title in the UK and another in the US. Others were only published in the UK, or only in the US. And these short stories.....right now to read all of the stories from The Hound of Death and The Listerdale Mystery I am jumping between 3 audio books to get them all, as they were never published in the US. Thank God for the internet! It is misused a lot -- but there is so much GOOD to be found on the 'net as well! Digital library books are the BOMB! Back in the 80s when I was trying my best to find all of Christie's books, I was just unable to do so. I have about 50 old paperbacks from my efforts....but I now know I never would have been able to find them all! I can now though -- all's well that ends well! 

I'm reviewing each short story separately and as a part of the collections they appeared in later because most were published in magazines long before being gathered into books. And I'm researching little bits and pieces as I go to find out which were adapted for radio or television, and anything else that strikes my fancy along the way. Fun times! 

On to the next! :)