A Warning to Cynics

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Don't pick this as a book for discussion at a book club. The best books for book clubs are books that a lot of people dislike. Everyone at our book club (23 of us) loved this book, and those of us who bought the audiobook loved the narrator as well. This tends to make for very short and uninteresting discussion. "I loved x" "Yes so did I" "I loved y" "Yes so did I" "I particularly loved z" "That was the best bit." You get the idea. For me, having read a lot of Wilde, but not this story, The Canterville Ghost was a revelation. So much less barbed and pointed that many of his other works, so much more concerned, it seems, with simply entertaining and uplifting, the book was a delight. The most delightful part of the story, I thought, was the adoration of the young and gallant Duke of Cheshire, down from Eton, for the daughter of the house (Virginia). I've always had a soft spot for chaps who wear their hearts on their sleeve, and nobody wears it better than the Duke of Cheshire.“You can have your secret as long as I have your heart". Coming a close second, who could be a more desirable companion than ‘Jonas the Graveless, or the Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn’?

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