ghost stories like the woman in black

Readers' Top Horror Novels of the Past 3 Years

The Woman in Black and Other Ghost Stories

416 pages, Hardcover

First published September 24, 2015

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The Woman in Black & Ghosts of the Past

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Freelance copywriter, film buff, community radio presenter. Former host of The Movie Hour podcast (http://www.lionheartradio.com/ and click 'Interviews'), currently presenting on Phonic FM in Exeter (http://www.phonic.fm/). Other loves include theatre, music and test cricket.

What I Think About When I Think About Reading

Essays about books and the thoughts i have reading them, the woman in black: a ghost story.

Read 19/08/2021-22/08/2021

Rating 2.5 stars

My seventh book for the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge is Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black . It’s the story of Arthur Kipps, a solicitor who recalls an encounter with a ghost in the early days of his career that brings tragedy to his life.

It was a mixed bag for me, at times reading like a French and Saunders or Fry and Laurie pastiche of what a ghost story is, at others gripping in its depiction of an eerie place and its strange occurrences. It borrows more than a little from Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and tries to echo the tone of M R James, borrowing the title of his most well-known story for one of the chapters.

My copy of The Woman in Black is the 2011 illustrated edition by Profile Books, bought secondhand from Withnail Books in Penrith, a bookshop we went to by mistake. (For those unfamiliar with the film and therefore the joke: https://youtu.be/bRTpwyNGT6w ) Each chapter is illustrated with a wood engraving by Andy English that takes inspiration from the events of the chapter.

In this ghost story, we initially meet Arthur in later life, when he is an established solicitor with a happy family life in his dream home with his wife and two youngest step-sons. It is Christmas and Arthur’s married step-daughter is visiting with her husband and children. The elder step-son is home from university. On Christmas Eve, the three brothers instigate a ghost story session that reawakens a traumatic memory for Arthur.

In the opening pages, there are hints from Arthur that his hasn’t always been such a comfortable life.

There is an intensifying whirl of ghost stories from the children, each trying to outdo the sibling who went before them, and précised by Hill in a paragraph. It’s a game that disconcerts Arthur so much that he flees the house. While pacing about outdoors, Arthur decides he’s had enough of being in thrall to his own ghost story, and he will write it down in order to exorcise himself. He quotes lines from Hamlet to himself before returning to the house, where no comment is made about his abrupt departure.

I couldn’t quite settle to Hill’s writing style. Her frothiness jarred. It certainly didn’t compare to the richness of the Tolstoy novel I’d just finished. It took me a couple of days of re-reading the first dozen or so pages for the rhythm of the book to connect. I can’t say that I felt a perfect connection. Its slightness persisted.

I remembered that I had read Hill’s reading memoir four years ago, and not quite liked her as a person. I wondered whether her personality had seeped enough into her writing for me to not quite like that, either. I persevered, though.

Hill’s chosen style is, I think, supposed to evoke the 1920s. There is a lot of detail throughout. Too much detail, perhaps, that prevents the story catching the imagination in the way a ghost story needs to.

I found Hill inconsistent in her writing. Certain of her attempts at building atmosphere don’t quite come off. For example, at the start of Arthur’s memoir of his haunting, Hill describes fog in immense detail. It simultaneously hangs, creeps, swirls, seethes and gains sly entrance. It chokes, blinds, smears and stains. It is yellow, filthy and evil-smelling. But without the context of place, beyond it being London, the description falls flat. This flatness is another thing that persists.

Aged 23, engaged to be married to Stella, and still a junior solicitor, Arthur is sent by Mr Bentley to Northumberland to attend the funeral of a client, Mrs Alice Drablow, and to gather together her private papers and documents, bringing them back to London. Mr Bentley is verbose and yet vague about Mrs Drablow. I think Hill was aiming to create an air of mystery, but Mr Bentley is too bumbling for that to work. Hill’s depiction of him made me wonder how he came to continue as a successful solicitor with an office overlooking the Inns of Court.

Arthur travels by train from King’s Cross to Crythin Gifford, changing at Crewe. The journey to Crewe is comfortable, but that along the district line to the north east coast is a miserable one in a dirty, poorly fitted out carriage. Because ‘The North’, presumably. Arthur meets a man on the train, Samuel Daily, who has an unusual response to the name Mrs Drablow. It’s a response echoed by the landlord of the inn where Arthur spends his first night in Crythin Gifford. When Arthur meets Mr Jerome, the agent who had managed Mrs Drablow’s property and land holdings, Hill tells us that he is conversational, telling Arthur about the vicar officiating the funeral and the extent of Mrs Drablow’s properties, and yet telling Arthur “nothing at all, nothing personal, nothing revelatory, nothing very interesting.” Which is exactly how I felt about the majority of Hill’s writing in this novel.

Arthur has his first glimpse of the titular woman in black at Mrs Drablow’s funeral. He’s too dim to realise what he’s seeing, taking the apparition for an old fashioned woman with a wasting disease, wearing a bonnet to hide her ravaged face. He asks Mr Jerome who she is, and almost induces an apoplectic fit in the man. But, as with anyone in the town that Arthur tries to talk to about the Drablow estate, Mr Jerome refuses to say anything about the matter. Arthur sees the woman again, later, in an old burial ground near Eel Marsh House. This time her face is clearer. Arthur is shocked by its malevolence, but Hill’s depiction failed to shock me.

What did work for me was the description of Arthur crossing the causeway to Eel Marsh House, his first sighting of the grey stone building, and his immediate response to the remoteness of the place. I was there with him. Interestingly, this is the most restrained piece of writing in the book, in terms of the level of detail Hill provides. It is pared back and taut. I wonder why she didn’t employ this technique throughout the story. Perhaps she thought that all the froth of the first third of the book was necessary to throw the ghost story into relief.

Similarly, Arthur’s attempt to cross the causeway on foot was affecting, particularly the appearance of the sea mist and the horrifying sounds of a pony and trap falling into the quicksand, accompanied by the cries of a child. This incident marks the beginning of Arthur’s potential descent into madness, and Hill’s writing improves somewhat.

Arthur’s task of putting Mrs Drablow’s papers in order drew some sympathy from me. On his first visit to the house, he unlocks unnumbered desks to find that Mrs Drablow had never thrown anything away. The job ahead of Arthur reminded me of trips to survey and appraise archive collections in various states of disarray. There was one such job that was such a mountain of unsorted papers in multiple rooms that it took three of us a week to sort through and box up. It felt like it would never end. In an attempt to avoid a similar lengthy task, Arthur tries to engage help via Mr Jerome. His request elicits yet another extreme reaction from the land agent. Arthur concludes that there’s nothing for it but to go it alone out on the salt marsh.

While some might find the detail Hill provides about the Drablow paperwork tedious, I was a little more interested. Some of what Arthur discards as being of no practical use to a firm of solicitors, I as an archivist would have kept – the evidence of a life lived through commercial transactions, presenting a picture of the socioeconomic landscape in which that life ran its course. Arthur is more interested in letters, in particular a packet of letters that tell the story of a birth out of wedlock and a family adoption. It’s such a well worn trope that it’s not hard to make the link between the woman in black, the child’s cries out on the marsh, a weathered gravestone in the old burial ground, and this epistolary bundle.

The haunting plays itself out. Hill depicts Arthur as, by microscopic turns, terrified and pragmatic, in a way that means the tension can’t really build. The canine companion lent to Arthur by Mr Daily is something of a MacGuffin, her raised hackles and growling a signifier that supernatural goings on are underway. At one point, Hill forgets about the dog, who has been faithfully depicted at every turn, accompanying Arthur around the house, only to be left in limbo, neither shut in the mysterious first floor room nor with Arthur when he leaves the room, and only reappearing when another bit of haunting is happening.

