Description

A remote house on the marsh. A woman in black who never leaves.

Arthur Kipps is sent to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, the reclusive owner of Eel Marsh House. The house stands isolated at the end of a causeway, cut off by tide and fog, its windows staring across empty marshland.

At the funeral, Kipps glimpses a wasted woman dressed entirely in black. No one will acknowledge her. In the village, silence follows her name. As Kipps remains at the house to settle Drablow’s affairs, the atmosphere tightens. Footsteps echo in empty rooms. A child’s cry carries across the marsh.

This collection centers on the novella that made Hill’s reputation, a ghost story in which grief becomes vengeance and the past refuses burial. The additional tales deepen that sense of unease, where ordinary lives are unsettled by forces that cannot be reasoned with.

‘Heartstoppingly chilling’ Daily Express

‘No one chills the heart like Susan Hill’ Daily Telegraph

VINTAGE QUARTERBOUND CLASSICS: Bound to be beautiful

Publisher Review

No one chills the heart like Susan Hill-Daily Telegraph An excellent ghost story... magnificently eerie... compulsive reading-Evening Standard A rattling good yarn, the sort that chills the mind as well as the spine-Guardian Heartstoppingly chilling-Daily Express Terrifying... creepy classic-Daily Mail Susan Hill is the reigning queen of ghost writers and her period novella...is a classic, broodingly creepy and at times terrifying-Michael Hogan, Observer Hill's haunting tales may be slim, but they pull no punches...-Harper's Bazaar She writes with great power... Authentically chilling-Daily Telegraph One of the strongest stories of supernatural horror...the work bursts into life and does not flag until the end-Washington Post Irresistibly dramatic... Susan Hill has done the genre real honour-Chicago Tribune It is bursting with classic Gothic horror motifs and Susan Hill is a master of atmospheric descriptions. She evokes so cleverly the decrepit Eel Marsh House, the mention of its name enough to make the locals pause, their faces darken in unspoken wariness... The Woman in Black gives a thrilling sense of unease and provides just the right level of things that go bump in the night for a spine-tingling good read.-Khoollect This spine-tingling novel... will certainly keep your nerves jangling-Woman's Weekly