"The Signalman", "The Man with the Twisted Lip" and "The Red Room" are all Victorian stories written during the reign of Queen Victoria, who reigned for 67 years between the years 1834 and 1901. This period of time was a time of rapid change; with the introduction of machinery. Charles Dickens' short story, "The Signalman" was published in 1866 around the mid point of Queen Victoria's reign. "The Man with the Twisted Lip", written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was published in 1891 and "The Red Room", written by H.G. Wells, published in 1894. These two short stories came out over 25 years after Dickens' short story.

"The Signalman" was based on the old and the new. Dickens usually wrote about the supernatural and this short story falls into that category. This was not strange as the people in the Victorian era liked tales of ghosts and haunted places (the supernatural). Charles Dickens added...