Arthur’s trauma happens a couple of years later, after he has left Crythin Gifford behind, married his first wife and had a child. The woman in black returns to haunt him a final time. It’s a twist, but one that isn’t entirely unexpected, thanks to Hill’s scattering of clues throughout from the start.

The Woman in Black is a diverting enough read. In the end, after my struggle to settle into reading it, it only took a day and a half. If you’re looking for a ghost story and haven’t already read Henry or M R James, I’d go straight to those authors. Hill’s book is a shadow of their greatness.

The Woman in Black review – a near-perfect old-fashioned ghost story

Some of us can look back on growing up in the United Kingdom and remember some high-quality ghost stories on terrestrial television. I have friends who look back on Ghost Watch with nostalgic affection; I recall being allowed to stay up late to watch A Christmas Carol : these were major television events during a time when there were three channels to choose from, with BBC not quite used to the competition in ITV. Now, the big title of this type from Central Television for ITV has been beautifully restored and will soon be available to buy on home media: The Woman in Black , broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1989 (apparently it has only been shown on television again once since).

The Woman in Black is adapted from the 1983 novel by Susan Hill, was also adapted into a long-running stage play, and more recently another film of the same name starring Daniel Radcliffe. I’m not going to dwell on any comparison here (though they are all a little different in style and content), but this version is considered a classic amongst many horror fans; actually not just genre fans, but lovers of classic drama.

The central character is Arthur Kidd (Adrian Rawlins) a young solicitor sent to a remote assignment by his boss, ostensibly to give him a nudge to more senior work. Mrs. Drablow, who the firm has represented for many years, has recently died and Kidd is asked to wrap up all of her affairs and put her estate up for sale. His business trip is not as straightforward as he – naively – expects though, as he encounters a ghost and discovers the tragic impact she has on this small market town. Kidd is a pure, good man like Sergeant Howie in The Wicker Man ; but unlike Howie, he is endearing with it too: admiring new electrical gadgetry (the film is set between the wars) and playing lovingly with his toddler son. Rawlins gives him a natural wide-eyed openness, which makes Kidd very believable, but perhaps also makes him susceptible to the isolation of his work and the influences of those passed.

The Woman in Black is a terrific period drama first, and ghost story second. So many ghost stories are set in an earlier time, but this one doesn’t look like a modern version of the Edwardian period: it looks and feels like we are truly in that time, watching those London carriages, that country market, and the huge early electricity generator. There is nothing glamorous or exaggerated, like The Limehouse Golem : The Woman in Black has a production feel to it which is both genuine and timeless. Whether pub, train, Eel Marsh House or office – but especially the market street – all the sets have a grubby, worn out look; not as though they’ve been around for nearly a century, but rather as though this is 1925, and they are all lived in, uncared for now . The natural locations of coast, causeway, and marsh are just as atmospheric, and all prove to be fundamental to the plot too.

Added to those sets are several other elements of atmosphere, combining the period and the sinister mood. Sea mists, erratic lights in the old house, the incredible haunting sound of a fatal accident which keeps repeating, and an unseen child who wants to play; none of it is overdone, but applied just enough that we can understand the effect on our hero. And of course, then there is the ghost, the woman in black herself (Pauline Moran). Unsettling at first, the way she simply watches; then more sinister as Kidd uncovers her story, aware she is not leaving him alone. Then there’s what fans call “that scene”. Add a precise and melancholy soundtrack, and you have a near-perfect ghost story.

There are no false jumps as many modern films about hauntings would throw at you, no splatter, no violence. Yet The Woman in Black is a true horror story, about relentless malice, inescapable doom, and history that just won’t lie. It is bleak without being miserable, romantic without being soppy, gothic without being melodramatic.

The Woman in Black was directed by Herbert Wise (described in the BluRay commentary as “a jobbing director”), who led many television dramas over five decades and was probably best known for this film and the series I, Claudius . The little details, nuanced characters (watch it for the sheer range of supporting characters, including Andy Nyman’s first role) and sheer quality of the production make it truly memorable. The film received four BAFTA nominations, but strangely not for the director or writer Nigel Kneale.

Neither Wise nor Kneale are around anymore, so the BluRay release comes with a commentary from British “horror experts Mark Gatiss, Kim Newman and star Andy Nyman”. The film has been restored in high definition from the original film elements and you can now watch it in widescreen as well as the original format. Oh and it’s beautiful: it will take you back; to 1989 if you watched it back then, but certainly to 1925.

The worldwide Blu-ray debut of The Woman in Black is available exclusively from Networkonair.com on 10 August

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First Thoughts: The Woman in Black, and other Ghost Stories

Yet as prolific, versatile and acclaimed as she is, her reputation lies largely with one book.

With ‘The Woman in Black’, Hill established herself not only as a masterful exponent of the traditional ghost story but as the natural heir to the likes of Henry James, Dickens and, most obviously, MR James.

First published in 1983, this instant classic has thrilled generations both on the page and in a West End stage adaptation still smashing box-office records after more than 25 years of continuous production. Then, in 2012, it reached a still wider audience when Hammer presented it for the big screen.

The story: Junior solicitor Arthur Kipps travels to the north-east town of Crythin Gifford for the funeral of a reclusive client, Alice Drablow. Needing to set her affairs in order, he spends several days at Eel Marsh House, an isolated mansion at the end of a causeway that is cut off from the mainland at every high tide. It is a disturbing place, full of odd noises and increasingly intimidating atmosphere.

At the funeral, he’d glimpsed a woman dressed in black. The locals are reluctant to speak of what he saw, though there is clearly a story to be told.

Thoroughly spine-chilling, perfectly paced, and evoking such genre masterpieces as The Turn of the Screw and The Hound of the Baskervilles, and making exquisite use of setting and mood, it is this volume’s obvious highlight. The four other short novels that comprise the collection — each of which has been published by Profile in stand-alone editions over the past five years — can’t quite hit the same stellar heights, but still offer much in the way of worthwhile reading.

‘Dolly’ finds Edward Cayley remembering a childhood summer at Iyot Lock, a large old house in the English Fens, with his spoilt and wicked cousin, Leonora, and their aunt Kestrel.

Trouble arrives on Leonora’s birthday, when Kestrel, in an attempt to grant her niece’s dearest wish, gifts her a china doll. It’s not the doll she wanted, though, and she smashes it against the wall in a fit of rage. They bury the ruined toy in the graveyard, but this is one doll that won’t stay down.

Better, and probably the best of the rest, is ‘The Man in the Picture’, a strange tale recounted to our narrator, Oliver, by his old Cambridge professor, Theo Parmitter.

Theo, a life-long art collector, once chanced across an unusual 18th century oil painting, depicting a wild Venetian carnival, and by fortune or otherwise won it at auction ahead of the rich and elderly Lady Hawdon. But what hangs on his wall now has a rare and absorbing power.

In ‘Printer’s Devil Court’, arguably the weakest of the stories, Hugh Meredith, a young student attending medical college, lodges with three other doctors in an old London house. One drunken night, two of the young men, Walter Powell and Rafe McAllister, start theorising about raising the dead. The third man is horrified, but Hugh’s curiosity keeps him involved in experiments that will have far-reaching consequences.

Completing the collection in strong fashion is ‘The Small Hand’. Adam Snow, an antiquarian book dealer, takes a wrong turn and comes upon an old, crumbling mansion, The White House. Inexplicably drawn to the place, he is exploring the overgrown garden when he feels the unmistakable touch of a small hand. Once the shock abates, Adam attempts to research the house’s history, but the haunting for him is nowhere near done.

