User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
“A man may be accused of cowardice for fleeing away from all manner of physical dangers but when things supernatural, insubstantial and inexplicable threaten not only his safety and well-being but his sanity, his innermost soul, then retreat is not a sign of weakness but the most prudent course.” 
The young solicitor sent to Crythin Gifford to sort out the affairs of a recently deceased Mrs. Alice Drablow is a man by the name of Arthur Kipps.The people of Crythin Gifford are like the people of most small towns, suspicious of strangers and unwilling to help or provide information to outsiders. Kipps attends the funeral of Mrs. Drablow and has his first encounter with a woman the locals call
The Woman in Black.
”She was dressed in the deepest black, in the style of full mourning that had rather gone out of fashion…. A bonnet-style hat covered her head and shaded her face, but although I did not stare, even the swift glance I took of the woman showed me enough to recognize that she was suffering from some terrible wasting disease, for not only was she extremely pale, even more than a contrast with the blackness of her garments could account for, but the skin and, it seemed, only the thinnest layer of flesh was tautly stretched and strained across the bones, so that it gleamed with a curious, blue-white sheen, and her eyes seemed sunken back into her head.”Not the typical mourner to show up to most funerals, although I have a few great-aunts that, especially when seen in partial shadows, give me the willies. Kipps is curious, but he has a job to do out at Eel Marsh House to sort through a lifetime of accumulated Drablow paperwork, so he shrugs off the apparition and focuses back on his task.
Eel Marsh House, once the tide comes in, is cut off from the rest of civilization, so Kipps has a choice to either stop early enough to leave before the tide comes in or decide to stay the night in the house. He tries it both ways, but decides that by staying over he will have more time to finish the job more efficiently. He is a junior associate, after all, and still trying to impress his bosses.
He hears noises, unexplainable noises that raise the hair on the back of his neck.
“Whatever was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had passed me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not 'real'. No. But what was 'real'? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality.” I really liked the fact that Kipps reaches the conclusion that Eel Marsh House is haunted by a ghost. He doesn’t try to convince himself that he is imagining things or that it has to be something other than a ghost. He asks questions of the residents of the town, but receives few answers. He finds some letters at the house, among the disorder of invoices and scraps of correspondence. These letters start to fill in the gaps. He soon realizes who the ghost is and why she is still…
here.
The Woman in Black, as it turns out, wants to share her pain. The implications of this will haunt Arthur Kipps for the rest of his life.
I loved Susan Hill’s writing style. While reading this book I felt some nostalgia for those Victorian ghost story writers such as Wilkie Collins and Sheridan Le Fanu. The interesting part of the book is that, even though it is of modest length, the actual plot takes a while to develop. While waiting to get to the juicy details, Hill shares some beautiful descriptions of scenery and lays the groundwork for the story. We are also introduced to a much older Kipps, seemingly irrationally irritated by the extortions of his family to tell them a scary story. He has only one scary story, but it isn’t a fabrication of a writer’s wild imagination, but a real event where tragedy begets more tragedy.
Stephen Mallatratt adapted the novel to the play which became the second longest running play in West End history. A movie adaptation starring Daniel Radcliffe came out in 2012. There are reasonably significant changes to the plot in the movie version, but I still enjoyed the experience. It was my first time watching Radcliffe in a grown-up role, and it turned out to be a good choice of script for him.
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Rating: really liked it
A disappointment. I kept hearing about how this was a real honest-to-god, old-fashioned ghost story steeped in the tradition of James and James (Henry and Montague Rhodes)that delivered a frisson of genuine terror and some very fine writing as well. Alas! I didn't find any of this to be true.
For starters, I didn't believe the narrator. He is a man in his forties--self-described as "unimaginative"--who years before suffered a scarring supernatural experience, yet he sounds for all the world like a timid watered-down version of a young Bronte heroine (or should I just say "du Maurier heroine"?), sensitive to nature and hell-bent on describing everything that comes along, relevant or not.
The book is a pastiche of 19th century stylistic cliches, starting with a half-hearted Pickwickian Christmas, moving quickly to a Bleak House inspired description of fog, and soon settling into page upon page of lengthy sentences resembling those of middle-period Henry James, yet which--unlike those of the master--contain no fine distinctions of intellect or sensibility to justify their continual qualifying clauses.
The story itself, although not remarkable, could have been interesting. The first sight of the spectre in the graveyard is chilling, and the subsequent scenes where the hero wanders alone in the fog, hearing horrors rather than seeing them, are undoubtedly effective. But there is only enough material here for a 4,000-6,000 word short story, and this is a 40,000 word novella. It is short as horror books go, but far too long for what it has to say.
