The Woman in Black
| The Woman in Black | |
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 1st edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Susan Hill |
| Cover artist | John Lawrence[1] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Ghost story, Horror novel |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton |
| Publication date | 10 October 1983 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 192 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-241-10987-6 (hardback edition) |
| OCLC Number | 59164977 |
The Woman in Black is a 1983 horror novella by Susan Hill, written in the style of a traditional Gothic novel. The plot concerns a mysterious spectre that haunts a small English town, heralding the death of children. A television film based on the story, also called The Woman in Black, was produced in 1989, with a screenplay by Nigel Kneale. In 2012, a film adaptation of the same name was released, starring Daniel Radcliffe.
The book has also been adapted into a stage play by Stephen Mallatratt. It is the second longest-running play in the history of the West End, after The Mousetrap.
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Plot synopsis [edit]
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This section may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (April 2013) |
The story centres on a young solicitor, Arthur Kipps, who is summoned to Crythin Gifford, a small market town on the north east coast of the United Kingdom to attend to the funeral of Mrs. Alice Drablow, an elderly and reclusive widow who lived alone in the desolate and secluded Eel Marsh House.
The house is situated on Nine Lives Causeway, and, at high tide, it is completely cut off from the mainland with only the surrounding marshes and sea frets for company. Kipps soon realises there is more to Alice Drablow than he originally thought. At the funeral, he sees a woman dressed in black and with a pale wasted face and dark eyes, who is watched in silence by a group of children. Over the course of several days, while sorting through Mrs. Drablow's papers at Eel Marsh House, he endures an increasingly terrifying sequence of unexplained noises, chilling events and hauntings by the Woman in Black. From the direction of the marshes he hears the sound of a pony and trap in difficulty, which are closely followed by the screams of a young child and his maid.
Most of the people in Crythin Gifford are extremely reluctant to reveal information about Mrs. Drablow and the mysterious Woman in Black, and most attempts to find out the truth cause pained and fearful reactions. From various sources, Kipps learns that Mrs. Drablow's sister, Jennet Humfrye, gave birth to a child, but because she was unmarried she was forced to give the child to her sister. Mrs. Drablow and her husband adopted the boy, called Nathaniel, insisting that he should never know that Jennet was his mother. The child's screams heard by Kipps were those of Nathaniel.
Jennet went away for a year; however, after realising she could not be parted for long from her son, she made an agreement to be able to stay at Eel Marsh House with him as long as she never revealed her true identity to him. One day, a pony and trap carrying the boy across the causeway became lost and sank into the marshes, killing all aboard, while Jennet looked on helplessly from the window of Eel Marsh House. This was particularly distressing for Jennet as she had become close to her son and was planning to run away and take him with her.
Jennet died later, but returned to haunt Eel Marsh House and Crythin Gifford with a vengeful malevolence, as the Woman in Black. According to local tales, seeing the Woman in Black meant that the death of a child would follow.
After the affair is settled, Kipps returns to London where he marries a woman named Stella, has a child of his own and tries to put the events at Crythin Gifford behind him. At a fair, while his wife and child are enjoying a pony and trap ride, Kipps suddenly sees the Woman in Black once more. She steps out in front of the pony pulling the trap and startles it so greatly that it gallops away and collides with a tree, killing the child and fatally injuring Stella, who dies of her injuries ten months later. The Woman in Black has had her vengeance.
Stage play [edit]
The book was adapted into a play by Stephen Mallatratt. In this version, an older Kipps enlists a young actor to help him tell the story of the 'Woman in Black', hoping that this will help him to move on from those events and exorcise the ghost. The actor plays the part of the young Arthur Kipps while Kipps plays the roles of the people he met. The play adds the twist that the actress playing the Woman in Black in the recreation of the events is the real Woman in Black.
The play is staged at the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden and has been running since its opening in 1989. The play has had an enormous success on the London stage, as well as many other countries around the world.
Radio, television, and film adaptations [edit]
- In 1989, the story was adapted for television by Nigel Kneale for Britain's ITV network and directed by Herbert Wise. The production starred Adrian Rawlins as Arthur Kidd (not Kipps), Bernard Hepton as Sam Toovey (not Sam Daily) and Pauline Moran as The Woman in Black.
- In December 1993, BBC Radio 5 broadcast a four-part adaptation of the novel. It starred Robert Glenister (as young Arthur Kipps) and John Woodvine (as an old Arthur Kipps, who also narrates parts of the story). It was directed by Chris Wallis.
- In October 2004, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 56 minute version[2] in its Saturday Play slot, adapted by Mike Walker. It starred James D'Arcy as Arthur Kipps, was directed by John Taylor and was a Fiction Factory production.
- In February 2012, a new film adaptation was released, starring Daniel Radcliffe in the role of Arthur Kipps, and directed by James Watkins of Eden Lake fame. It is a separate adaptation of the novel, not a remake of the 1989 film, and develops a storyline quite different to that of the source material.
By coincidence, Adrian Rawlins, who played the Arthur character in the 1989 TV film version, also played Daniel Radcliffe's onscreen father, James Potter, in the Harry Potter films.
References [edit]
- ^ "Blackwell Books Online". Rarebooks.blackwell.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-07-01.
- ^ "Woman In Black, The [drama]". Radiolistings.co.uk. 2012-01-24. Retrieved 2012-07-01.
External links [edit]
- Stage play website
- Susan Hill official site
- The Woman in Black official movie website
- Official UK movie website
- The Woman in Black at the Internet Movie Database
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