Fans of a good old-fashioned ghost story will devour this one.

The Woman in Black, and other Ghost Stories

Profile Books, £12.99

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Characters See All

Arthur Kipps
The Woman in Black
Mr. Bentley
Esmé
Arthur's Stepchildren

Analysis See All

What's Up With the Title?
What's Up With the Ending?
Tough-o-Meter
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Innocent Death
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For Teachers

The Woman in Black Introduction

Turn on all the lights and crank up some cheerful music, because you're going to need it with this one. (Or, hey, light a candle and put on the haunted house soundtrack, if being scared is more your thing.) Because our hero, young solicitor—that's "lawyer" for the Americans in the audience—Arthur Kipps, ends up being involved in a little more than he bargained for.

Although Susan Hill 's Woman in Black was published in 1983, you won't find shoulder pads or frizzy hair. Instead, it's full of steam trains and newfangled contraptions called "horseless carriages." And we start off with Arthur Kipps, the solicitor in question, enjoying the holidays with his family. His second family.

Can you guess where this is going yet?

When the kids start to tell ghost stories, Arthur gets upset and flustered and abruptly leaves the house without explaining why. (How British of him!) It turns out that he has his own ghost story, and we hear it in flashback:

As a young solicitor fairly new into his career, he's sent to a small town to settle the affairs of an old woman who's recently died. When Kipps arrives he finds that the locals are decidedly unfriendly. And then the creepy things start happening—like repeated sighting of a frighteningly ill woman dressed all in black. Thus begins his descent into true heart-pounding horror as he tries to figure out the story behind the mysterious woman in black.

Does this sound like the perfect set up for a movie? You're not the only one to think so. It was adapted for TV in 1989, and then became a radio show in both 1993 and 2004. In 2012, it was adapted again, starring Mr. Harry Potter himself. And if there's one thing we've learned from horror movies, it's that the dead are never really gone.

What is The Woman in Black About and Why Should I Care?

Everyone loves a good ghost story, right? And book has all the right elements: a big, creepy house ; spooky kids ; a mysterious woman ; and a slow and almost excruciating build-up to the horrifying end.

And the cool thing about The Woman in Black is that it's a tribute to where the genre all started: the gothic literature of the late eighteenth century. We're not talking splatter films or torture porn . We're talking about the good stuff: the kind of story that doesn't need to shed a single drop of blood to keep you gripping the edge of your seat and leaving the lights on all night.

Not that we did that after reading this, or anything.

The Woman in Black Resources

More Chills and Thrills If you can't get enough of that Susan Hill spookiness, check out her website for more reading recommendations.

Harry, Can You Hear Me? For more visually inclined horror fans, check out the movie site for The Woman in Black.

Movie or TV Productions

Nah, He's Not Famous The 2012 production of The Woman in Black stars some faces you may know.

Made in the '80s If you're looking for a lengthier version (by a whole five minutes), or if you're just nostalgic for some '80s cinematography, you can check out the TV movie version.

Articles and Interviews

Otherwise Unemployable Susan Hill seems awfully charming and sweet for someone who writes such dark books.

Required Reading The Woman in Black is standard reading for British students. Lucky kids!

Hollywood Calling On the set of The Woman in Black , Susan Hill talks about her book and its movie adaptation.

Creepy Tunes Ready to get scared silly? Check out the trailer for The Woman in Black and don't say we didn't warn you.

Listen Up If you need a good audiobook for your Christmas travels, pick up this one.

Cheer Up, Chap! Daniel Radcliffe makes a very serious looking Arthur Kipps. Well, that sounds about right.

Don't Turn Around What's that peeking from behind Arthur Kipps?

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The Woman in Black: A Classic Ghost Story

A Skeptic Reads the Newspaper

The Woman in Black Directed by James Watkins

In the new horror/thriller The Woman in Black , Arthur Kipps, a lawyer whose grief over his dead wife has put his career in jeopardy, is sent to a remote English village to sort out the affairs of a recently deceased woman. Upon his arrival, he learns that everyone in the town is keeping a deadly secret: the woman’s house is haunted by a ghost-the titular woman in black.

The Woman in Black shamelessly dips deep into the well of horror clichés, ladling on more fear and dread with each scene. The list is fairly comprehensive: creaking doors; spooky little girls in finery; candlelit faces; rocking chairs with unseen occupants; close-ups of creepy dolls; wall-scrawled scary message; the local, spooked oddball who turns out to be not so crazy; scary faces and handprints on windows; dark shadows moving in the background behind an unsuspecting hero; ghostly figures seen, then unseen a second later; and so on.

While many of these are used to good effect, the film isn’t above cheap scares: there’s a few animals that jump or flutter out of the darkness-accompanied, of course, by a pounding, jumping score. (My rule of thumb is to give horror directors three such cheap-shock red herring freebies before I complain.)

The film’s gothic setting and scenery serve the story nicely. The woman’s house (situated somewhat strangely on a tiny island beyond a cold gray marsh) is ivy-covered and decrepit; the town is small, tight-knit, and superstitious. The era is relevant as well: Spiritualism and belief in ghosts was flourishing in England at the time, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) publicly endorsing mediums and séances.

I appreciated the film’s slow, deliberate pacing-this is a thriller horror film in the tradition of the classic Hammer Films, not today’s quick-cut slasher flicks-though the many scenes of Kipps exploring the house and grounds gets repetitive. For an apprentice lawyer who desperately needs to prove himself to his employers, he spend an awful lot of time doing anything but what he’s being paid to do. Instead of sorting through the dead woman’s effects in search of relevant legal paperwork, he’s wandering the house following weird noises and phantoms.

Daniel Radcliffe as Kipps looks a bit like a soulful Edgar Allan Poe in his black frock coat and pocket watch. The film is of course Radcliffe’s first non-Harry Potter film, and he seems to be doing his best to play against type. He’s a quite good actor in his own right, and well on his way to shedding Potter for good.

The script was adapted from a 1983 novel by Susan Hill, though the basic plot is ancient. From a folkloric point of view, the story is an interesting blend of ghost traditions from around the world, including the Irish legends of the banshee, a woman whose terrifying wail is a portent of death and doom. There’s also elements of La Llorona, the Hispanic Weeping Woman who drowned her children and returned as a vengeful ghost. He’s seen and heard calling and weeping for her babies, and is said to abduct and kill children.

Though The Woman in Black is good overall it falters a bit toward the end, as if the screenwriter wasn’t sure how exactly to wrap it up into a satisfying conclusion. It doesn’t give too much away to say that Kipps tries to figure out what the ghost wants so that her spirit can rest. This is of course classic ghostlore, and a scenario I have seen enacted during real-life ghost hunts by psychics and alleged ghost hunters. Given the rich source material The Woman in Black could have been better, but it’s a respectable ghost story.

The Woman in Black

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Look Inside

The Woman in Black

By susan hill, category: literary fiction | gothic & horror.

Oct 18, 2011 | ISBN 9780307950215 | 5-3/16 x 8 --> | ISBN 9780307950215 --> Buy

Oct 18, 2011 | ISBN 9780307745323 | ISBN 9780307745323 --> Buy

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About The Woman in Black

The classic ghost story from the author of The Mist in the Mirror : a chilling tale about a menacing spectre haunting a small English town. Arthur Kipps is an up-and-coming London solicitor who is sent to Crythin Gifford—a faraway town in the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway—to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client, Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. Mrs. Drablow’s house stands at the end of the causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows. The routine business trip he anticipated quickly takes a horrifying turn when he finds himself haunted by a series of mysterious sounds and images—a rocking chair in a deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child’s scream in the fog, and, most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black. Psychologically terrifying and deliciously eerie, The Woman in Black is a remarkable thriller of the first rate. The basis for the major motion picture starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Also by Susan Hill

About Susan Hill

Susan Hill has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Prize, and the W. Somerset Maugham Award, and have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her novels include Strange Meeting,… More about Susan Hill

Product Details

Category: literary fiction | gothic & horror.