Rating: really liked it
I said in another review that I'm near impossible to scare because my parents were relaxed with horror movie censorship when I was a young kid. I was oversaturated with horror from a young age and tend to find it more laughable than spine-tingling.
However, this book may be the only exception I have found so far. In recent years I have flat-out avoided horror stories because they do nothing for me... I can stomach Stephen King but only because his books tend to be about more than the basic horror element. For me to find this book, a book that is entirely a horror story, to be so enjoyable and so frightening is quite incredible.
I don't need to tell you what it's about, you can read that in countless descriptions, but I do need to say just how much this scared me and had me sleeping with the light on all night and jumping up at every single creak and sigh. The image of the woman stood in the marshes with her face wasting away is so vividly described that it was all I could picture for days, I kept looking over my shoulder when I was by myself expecting to see her stood there in her long black cloak. This lady does very little and is still probably the most frightening character I've ever come across in a novel. I would not recommend you read this while alone in the house... especially if it can scare someone so immune to horror like me.
Rating: really liked it
Arthur Kipps (an up-and-coming solicitor) is sent by his employer to Crythin Gifford (a remote village) to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client (the late Mrs. Alice Drablow) of Eel Marsh House. When he gets there he is haunted by the ghost of a woman in black...
This was a very eerie, spooky read. I had a hard time putting this book down, I wanted to find out what was going to happen next. The book had a terrific gothic atmosphere, especially the creepy, very isolated Eel Marsh House with its salt marshes, fog, and dreariness of the place. The ghostly woman in black was totally creepy and it was scary because Arthur was all alone with her in the house. The author really built up a tense, spooky feeling as Arthur tried to figure out the mystery of the woman in black and why she was haunting the house.
A fine, chilling ghost story, good to read around Halloween.
Rating: really liked it
A chilling, traditional ghost story, with a strong Victorian feel: a lone lawyer goes to a spooky house on the marshes, plagued by stories of madness and death. No great surprises, but shocking none-the-less. It is skilfully written, so that most of the scary stuff happens in your head, rather than being explicit on the page.
NARRATOR
Arthur Kipps, the main character and the narrator is very pragmatic and always tries to dismiss his fears and find a rational explanation, which serves to make his story more believable – and thus more alarming. All the way through, his greatest need is to uncover the truth, however unpalatable it may be. However, it’s not what he sees or hears that really scares him, but what he FEELS, and the power of the Woman in Black’s emotion. His feelings towards her change from concern through fear to anger.
However, despite his pragmatism, right at the beginning Kipps does have a strong conviction that a particular house is part of his destiny (which implies some openness to the supernatural), and when he first arrives at the town he says he felt like “a spectre at some cheerful feast”.
WEATHER IMAGERY
The weather (mist, rain, wind and sun) is a major character in the book; sometimes it parallels the situation and mood of the characters (mists and disappearances) and sometimes it is in total contrast (sun at a funeral). It could be clichéd, but, perhaps because it doesn't always match the plot, it has more dramatic weight.
BIRDS
One feature I didn’t notice on first reading was the birds. Kipps himself is a bit of a birdwatcher, and different birds make fleeting appearances: a menacing “snake-necked bird”, the woman in black looking like a carrion bird, a nice happy robin later on.
PROBLEMS WITH TIME
The first chapter jumps around in a confusing way, which doesn’t really matter plot-wise, but is disconcerting.
The bigger mystery is when it is set. Everything about it feels Victorian (foggy London, pony and trap, steam trains), but she mentions telephones, electric lights (even in a remote house on the marshes), cars, cycling as a (not particularly wealthy) boy, a grave stone from “years back” is inscribed “190...”, and Kipps makes reference to Dickens and the treatment of Victorian servants 60 years earlier. Each time I’ve read this book, I’ve been more puzzled and irritated by this, though it's still a very good book.
If you like it, The Turn of the Screw is in a similar vein.
And don’t believe those who say it is like a ghost story written by Jane Austen!
Rating: really liked it
Finally got round to reading this Susan Hill classic and thoroughly enjoyed it!
Rating: really liked it
Rating Clarification: 2.5 stars.
Disappointing and predictable, this Gothic ghost story isn't a patch on the classics of the genre such as Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. The writing is uneven and the author fails to keep the suspense building often interspersing awkward/boring moments between the tense scenes, which unfortunately were all too few. Part of the problem with the tension was that it was all so predictable I didn't even feel the need to check the ending like I usually do. In other words the suspense wasn't killing me. Not that the actual story was at fault as such, it was more that the author seemed to give away too much too soon and didn't manage to drip feed bits of the story to the reader in such a way to make it a compelling page turner.
