The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story

Front Cover
David R. Godine, 2001 - Fiction - 144 pages

An internationally acclaimed and haunting ghost story. "One of the strongest stories of supernatural horror...the work bursts into life and does not flag until the end."--The Washington Post

Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor, has come north from London to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. The townspeople are reluctant to share any information about Mrs. Drablow but Kipps soon realizes that there is more to Alice Drablow than he originally thought. At the funeral, he sees a woman dressed in black, with a pale face and dark eyes, whom a group of children are silently watching.

While sorting through Mrs. Drablow's papers at Eel Marsh House over the course of several days, the routine formalities Kipps anticipates give way to a tumble of events and secrets more sinister and terrifying than any nightmare: the rocking chair in the deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and most dreadfully and most tragically for Kipps, the woman in black herself.

First published in 1983, and written in the style of a traditional Gothic novel, The Woman in Black has become a classic novel of supernatural horror.

From inside the book

Contents

Christmas Eve
1
A London Particular
15
The Journey North
23
Copyright

9 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2001)

Author Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, United Kingdom on February 5, 1942. She graduated from King's College in London in 1963 and became a full-time writer. She worked as a freelance journalist between 1963 and 1968 and has been a monthly columnist for the Daily Telegraph since 1977. She founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, in 1996 and publishes a literary magazine called Books and Company. She has written works of fiction and non-fiction as well as children's books. She also edits short story compilations. She won numerous awards including a Somerset Maugham Award for I'm the King of the Castle; the Whitbread Novel Award for The Bird of Night; the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for The Albatross, and the Smarties Prize for Can It Be True? She currently lives in Cotswolds with her husband.

Bibliographic information