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“A rattling good yarn, the sort that chills the mind as well as the spine.” — The Guardian “Excellent…. magnificently eerie…. compulsive reading.” — Evening Standard “The most brilliantly effective spine chillder you will ever encounter.” — The Daily Telegraph “[A] highly efficient chiller…. Nerve shredding.” — The Daily Express

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The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story

Description.

The basis for the major motion picture starring Daniel Radcliffe.

About the Author

SUSAN HILL has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Prize, and the W. Somerset Maugham Award, and have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her novels include Strange Meeting , I'm the King of the Castle and A Kind Man , and she has also published collections of short stories and two autobiographies. Her ghost story, The Woman in Black , has been running in London’s West End since 1988. Susan is married with two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk.

Praise for The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story

"A rattling good yarn, the sort that chills the mind as well as the spine." — The Guardian "Excellent.... magnificently eerie.... compulsive reading." — Evening Standard "The most brilliantly effective spine chillder you will ever encounter." — The Daily Telegraph "[A] highly efficient chiller.... Nerve shredding." — The Daily Express

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The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story Kindle Edition

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From the back cover.

comes as close as the late twentieth century is likely to provide. Set on the obligatory English moor, on an isolated causeway, the story's hero is Arthur Kipps, an up-and-coming young solicitor who has come north to attend the funeral and settle the estate of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. The routine formalities he anticipates give way to a tumble of events and secrets more sinister and terrifying than any nightmare: the rocking chair in the nursery of the deserted Eel Marsh House, the eerie sound of pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and, most dreadfully, and for Kipps most tragically, the woman in black. The Woman In Black is both a brilliant exercise in atmosphere and controlled horror and a delicious spine-tingler...proof positive that that neglected genre, the ghost story, isn't dead after all.

About the Author

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004J4WKLK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (October 18, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 18, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3174 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 178 pages
#82 in Horror Fiction Classics
#85 in British & Irish Literary Fiction
#131 in British Horror Fiction

About the author

Susan Hill has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won awards and prizes including the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Rhys and a Somerset Maugham, and have been shortlisted for the Booker. Her novels include Strange Meeting, I'm the King of the Castle, In the Springtime of the Year and The Mist in the Mirror. She has also published autobiographical works and collections of short stories as well as the Simon Serrailler series of crime novels. The play of her ghost story The Woman in Black is one of the longest running in the history of London's West End. In 2020 she was awarded a damehood (DBE) for services to literature. She has two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk.

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The main themes in this story are isolation and loneliness, influences of the past and, as we might expect from a ghost story - fear.

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The Woman in Black - Themes overview

The main themes in this ghost story by Susan Hill are fear, isolation and the influence of the past. These are presented through the setting, characters and the layered storytelling structure. Other ideas that are dealt with include the conflict between urban and rural life, revenge and, of course, the theme of the supernatural.

Three main themes include:

Although written in 1983, The Woman in Black is a traditional gothic ghost story set during the Edwardian era. Susan Hill draws on many conventions of the ghost story genre to create a compelling and frightening tale.

Song: Themes in The Woman in Black

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You are here: Real Ghost Stories :: Apparitions / Voices / Touches :: The Women In Black

The Women In Black

T his story is about a recent murder, a visitation from a spirit of the women whose profile fits the description and a bizarre vision of the evil act that possibly surrounded her death. Also an unbelievable experience shared by my son and I, involving what I believe was a residual replay involving the car that carried her mutilated body to a sacred aboriginal site right before our eyes and then disappeared into thin air in broad daylight. It also involves an aboriginal psychic that led the police to the location where her body was eventually discovered.

But first I need to go back to the start, I'd recently posted my story August Soul Mates 3 and during that experience with my mother, there were other paranormal things going on at the same time. Including some visions and dreams in regards to a friend of mine and a difficult time she was going through, in relations to an unfortunate loss and personal family matters. Later on my friend had confirmed what I'd saw and validated that experience for me. My wife too, at that time had felt the urgencies in our home. A few months ago as I was going to work, she saw a shadow follow me out the door and it wasn't mine. She was at that time a little unsettled and I have been reassuring her not to worry, on most occasions I try to keep my experiences to myself and not alarm my family, especially the ones that may be hard to explain.

One night as I was resting on my bed, I had rolled over from my right side to my left and standing inside my room probably about 2 or 3 feet away, was a woman all dressed in black. With trousers or jeans on, with a shirt and jacket her hair was black and medium long. She was in full body, not an apparition as such. She was just staring straight at me, the room was dark her face was not so clear, but I knew instantly she was not a family member. I remember looking at her and I guess what had surprised me, was the fact that she was not startled or moving away from me. She was waiting for me to initiate a conversation; unfortunately I'd lost sight of her and was unable to connect for the purpose of that visit. I had no idea who she was or what she wanted then? But I believe now, that she was the murdered ghost of a woman that has been missing since June and later found at a reserve not far away from where I live. Now my memory of when I saw her is a bit vague, but I believe it was around June or July? At that time, every night the paranormal activity in my home was crazy. To a point where I thought I was digging in too far, as at that time I was seeking to help a friend and had some unusual experiences in the process.

One night as I was astral projecting myself or experiencing a projected dream field? I had left my body and travelled to another country. Most of my out of body experiences are confined to my house. But on this occasion I'd found myself travelling across the universe to another place far away. I had come across a man sitting at a table; he looked at me and gave me an evil stare... He seemed a little surprised that I was there. His face started to change in demonic fashion, instinctively as crazy as this sounds I'd started walking straight toward him. Refusing to succumb to fear or to the nature of what was going on and what he was trying to achieve. This is not the first time in astral flight or dreams have I come across a nasty being and any sign of weakness is an invitation for them to enter your mind. I am no hero and excuse me for being a little self-patronizing, but I want others especially children to understand, that they can't enter your mind or destroy your world if you don't fear them. Without your fear they are powerless to hurt you. Before I had returned to my body I saw what I can only describe as three witches levitating of the ground. I am not suggesting they were evil, but I do believe they were connected in some way to my friend and her circumstances. I cannot rule out the possibility that this experience was only a dream, as I have come to acknowledge over the years that not everything presents itself as clear as what you interpret or remember; now getting back to the story.

I know over at Facebook back then in a chat room with a few friends, I had posted a question if anyone knew of a woman all dressed in black with medium long black hair? Another night as I just went to sleep maybe 4 seconds in to a dream state, I had a vision that just seem to come from nowhere and present itself to me. This woman who had long black hair appeared right before my eyes, she pulled a knife up above her head and in a blink of an eye and she ran it straight through my chest. I could feel the knife go through my chest and I mean physically feel it. My muscles had contracted and I could feel the pain for maybe a few long seconds and for some time as I was waking up to a conscious state. The suddenness of this vision jolted me out of the semi dream state. This is the first time I have shared that experience and this experience is an example of what I try to keep away from my family. As I know sometimes our mind can plays tricks on us and I thought? Perhaps it was my imagination. I know privately I'd mentioned to my friend that I would withdraw my focus on her experience, as I had thought the connection of being stabbed had something to do with my friend's experience or from too much psychic activity or even an overactive imagination. I am totally aware of how powerful our minds can be and often distribute advice at your ghost stories with this in mind.

