The Woman in Black
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| Author | Susan Hill |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Ghost story, Horror novel |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton |
| Released | 10 October 1983 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 192 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-241-10987-6 (hardback edition) |
The Woman in Black is a novel written in 1983 by Susan Hill and is a gothic ghost story about a menacing spectre that haunts a small English town.
The novel was first published by Hamish Hamilton in hardback in 1983 and later republished as a Mandarin Paperback in 1989 and a Vintage Paperback in 1999. With its pervasive sense of brooding menace it is reminiscent of the works of M. R. James. This was successfully captured by the UK TV movie in 1989, based on a screenplay by the distinguished film and television writer Nigel Kneale, best known as the creator of the Quatermass science-fiction serials, and an authority on the works of James. The stage play was first performed at the Theatre-by-the-Sea in Scarborough, UK in 1987. It was very well received and moved to the Fortune Theatre in London's West End in 1989 where it still runs today as well as the Churchill Theatre in Bromley. The stage play is notable for having a very small cast, but it remains a popular and chilling theatre experience.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
The story centres around a young solicitor, Arthur Kipps, who is summoned to Crythin Gifford, a small market town on the East Coast of the United Kingdom to attend to the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, an elderly widow who lived alone in solitary Eel Marsh House.
[edit] Plot summary
The house is situated on Nine Lives Causeway and at high tide 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 spots a woman dressed in black and with a pale, wasted face, 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.
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 was unable to care for it. Mrs Drablow and her husband adopted the boy, insisting he should never know that Jennet was his mother. Jennet often tried to contact the child, and eventually was allowed to be his nursemaid, as long as she never revealed her true relation 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 Mrs Drablow's sister looked on from the window of Eel Marsh House. Jennet later died, 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, Arthur Kipps returns to London, marries and has a child of his own. At a fair, while his wife and child are enjoying a carriage ride, Kipps suddenly sees the Woman in Black once more. She steps out in front of the horse pulling the carriage and startles it so that it gallops away, killing the child and fatally injuring Kipps' wife. The Woman in Black has had her vengeance.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
[edit] Stage play
An extra twist is added in the stage play, adapted from the book 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. The actor plays the part of the young Arthur Kipps, and as the play progresses it is implied that history may be about to tragically repeat itself. As the basis of the entire play is a fictional stage rehearsal within the theatre where the play is staged, the brief, unexpected appearances to the audience of the unbilled Woman in Black, which at the end are revealed to have only appeared to the actor, give a further, darker implication, adding to the story's 'spine chiller' reputation.
[edit] TV movie
Adapted for television by acclaimed script-writer Nigel Kneale and directed by Herbert Wise, the TV movie was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV on Christmas Eve 1989 (repeated only once by Channel 4 over Christmas 1994). Overall the TV adaptation stayed reasonably faithful to the original novel, although some of the changes angered the author Susan Hill (for example, the sex of the dog 'Spider' was changed from male to female). The TV version was released in the United Kingdom on VHS but only for a fairly short time. There was also a Region 1 DVD release but it is now out of print and, according to the messageboard at the site of Susan Hill, the TV rights are now owned by someone else. As a result of this there will be no further TV broadcasts of the TV movie or any further DVD releases.
Such is the popularity and demand for the out of print TV movie that the shortage of officially available copies created a small black market in illegal copies of the DVD release. At the time of writing, Susan Hill's official website states "Please do note.. if you are trying to track down Video or DVD copies of the old (1988) Television adaptation of The Woman in Black. The film and TV rights are now wholly owned by someone else and this TV version will not be shown again or re-issued. Meanwhile, pirate copies are sometimes for sale on ebay and amazon. THESE ARE ILLEGAL and should not be purchased".
[edit] Trivia
- The TV movie was filmed near Maldon, Essex and the National Trust village of Lacock, near Chippenham, Wiltshire.
- The novel and play are not to be confused with Wilkie Collins's Victorian thriller The Woman in White.