I was also left with various questions at the end, some silly some not. For instance, when was it set? The writer appeared to be trying for a classic Victorian tone, but there were mentions of motor cars and electric lights. My guess was Edwardian, but I can't be sure. Also, I was left wondering how on earth there was electricity at all out at the isolated Eel Marsh House. No mention was ever made of a generator, the narrator just flicked switches even though the house was unoccupied when he arrived. While these questions and some others (which involve spoilers so I won't mention them here) may not amount to major plot holes, they did niggle and distract which is never a good thing, especially in this type of book.
Despite my disappointment in the book, I still hold out hope for the movie. From what I've seen in the trailers, it looks like the film embraces the full horror of the classic Victorian ghost story which is something the book failed to do. The potential was there but it was just never realized by the author.
Rating: really liked it
You know, what I love about British ghost stories are that they are so understated, like everything else in the country. They don't come bellowing and and dripping gory entrails - they creep upon you, and whisper "boo" almost apologetically in your ear. I think M. R. James started this trend, and all others seem to be following it.
Susan Hill starts her novel, "The Woman in Black", showing Arthur Kipps, an elderly lawyer and the first person narrator, having a quiet Christmas Eve with his family. However, we are given a hint of the tragedy in Kipps' life, when he casually mentions his status as a widower in his early twenties. When his stepchildren ask him to narrate a ghost story, the normally sedate lawyer becomes extremely agitated and walks out - because the children have touched a raw nerve. For there is a very real ghost in Arthur Kipps' past.
As a young man, Arthur is sent to the market town of Crythin Gifford by his boss; to attend the funeral of their client Mrs. Alice Drablow and to sort out her papers, as she has no heirs. Mrs. Drablow lived at Eel Marsh, connected to the mainland by the Nine Lives Causeway and approachable only at low tide: both sides of the causeway are bordered by the treacherous marsh. Kipps thinks nothing of it until he finds that the locals at Crythin Gifford gives the house a long berth and refuse to discuss anything regarding its owner. Things take a turn for the worse when Arthur sights a woman dressed all in black, with a wasted and ravaged face - apparently a ghost.
Ignoring his misgivings, the young lawyer takes up residence at the house on Eel Marsh, but is unable to complete his work as the haunting grows stronger and scarier. Apart from the woman in black, there is a ghostly horse and trap (not seen but only heard) which keeps on plunging into the marsh, accompanied by a child's wail: also, a nursery within the house eerily suspended in time where a rocking chair rocks by itself... as the terrors mount, Arthur discovers the tragedy which is the root cause - and terrifying consequences of sighting the woman in black. He escapes-but the horror follows him...
***
This is a good, old-fashioned ghost story with absolutely no gore and shocks - the one that is best narrated around a campfire on a chill December evening. Susan Hill does a masterly job with the voice of the narrator, which is very much Victorian (hard to believe that the novel was written in 1983). This is absolutely essential, as the horror is very much period and a modern voice would have totally spoilt it.
It is not the ghostly visitations itself that scares one in the novel (though they are sufficiently creepy) but the tone of quiet despair and the starkness of the tragedy. This story, like Stephen King's
Cujo, doesn't let the reader escape even after the book is put away - though the author leavens the horror by starting from a point in the protagonist's future when the tragedy has been put behind. However, the ending is sufficiently devastating for it to stay with one for days.
An excellent read to start the year!
Rating: really liked it
A very good ghost story with creepy sounds, a marsh with lots of fog and danger, and a haunting revengeful spirit. I was all set to give this book a strong 3 stars until the last chapter's chilling, horrid surprise ending. Now I can't wait to see the movie with Daniel Radcliffe. This is a GREAT October read!
Rating: really liked it
4.5 Stars
In the grayness of the fading light, it had the sheen and pallor not of flesh so much as of bone itself. Earlier, when I had looked at her, although admittedly it had been scarcely more than a swift glance each time, I had not noticed any particular expression on her ravaged face, but then I had, after all, been entirely taken with the look of extreme illness. Now, however, as I stared at her, stared until my eyes ached in their sockets, stared in surprise and bewilderment at her presence, now I saw that face did wear an expression. It was one of what I can only describe—and the words seem hopelessly inadequate to express what I saw—as a desperate, yearning malevolence; it was as though she were searching for something she wanted, needed—must have, more than life itself, and which had been taken from her.
For the combination of the peculiar, isolated place and the sudden appearance of the woman and the dreadfulness of her expression began to fill me with fear. Indeed, I had never in my life been so possessed by it, never known my knees to tremble and my flesh to creep, and then to turn cold as stone, never known my heart to give a great lurch, as if it would almost leap up into my dry mouth and then begin pounding in my chest like a hammer on an anvil, never known myself gripped and held fast by such dread and horror and apprehension of evil.
