Short book, interesting to read with the different author's sections fitting in well together. Very intriguing at first, then comes Dickens chapter which is more difficult to follow. After that the book becomes more everyday. Not a bad ending, but not one I was expecting, and a little anticlimactic. ( )

La anciana Sophonisba debe trasladarse a vivir a Londres. Enfrente de su nueva residencia hay un inmueble señorial pero deteriorado, del que cuelga desde tiempos inmemoriales el cartel de «Se alquila». ¿Por qué, se pregunta Sophonisba, nadie quiere alquilar la casa? ¿Y por qué ve en ella, si está deshabitada, un ojo que la mira? Jabez Jarber, su eterno pretendiente, y Trottle, su fiel criado, siempre celosos el uno del otro, se proponen aclarar el misterio. Jarber reconstruye la historia de los antiguos inquilinos de la casa; Trottle, más audaz, entra en la casa misma.

Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors. As the book, A House to Let, is edited and (at least partially) written by him I’ve been meaning to read it for sometime. Besides, another author whose work I've enjoyed, Wilkie Collins, has also written some parts of this book.

A House to Let was originally published in 1858 in the Christmas edition of Dickens' Household Words magazine. Written by not one but four different authors, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter besides Dickens and Collins, this book was innovative for its time to say the least. Each author wrote one chapter each, with Dickens and Collins writing the introduction and conclusion.

The book, for me had a definite ‘Dickensian’ feel to it. That is probably because the idea of the story was his to begin with and that he was the editor of the story. It has a Oliver Twist feel to it with elements of The Woman in White thrown in. I enjoyed the book in parts. I enjoyed the beginning and the ending chapters and Collins' chapter called 'Trottle's Report' the most. The chapter written by Gaskell was satisfactory. But I didn't like Dickens' and Procter's chapters that much. The writings of the four authors are so distinct that you could tell that it has been written by four different persons instead of one. The writing is not seamless. That is a drawback of this book. But what I really enjoyed was the atmosphere of the story. In the end, A House to Let did bring a smile to my face. On the whole, an enjoyable book. ( )

I love Charles Dickens, but this group effort was a total clusterf&ck! A novella written by committee, it was confusing and lacked any coherent direction, focus or mood. If it hadn't been so short, I wouldn't have finished it. Not a fan. (I'm ranking it 2-1/2 stars for the beginning and end parts which were good. It was the in-between that sucked.) ( )

I especially liked Elizabeth Gaskell's contribution, The Manchester Marriage. ( )