I could relay dozens of experiences like this over here, like the previous paragraph about the three witches and demonic man. But I have decided to only submit stories that are mostly different to the ones I have already wrote! I believe this vision of being stabbed was a past premonition or perhaps the vicious nature of the crime that she fell victim too. It was a very unpleasant experience that kind of shocked me to some degree. After 45 years of running around the block, you kind of think that you have experience most of the mystery's that life can bestow, but I guess this is the first time I have been through a paranormal experience with such vicious circumstances. Maybe some years ago it may have really unsettled my nerve, I know I have said this before and I'll say it again, I will not fear my paranormal experiences I am more afraid of the living.

GHOST CAR... This experience was amazing and absolutely connected to the women in black. My son and I decided to go training at a park adjacent to an aboriginal sacred site; it is about a 10 minute drive from where we live. Keep in mind at this point we had no idea that in this area, the torso of a woman's body was dumped in a creek adjacent to the park and it was an aboriginal elder that tipped of the police to the possibility of finding a body down there due to a gut feeling. At this time there was a six year old girl missing and police pursued with the lead. Now here's what went down, as we drove under the bridge and into the park we had noticed this car behind us, we were the only two cars driving in at the time. There was another vehicle already parked and a red car dumped nearby with no rego plates on it. Now as I got out of our car, I saw this mobile car, which was a white Holden commodore sedan. In it was a man and women driving slowly very close to the edge of the reserve on the bike and walkway track, it did seem a little strange and quite odd to be where it was. The last time I saw the car it was probably 3 or 4 car lengths in front of ours and heading in the direction at the back of the toilets, maybe 15 meters passed.

As I turned my head around toward the park my son had now got himself out of the car and headed to his back seat to grab his drink and towel. He saw the car and saw the women in the passenger seat just glazing in the direction in front, as he bent in the back to grabbed his towel and keep in mind that he was very conscious of where the car was and standing toward the only way in or out! So basically he never really turned his back at all, when he pulled himself back out of the car, which was only a couple of seconds later "he said". With a very surprised tone, hey dad where did that car go? From the last time I saw the car to the point of him saying hey dad, it could have not been longer than ten seconds... Keep in mind for about 5 seconds of them my son had vision of the car and had the prolific side vision of anything turning around. He only lost sight himself for maybe 5 seconds tops? When he said" hey dad" where's that car? I turned around and pointed confidently with my own geographical bearings of where the car was and said; it went behind the toilets...Suddenly! I was just as surprised as my son... Quickly I'd realized that there was a barricade at the back of the toilet and no way possible for a car to get pass, so immediately I'd look toward the bridge we drove under. Which were about 200 metres back and I saw nothing. It is the only way in or out, very open and nothing at all to obscure our view, at this point this whole experience could have not been any longer than 15 seconds and even that may be longer than it was...

We are both convinced that due to the short time we turned our heads and that's if we did at the same time, there was no way it could have doubled back, it just vanished. We examined all possibilities for about 20 minutes, tracing over our steps and timing how long it would take to reverse or turn around etc., and at best that I could manage and that was driving pretty quick in reverse a car would have needed 45 seconds to make it back to the bridge and disappear out of our view. Another thing to note there was no noise, we heard nothing but when we had re-enacted the car turning around there was a reasonable amount of noise. There is no doubt in my mind that the car disappeared, it would have been impossible to turn around and get passed us that quick and especially with no tyre noise as there is some gravel in the location and on top of that, no prolific vision of it going back at all.

The only place the car could have gone in a few seconds was in the creek, which was still impossible to do, as the reserve has thick bush and shrub on the edge of the walkway and furthermore there would have been some substantial noise. I had decided to investigate up and down the edge, looking into a swamp like creek, looking for something that I knew I couldn't find and all this time unbeknown to me, somewhere in that creek a woman's torso was recently discovered... Coincidently by an aboriginal elder who had sensed that there was a body there and informed the police. We decided to continue with our plans, but as my son pointed out to me later, I did keep on going back to the creek in intervals looking in each general direction.

I believe its possible what was shown to us was the actual murder taking place, I remember walking to the edge of the reserve and glancing toward the creek. I can't say I was picking up on anything I was more wondering if the car was in the creek... As that would be the only logical place it could go in a short space of time. But there was nothing there; It was a bit eerie to think that I was probably standing only metres away from where the girl in black was discovered.

When we got home such was the circumstances of the experience, my whole family was informed about what happened and to the contrary of keeping things to myself... We all were mystified to the nature of what happened. My youngest son goggled up on the net and discovered a recent news clip of a woman who's Torso had been discovered in the creek where we saw the car disappear; the date of this news clip was the 13th August coincidently the day my mother died in 2009? I felt that what we saw had something to do with this murder and decided to contact the police and forward what we saw and what I had felt, I sent an email stating I'd believed that a woman and man where involved? Based on the fact that we saw a man and women in the car... I found out a short time later, that a women and man have been charged with the alleged murder of this unfortunate woman.

When I eventually saw the latest bulletin in regards to the murder, I was in shock when I saw a picture of the women who was murdered; she had long black hair and was dressed in black. I believe it was the same women I saw standing in my room some 2 months prior. I cannot be 100 per cent sure it was her, but her profiled was remarkably similar. I was considering trying to contact her family, but have been advised not to at the risk of being ridiculed by our local community. My son and I have been back over a couple of times replaying our movements, just in case we'd missed something. But we keep coming back to the fact that the car just vanished. I think it's fair to say, if I were reading this story from another author, I too would find it hard to believe. Our minds can play tricks on us, but for both of us to see the same unexplainable event, rules out any type of delusional status, I welcome your thoughts.

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The Woman's Ghost Story

By algernon blackwood.

"Yes," she said, from her seat in the dark corner, "I'll tell you an experience if you care to listen. And, what's more, I'll tell it briefly, without trimmings—I mean without unessentials. That's a thing story-tellers never do, you know," she laughed. "They drag in all the unessentials and leave their listeners to disentangle; but I'll give you just the essentials, and you can make of it what you please. But on one condition: that at the end you ask no questions, because I can't explain it and have no wish to."

We agreed. We were all serious. After listening to a dozen prolix stories from people who merely wished to "talk" but had nothing to tell, we wanted "essentials."

"In those days," she began, feeling from the quality of our silence that we were with her, "in those days I was interested in psychic things, and had arranged to sit up alone in a haunted house in the middle of London. It was a cheap and dingy lodging-house in a mean street, unfurnished. I had already made a preliminary examination in daylight that afternoon, and the keys from the caretaker, who lived next door, were in my pocket. The story was a good one—satisfied me, at any rate, that it was worth investigating; and I won't weary you with details as to the woman's murder and all the tiresome elaboration as to why the place was alive. Enough that it was.

"I was a good deal bored, therefore, to see a man, whom I took to be the talkative old caretaker, waiting for me on the steps when I went in at 11 p.m., for I had sufficiently explained that I wished to be there alone for the night.

"'I wished to show you the room,' he mumbled, and of course I couldn't exactly refuse, having tipped him for the temporary loan of a chair and table.

"'Come in, then, and let's be quick,' I said.

"We went in, he shuffling after me through the unlighted hall up to the first floor where the murder had taken place, and I prepared myself to hear his inevitable account before turning him out with the half-crown his persistence had earned. After lighting the gas I sat down in the arm-chair he had provided—a faded, brown plush arm-chair—and turned for the first time to face him and get through with the performance as quickly as possible. And it was in that instant I got my first shock. The man was not the caretaker. It was not the old fool, Carey, I had interviewed earlier in the day and made my plans with. My heart gave a horrid jump.

