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The Dead Hand

Wilkie Collins

First published 1859
Type Short Fiction
Length Novelette

"Arthur Holliday arrives in Doncaster during the busy September race-week. The only accommodation he can find is a shared room with a body occupying the other bed. His apparently dead companion revives in the night. He has an uncanny resemblance to Arthur and years later is found to be his illegitimate half-brother."—<a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="http://www.wilkie-collins.info/books_queen_hearts.htm">Wilkie Collins Information Pages</a>

Originally published in Household Words 394 (1857-10-10) as part of the second of the five chapters of "The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices", written jointly by Collins and Charles Dickens. Serialization of "The Lazy Tour" had begun the previous week. "Chapter the Second" opens with an introductory section by Dickens, Collin's story occupying pp. 340-9 of the magazine. Reprinted in The Queen of Hearts as "Brother Morgan's Story of the Dead Hand". — quoted from p 380 of Norman Page's collection of Wilkie Collins short fiction Mad Monkton and Other Stories.

Date Publication Publisher Type Page
1859 The Queen of Hearts Harper & Brothers Collection
1859 The Queen of Hearts Hurst and Blackett Collection 173|2173
October 1950 Cover Told in the Dark Pan Books Anthology 100
1952 Cover Told in the Dark Pan Books Anthology 100
1954 Cover Tales of Suspense The Folio Society Collection
1961 Cover Tales of Terror Horwitz Anthology 118
1972 Cover Tales of Terror and the Supernatural Dover Publications Collection 40
June 1972 Tales of Terror and the Supernatural Peter Smith Publisher Collection |3
September 1987 Cover Tales of the Dark #2 St. Martin's Press Anthology 1
July 1990 Cover Ghost and Horror Stories Tynron Press Anthology 444
November 1990 Cover The Best Supernatural Stories of Wilkie Collins Robert Hale Collection 145
1994 Cover Mad Monkton and Other Stories Oxford University Press Collection 195
2006 Cover The Haunted Hotel & Other Strange Stories Wordsworth Editions Collection 243
January 2009 The Queen of Hearts Project Gutenberg Collection
July 2009 The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Wilkie Collins: Volume 1 Leonaur Ltd Collection
July 2009 The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Wilkie Collins: Volume 1 Leonaur Ltd Collection
July 2016 Cover Το Νεκρό Χέρι και η Νυφική Κάμαρα Ars Nocturna Anthology |1