Weird Circle: A Terribly Strange Bed

"A Terribly Strange Bed" is a short story by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1852 in Household Words, a magazine edited by Charles Dickens. It was written near the beginning of his writing career, his first published book having appeared in 1848. Collins met Dickens in 1851, and this story was the first contribution by Collins to Dickens's magazine Household Words. After several more pieces for the magazine, he became a paid member of staff in 1856. In the story, an English visitor to a gambling-house in Paris stays overnight in the building, and is nearly killed by a specially constructed bed.