"'Now who are you, pray?' I said. 'You're not Carey, the man I arranged with this afternoon. Who are you?'

"I felt uncomfortable, as you may imagine. I was a 'psychical researcher,' and a young woman of new tendencies, and proud of my liberty, but I did not care to find myself in an empty house with a stranger. Something of my confidence left me. Confidence with women, you know, is all humbug after a certain point. Or perhaps you don't know, for most of you are men. But anyhow my pluck ebbed in a quick rush, and I felt afraid.

"'Who are you?' I repeated quickly and nervously. The fellow was well dressed, youngish and good-looking, but with a face of great sadness. I myself was barely thirty. I am giving you essentials, or I would not mention it. Out of quite ordinary things comes this story. I think that's why it has value.

"'No,' he said; 'I'm the man who was frightened to death.'

"His voice and his words ran through me like a knife, and I felt ready to drop. In my pocket was the book I had bought to make notes in. I felt the pencil sticking in the socket. I felt, too, the extra warm things I had put on to sit up in, as no bed or sofa was available—a hundred things dashed through my mind, foolishly and without sequence or meaning, as the way is when one is really frightened. Unessentials leaped up and puzzled me, and I thought of what the papers might say if it came out, and what my 'smart' brother-in-law would think, and whether it would be told that I had cigarettes in my pocket, and was a free-thinker.

"'The man who was frightened to death!' I repeated aghast.

"'That's me,' he said stupidly.

"I stared at him just as you would have done—any one of you men now listening to me—and felt my life ebbing and flowing like a sort of hot fluid. You needn't laugh! That's how I felt. Small things, you know, touch the mind with great earnestness when terror is there—real terror. But I might have been at a middle-class tea-party, for all the ideas I had: they were so ordinary!

"'But I thought you were the caretaker I tipped this afternoon to let me sleep here!' I gasped. 'Did—did Carey send you to meet me?'

"'No,' he replied in a voice that touched my boots somehow. 'I am the man who was frightened to death. And what is more, I am frightened now!'

"'So am I!' I managed to utter, speaking instinctively. 'I'm simply terrified.'

"'Yes,' he replied in that same odd voice that seemed to sound within me. 'But you are still in the flesh, and I—am not!'

"I felt the need for vigorous self-assertion. I stood up in that empty, unfurnished room, digging the nails into my palms and clenching my teeth. I was determined to assert my individuality and my courage as a new woman and a free soul.

"'You mean to say you are not in the flesh!' I gasped. 'What in the world are you talking about?'

"The silence of the night swallowed up my voice. For the first time I realized that darkness was over the city; that dust lay upon the stairs; that the floor above was untenanted and the floor below empty. I was alone in an unoccupied and haunted house, unprotected, and a woman. I chilled. I heard the wind round the house, and knew the stars were hidden. My thoughts rushed to policemen and omnibuses, and everything that was useful and comforting. I suddenly realized what a fool I was to come to such a house alone. I was icily afraid. I thought the end of my life had come. I was an utter fool to go in for psychical research when I had not the necessary nerve.

"'Good God!' I gasped. 'If you're not Carey, the man I arranged with, who are you?'

"I was really stiff with terror. The man moved slowly towards me across the empty room. I held out my arm to stop him, getting up out of my chair at the same moment, and he came to halt just opposite to me, a smile on his worn, sad face.

"'I told you who I am,' he repeated quietly with a sigh, looking at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen, 'and I am frightened still.'

"By this time I was convinced that I was entertaining either a rogue or a madman, and I cursed my stupidity in bringing the man in without having seen his face. My mind was quickly made up, and I knew what to do. Ghosts and psychic phenomena flew to the winds. If I angered the creature my life might pay the price. I must humor him till I got to the door, and then race for the street. I stood bolt upright and faced him. We were about of a height, and I was a strong, athletic woman who played hockey in winter and climbed Alps in summer. My hand itched for a stick, but I had none.

"'Now, of course, I remember,' I said with a sort of stiff smile that was very hard to force. 'Now I remember your case and the wonderful way you behaved. . . .'

"The man stared at me stupidly, turning his head to watch me as I backed more and more quickly to the door. But when his face broke into a smile I could control myself no longer. I reached the door in a run, and shot out on to the landing. Like a fool, I turned the wrong way, and stumbled over the stairs leading to the next story. But it was too late to change. The man was after me, I was sure, though no sound of footsteps came; and I dashed up the next flight, tearing my skirt and banging my ribs in the darkness, and rushed headlong into the first room I came to. Luckily the door stood ajar, and, still more fortunate, there was a key in the lock. In a second I had slammed the door, flung my whole weight against it, and turned the key.

"I was safe, but my heart was beating like a drum. A second later it seemed to stop altogether, for I saw that there was some one else in the room besides myself. A man's figure stood between me and the windows, where the street lamps gave just enough light to outline his shape against the glass. I'm a plucky woman, you know, for even then I didn't give up hope, but I may tell you that I have never felt so vilely frightened in all my born days. I had locked myself in with him!

"The man leaned against the window, watching me where I lay in a collapsed heap upon the floor. So there were two men in the house with me, I reflected. Perhaps other rooms were occupied too! What could it all mean? But, as I stared something changed in the room, or in me—hard to say which—and I realized my mistake, so that my fear, which had so far been physical, at once altered its character and became psychical. I became afraid in my soul instead of in my heart, and I knew immediately who this man was.

"'How in the world did you get up here?' I stammered to him across the empty room, amazement momentarily stemming my fear.

"'Now, let me tell you,' he began, in that odd faraway voice of his that went down my spine like a knife. 'I'm in different space, for one thing, and you'd find me in any room you went into; for according to your way of measuring, I'm all over the house. Space is a bodily condition, but I am out of the body, and am not affected by space. It's my condition that keeps me here. I want something to change my condition for me, for then I could get away. What I want is sympathy. Or, really, more than sympathy; I want affection—I want love!'

"While he was speaking I gathered myself slowly upon my feet. I wanted to scream and cry and laugh all at once, but I only succeeded in sighing, for my emotion was exhausted and a numbness was coming over me. I felt for the matches in my pocket and made a movement towards the gas jet.

"'I should be much happier if you didn't light the gas,' he said at once, 'for the vibrations of your light hurt me a good deal. You need not be afraid that I shall injure you. I can't touch your body to begin with, for there's a great gulf fixed, you know; and really this half-light suits me best. Now, let me continue what I was trying to say before. You know, so many people have come to this house to see me, and most of them have seen me, and one and all have been terrified. If only, oh, if only some one would be not terrified, but kind and loving to me! Then, you see, I might be able to change my condition and get away.'

"His voice was so sad that I felt tears start somewhere at the back of my eyes; but fear kept all else in check, and I stood shaking and cold as I listened to him.

"'Who are you then? Of course Carey didn't send you, I know now,' I managed to utter. My thoughts scattered dreadfully and I could think of nothing to say. I was afraid of a stroke.

"'I know nothing about Carey, or who he is,' continued the man quietly, 'and the name my body had I have forgotten, thank God; but I am the man who was frightened to death in this house ten years ago, and I have been frightened ever since, and am frightened still; for the succession of cruel and curious people who come to this house to see the ghost, and thus keep alive its atmosphere of terror, only helps to render my condition worse. If only some one would be kind to me—laugh, speak gently and rationally with me, cry if they like, pity, comfort, soothe me—anything but come here in curiosity and tremble as you are now doing in that corner. Now, madam, won't you take pity on me?' His voice rose to a dreadful cry. 'Won't you step out into the middle of the room and try to love me a little?'

