The Woman in Black

infobox Book |
name = The Woman in Black
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Susan Hill
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Ghost story, Horror novel
publisher = Hamish Hamilton
release_date = 10 October 1983
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 192 pp (hardback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-241-10987-6 (hardback edition)
preceded_by =

The Woman in Black is a 1983 horror novel by Susan Hill about a menacing spectre that haunts a small English town.

It was adapted into a stage play by Stephen Mallatratt. It was also made into a 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. 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 at 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.

Plot introduction

The story centres on 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.

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. The hauntings included the sound of a horse and cart in difficulty which were closely followed by the screams of a young child which we later find out to be Jennet Humfrye's son, Nathaniel.

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 not married when she became pregnant was forced to give the child to her sister. Mrs Drablow and her husband adopted the boy, insisting he should never know that Jennet was his mother. Jennet went away for a year but after realising she could not be parted for so long from her son, made an agreement to stay at Eel Marsh House with her son, so 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 from the window of Eel Marsh House. This was particularly distressing for Jennet Humfrye as she had planned to run away with her son soon after the accident. 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, 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. Ten months after the accident Kipps' wife dies of her injuries. The Woman in Black has had her vengeance.

Theatrical Adaptations

tage 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.

Radio and Television Adaptations

In 1989, the story was adapted for television for Britain's ITV network. The production starred Adrian Rawlins as Arthur Kidd (not Kipps) and Bernard Hepton as Sam Toovey (not Sam Daily).

In December 1993, BBC Radio 5 broadcast an adaptation of the novel. It starred Robert Glenister (as young Arthur Kipps) and John Woodvine (as old Arthur Kipps, who also narrates parts of the story). It was directed by Chris Wallis.

Trivia

* The novel and play are not to be confused with Wilkie Collins's Victorian thriller "The Woman in White".
* The Fortune Theatre in London where The Woman in Black has been running since 1989 is reputed to be haunted by a ghost - a woman in black - who began appearing shortly after a break-in at the Covent Garden theatre. She was witnessed being in the wings by all actors mid-performance, watching in silence.

See also

* List of works by Susan Hill

External links

* [http://www.thewomaninblack.com/ Stage play website]
* [http://www.susan-hill.com/ Susan Hill official site]
*imdb title|id=0098672|title=The Woman in Black