I had seen the ghost of (blank) and she had her revenge.
They asked me for my story. I have told it. Enough.
The ending was different from the movie but nonetheless devastating. 🥺
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Rating: really liked it
I enjoyed this simple yet effective Victorian-era ghost story. I liked the gothic elements: the imagery and descriptive setting the author used to set the stage for a cold autumn, dreary, and moonlit English countryside. It started out with a family telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve. It then went to the to Arthur Kipps, our narrator, to tell the final tale to his stepchildren and wife. His tale was based on his personal account that he encountered many years before.
Mr. Kipps was a lawyer sent by his employer to settle an estate issue following the death of an old woman. As he attends the funeral, starts invesigating, and making discoveries strange things began to happen. Along the way there were apparitions and appearances of the Woman in Black. The story had some creepy moments mixed with mystery. The story tragically ended by Mr. Kipps as he stated "They asked for my story. I have told it." The story ended on a somber and haunting note that provided closure to the story.
Overall this was a fun and quick read. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys gothic and ghost stories. Thanks!
Rating: really liked it
there's never final tears, sadness can last forever, some people we just can never bury even when we're dead
the whole hole in our chest will still remain, when the ocean pours in, it still leaks...
reminiscing can kill, love loves blood
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
irene, when i remembered you in the mid of some night, i coughed like a dud grenade exploding, i just felt the hole in my chest that wud never be filled. it was not like emptiness which cud be somehow filled, no, it's not like an abyss, it's a barathrum. we die and rot and fade away when we're falling inside of it...
cuz we're living ghosts, maybe we always are and always will...i have a hole in my chest, one day you came and filled into it, you'd fixed me, but now you're gone and wandering somewhere else, but never again haunt any other's dreams...
Rating: really liked it
A quickly read, old-fashioned ghost story that I enjoyed but that also left me wanting...
The setting is a little hard to place, because phones and cars are mentionned, but people travel mostly by train, smoke pipes and live in country estates... Between the two World Wars, perhaps? In this not-quite-modern time, Arthur Kipp, a young sollicitor, is sent to a small country village to represent his firm, who are the estate executor of a Mrs. Drablow, who just passed away. Mr. Kipp attends the funeral and means to visit the lady's isolated house on the march, to gather the important paperwork to settle her affairs. But he finds a lot more than old receipts and correspondance...
I had seen the movie when it came out a few years back, and I will admit it creeped me out: I loved the old school, Hammer Horror effects (empty, rocking furniture, faces that appear in the mist, lamps that go out and all that nonesense), which I've always found infinitely more spooky than slasher films. While it deviated from the book in some ways, the core of the story remains the same: the angry, vengeful ghost of a woman who tragically lost her son seeks revenge on other people's children.
Susan Hill didn't reinvent the wheel with this book, and while the story is intriguing and the narrative well-paced, I felt it lacked a little... something I can't quite put my finger on. I do find it interesting that Mr. Kipp is not a believer in the supernatural, so his reactions to events that cannot be explained rationally are grounded, and devoid of superstition or panic. Perhaps if the book had been longer, the setting more fleshed out, I would have found it more engaging, but as it is, it was simply a nice little change of pace: my Spooktober pile this year has been mostly very modern, cosmic horror, and it was refreshing to get back to the basics with this Gothic haunting tale. Good but unremarkable.
(I love the cover art of my edition: that water color painting is so creepy!)
Rating: really liked it
2.5 rounded up to 3 stars.
I was very disappointed with this book. It's much shorter than I thought it was going to be, for one. That's my fault for not checking to see how many pages it was.
I found the prose to be overly descriptive. I get it, the house is located in a marsh by the sea. I get it that there is fog. I get it that the only road to the house is underwater during high tide. Enough already, where is the woman?
Even when the woman shows up, the story continues to be boring.
I did not find this book to be even remotely scary. There were a couple of chilling scenes and that was about it. If you are looking for a good scare, look somewhere else.
Rating: really liked it
2.5 starsThe story starts with our main protagonist- Arthur Kipps narrating his paranormal experience to his close family and friends.
The start of the book reminded me of The Turn of the Screw as this also starts with a similar narration pattern and both these stories revolve around an isolated house.
But that is where the similarity ends.
The setting of
'Eel Marsh House' is spooky, it is foggy surrounded by marshes and the accessibility to the house is blocked during high tide....
Arthur see's
The Woman in Black and then start's experiencing unusual things. The paranormal angle of this is interesting but not as creepy even though it involves
The Woman in Black
This was a quick read and the ending took me by surprise (view spoiler)
[When Arthur got away from Eel Marsh and Crythin Gifford, I thought he has got away but the Woman in Black took her revenge (hide spoiler)]