"A horrible laughter came gurgling up in my throat as I heard him, but the sense of pity was stronger than the laughter, and I found myself actually leaving the support of the wall and approaching the center of the floor.

"'By God!' he cried, at once straightening up against the window, 'you have done a kind act. That's the first attempt at sympathy that has been shown me since I died, and I feel better already. In life, you know, I was a misanthrope. Everything went wrong with me, and I came to hate my fellow men so much that I couldn't bear to see them even. Of course, like begets like, and this hate was returned. Finally I suffered from horrible delusions, and my room became haunted with demons that laughed and grimaced, and one night I ran into a whole cluster of them near the bed—and the fright stopped my heart and killed me. It's hate and remorse, as much as terror, that clogs me so thickly and keeps me here. If only some one could feel pity, and sympathy, and perhaps a little love for me, I could get away and be happy. When you came this afternoon to see over the house I watched you, and a little hope came to me for the first time. I saw you had courage, originality, resource—love. If only I could touch your heart, without frightening you, I knew I could perhaps tap that love you have stored up in your being there, and thus borrow the wings for my escape!'

"Now I must confess my heart began to ache a little, as fear left me and the man's words sank their sad meaning into me. Still, the whole affair was so incredible, and so touched with unholy quality, and the story of a woman's murder I had come to investigate had so obviously nothing to do with this thing, that I felt myself in a kind of wild dream that seemed likely to stop at any moment and leave me somewhere in bed after a nightmare.

"Moreover, his words possessed me to such an extent that I found it impossible to reflect upon anything else at all, or to consider adequately any ways or means of action or escape.

"I moved a little nearer to him in the gloom, horribly frightened, of course, but with the beginnings of a strange determination in my heart.

"'You women,' he continued, his voice plainly thrilling at my approach, 'you wonderful women, to whom life often brings no opportunity of spending your great love, oh, if you only could know how many of us simply yearn for it! It would save our souls, if but you knew. Few might find the chance that you now have, but if you only spent your love freely, without definite object, just letting it flow openly for all who need, you would reach hundreds and thousands of souls like me, and release us! Oh, madam, I ask you again to feel with me, to be kind and gentle—and if you can to love me a little!'

"My heart did leap within me and this time the tears did come, for I could not restrain them. I laughed too, for the way he called me 'madam' sounded so odd, here in this empty room at midnight in a London street, but my laughter stopped dead and merged in a flood of weeping when I saw how my change of feeling affected him. He had left his place by the window and was kneeling on the floor at my feet, his hands stretched out towards me, and the first signs of a kind of glory about his head.

"'Put your arms round me and kiss me, for the love of God!' he cried. 'Kiss me, oh, kiss me, and I shall be freed! You have done so much already—now do this!'

"I stuck there, hesitating, shaking, my determination on the verge of action, yet not quite able to compass it. But the terror had almost gone.

"'Forget that I'm a man and you're a woman,' he continued in the most beseeching voice I ever heard. 'Forget that I'm a ghost, and come out boldly and press me to you with a great kiss, and let your love flow into me. Forget yourself just for one minute and do a brave thing! Oh, love me, love me, love me! and I shall be free!'

"The words, or the deep force they somehow released in the center of my being, stirred me profoundly, and an emotion infinitely greater than fear surged up over me and carried me with it across the edge of action. Without hesitation I took two steps forward towards him where he knelt, and held out my arms. Pity and love were in my heart at that moment, genuine pity, I swear, and genuine love. I forgot myself and my little tremblings in a great desire to help another soul.

"'I love you! poor, aching, unhappy thing! I love you,' I cried through hot tears; 'and I am not the least bit afraid in the world.'

"The man uttered a curious sound, like laughter, yet not laughter, and turned his face up to me. The light from the street below fell on it, but there was another light, too, shining all round it that seemed to come from the eyes and skin. He rose to his feet and met me, and in that second I folded him to my breast and kissed him full on the lips again and again."

All our pipes had gone out, and not even a skirt rustled in that dark studio as the story-teller paused a moment to steady her voice, and put a hand softly up to her eyes before going on again.

"Now, what can I say, and how can I describe to you, all you skeptical men sitting there with pipes in your mouths, the amazing sensation I experienced of holding an intangible, impalpable thing so closely to my heart that it touched my body with equal pressure all the way down, and then melted away somewhere into my very being? For it was like seizing a rush of cool wind and feeling a touch of burning fire the moment it had struck its swift blow and passed on. A series of shocks ran all over and all through me; a momentary ecstasy of flaming sweetness and wonder thrilled down into me; my heart gave another great leap—and then I was alone.

"The room was empty. I turned on the gas and struck a match to prove it. All fear had left me, and something was singing round me in the air and in my heart like the joy of a spring morning in youth. Not all the devils or shadows or hauntings in the world could then have caused me a single tremor.

"I unlocked the door and went all over the dark house, even into kitchen and cellar and up among the ghostly attics. But the house was empty. Something had left it. I lingered a short hour, analyzing, thinking, wondering—you can guess what and how, perhaps, but I won't detail, for I promised only essentials, remember—and then went out to sleep the remainder of the night in my own flat, locking the door behind me upon a house no longer haunted.

"But my uncle, Sir Henry, the owner of the house, required an account of my adventure, and of course I was in duty bound to give him some kind of a true story. Before I could begin, however, he held up his hand to stop me.

"'First,' he said, 'I wish to tell you a little deception I ventured to practice on you. So many people have been to that house and seen the ghost that I came to think the story acted on their imaginations, and I wished to make a better test. So I invented for their benefit another story, with the idea that if you did see anything I could be sure it was not due merely to an excited imagination.'

"'Then what you told me about a woman having been murdered, and all that, was not the true story of the haunting?'

"'It was not. The true story is that a cousin of mine went mad in that house, and killed himself in a fit of morbid terror following upon years of miserable hypochondriasis. It is his figure that investigators see.'

"'That explains, then,' I gasped——

"'Explains what?'

"I thought of that poor struggling soul, longing all these years for escape, and determined to keep my story for the present to myself.

"'Explains, I mean, why I did not see the ghost of the murdered woman,' I concluded.

"'Precisely,' said Sir Henry, 'and why, if you had seen anything, it would have had value, inasmuch as it could not have been caused by the imagination working upon a story you already knew.'"

You may also enjoy our collection of Halloween Stories .

Return to the Algernon Blackwood library , or . . . Read the next short story; The Wood of the Dead

On The Red Carpet

Disney+ shares the scares with hallowstream.

From new releases to Halloween classics, Disney+ has you covered this spooky season.

Celebrate the season with new streaming releases like 'Haunted Mansion' and 'Werewolf by Night in Color.'

LOS ANGELES -- Disney+ will get into the spooky spirit this year with their annual Hallowstream celebration. Check out what'll be streaming below.

Now streaming, "Haunted Mansion"

Based on the beloved theme park attraction, "Haunted Mansion" features a mom and son who try to rid their new home of 999 haunts, with the help of "spiritual experts."

October 20, "Werewolf by Night in Color" Marvel's "Werewolf by Night in Color" is a new version of the film "Werewolf by Night," originally released in 2022 in black and white. This will give viewers a vibrant new take on the movie as they watch a group of monster hunters compete in a deadly competition for a powerful relic.

Also streaming Halloween classics "Hocus Pocus" and "Nightmare Before Christmas" celebrate their 30th anniversaries. "Halloweentown" celebrates its 25th anniversary, and the complete collection of "The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror" will be available.

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of Disney+ and this ABC station.

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Column: Democrats should be putting Black women like Laphonza Butler on the ballot

Laphonza Butler appears before the L.A. City Council

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Laphonza Butler, who was just named to represent California in the Senate, was elected president of the largest union in California when she was just 30, almost 15 years ago.

I know we’re supposed to focus on what she is, because Gov. Gavin Newsom pledged to have a Black woman fill the seat that was vacated when Sen. Dianne Feinstein died last week, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also talk about what she has done — and when.

Opinion Columnist

LZ Granderson

LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports and navigating life in America.

Consider this: Through August, more than 300,000 laborers have gone on strike across the country, affecting a wide variety of industries. The writers have a new contract, but the actors are still picketing. Last week, the United Auto Workers strike in Michigan became the site of an unofficial 2024 campaign stop. In Chicago, there was even a 13-day cannabis industry work stoppage in the spring over unfair labor practices.

In this environment, Newsom sent the former president of the largest union in his state to the Senate. Feels like a statement.

US President Joe Biden addresses a UAW picket line at a General Motors Service Parts Operations plant in Belleville, Michigan, on September 26, 2023. Some 5,600 members of the UAW walked out of 38 US parts and distribution centers at General Motors and Stellantis at noon September 22, 2023, adding to last week's dramatic worker walkout. According to the White House, Biden is the first sitting president to join a picket line. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

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But because he had previously promised to send a Black woman to temporarily fill that role, her race and gender make the statement that’s getting the most attention.

Our culture had the same fixation when Ketanji Brown Jackson was nominated to be a Supreme Court justice, even though she received the highest ranking for qualification that the American Bar Assn. has to offer. President Biden was fulfilling, for a second time, a promise similar to Newsom’s — the first obviously being the selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate.

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 02: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) meets with President Joe Biden's Supreme Court Nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 in Washington, DC. Judge Jackson will meet with members of the Senate Leadership ahead of her confirmation hearings. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

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As luck would have it, Butler worked on Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign and will be sworn into the Senate by her. It will be a beautiful moment for them.

It should be a reflective moment for the rest of us.

What these three incredible women of color have achieved in their careers is remarkable and should be celebrated.

James H. Meredith, 28, left, leaves the courthouse in Meridian, Miss., on June 1, 1961 with his attorneys, Constance Baker Motley, New York, center, and R. Jess Brown, right, Vicksburg lawyer, after conferring with federal district judge Sidney Mize about his suit to enter the University of Mississippi. (AP Photo)

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But can Democratic men now stop pledging to appoint Black women as though they’re a charity in need of matching contributions?

Black women have never needed an electoral quid pro quo — a “vote for me and I’ll appoint one” sort of thing. “Fighting Shirley” Chisholm went from the first Black woman elected into Congress in 1968 to running for president in 1972, winning 10% of the vote in the primary. This despite little money and a lot of hostility from her own party.

We can cut the song and dance, can’t we?

FILE - In this Sept. 5, 2018, file photo Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., left, questions President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, in the evening of the second day of his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

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April 30, 2023

There’s an establishment core to the Democratic Party that weaves together anti-Blackness and misogyny, which leads to a mind-set in which Black women are qualified enough to carry democracy yet somehow unqualified to earn their place in the nation’s highest offices.

Qualifications were never the primary barrier for Black women in Congress or any other station in politics, were they? We could celebrate the fact that there’s a Black woman in the Senate or bemoan the fact that the only one had to be appointed rather than elected. We could celebrate that California’s governor kept his promise or bemoan the fact no Black woman has ever been elected governor here or in any other state.

Instead of pledging to appoint Black women, the national party and Democratic leaders should be pledging to get more elected.

Shortly after Butler was named president of the political action committee Emily’s List in 2021, she shared a story with Politico about how her then-7-year-old daughter influenced her to take the job. (Butler became the first mother to lead the organization in its nearly 40-year history.)

Apparently her daughter was upset because her class held a mock election in which different animals made different campaign promises. The winner was a wolf. Butler’s daughter was the only student to vote for the turtle.

“He wanted to be fair to everybody,” said Butler of the turtle’s platform. “And he wanted everybody to have what they needed.”

The wolf promised everyone candy.

Hey, that’s the game, right? Say what voters want to hear.

The cynic in me wonders how many more times Democrats can promise to appoint Black women before it all becomes white noise. Because let’s get real: The party could seriously back Black female candidates and make history across the nation. Or white male candidates could keep talking about “making history” while they dangle pledges about Black women.

It feels as manipulative as promising candy to schoolkids. We don’t want to hear it. We want to see these qualified women on the ballot, getting the party support that they need to win and wield their power.

@LZGranderson

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LZ Granderson is an Op-Ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He arrived in 2019 as The Times’ sports and culture columnist. Granderson is a political contributor for ABC News and co-host of “Sedano and LZ” for ESPN-LA 710. A fellow at the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago as well as the Hechinger Institute at Columbia University, he appears regularly on The Times’ Spectrum News 1’s daily news magazine program, “L.A. Times Today.” He joined CNN as a political contributor and columnist in 2009 before joining ABC in 2015. As a senior writer for ESPN, Granderson maintained a regular column and was a co-host of ESPN TV’s “SportsNation.” In 2011, Granderson was named Journalist of the Year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Assn. and his columns have been recognized by the National Assn. of Black Journalists as well as the Online News Assn. His TED Talk on LGBTQ equality has more than 1.6 million views.

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Sales agent M-Appeal has released the trailer for coming-of-age title “Vera and the Pleasure of Others,” which was written and directed by the Argentinian duo Romina Tamburello and Federico Actis. The film will have its world premiere at Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia, in the First Feature Competition, it was announced Friday.

“Vera and the Pleasure of Others” follows 17-year-old Vera (played by Luciana Grasso), who divides her days between volleyball, school and a secret hobby: she rents out an empty apartment to teenagers looking for a place to have sex.

“Vera and the Pleasure of Others” was presented at Ventana Sur’s Primer Corte – Films in Progress in 2022.

The film was produced by Santiago King of Argentina’s Pez Cine, with support from INCAA.

The cinematographer was Lucas Pérez, the editor was Danalí Riquelme, and the composer was Pablo Crespo.

The film is the debut feature from Tamburello and Actis.

Tamburello is the author of the plays “Black Eyed Women” and “Jet Lag.” She is a scriptwriter for the fiction series “Round” and the director of the short film “Rage,” which participated in the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival. She wrote and directed the documentary series “Catalina, the Woman with the Flag” for Encuentro Channel. She recently published her first novel, “The Devil’s Widow,” and is a showrunner for its television adaptation.

Actis directed the fiction short film “The Cable Cars” and the documentary feature “The Architecture of Crime.” He has worked as a scriptwriter for the cultural television channels Santa Fe Signal and Encuentro. He is currently developing his next feature film, “The Men of the Plain.” He is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents.

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The Woman's Ghost Story was published in The Listener and Other Stories (1907). "Out of quite ordinary things comes this story. I think that's why it has value." "Yes," she said, from her seat in the dark corner, "I'll tell you an experience if you care to listen. And, what's more, I'll tell it briefly, without trimmings—I mean without ...
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2 The Birthday Ghost. The Haunted Mansion Birthday Girl. Draped in her elegant Victorian attire, this nameless ghost girl symbolizes eternal youth and celebration. She is in contrast to the more ominous inhabitants of the Mansion.
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Tamburello is the author of the plays "Black Eyed Women" and "Jet Lag." She is a scriptwriter for the fiction series "Round" and the director of the short film "Rage," which ...

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The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story

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