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Witch House
Macabre, relentless - it was a merciless haunting that spanned generations and thrived on innocent souls.. The little girl saw it, saw the evil that had been bequeathed her by the house that had bedeviled her ancestors. And there was no escaping it. It lived at the lonely mansion off the New England coast.. it followed her.. possessed her.. and it would not
196 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
16 people are currently reading
840 people want to read
About the author
Evangeline Walton
35 books116 followersEvangeline Walton was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley, an American author of fantasy fiction. She remains popular in North America and Europe because of her “ability to humanize historical and mythological subjects with eloquence, humor and compassion”.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
October 31, 2022
synopsis: a little girl is haunted but is she really?
When is a haunted house story not a haunted house story? When it is a Weird Fiction™ haunted house story, of course. The old Weird Fiction Masters blood runs through Walton's veins: some Arthur Machen, a little bit of Lord Dunsany, and a lot of Algernon Blackwood. That blood is not interested in classical ghost stories; it doesn't particularly want to scare you, except perhaps on an existential level. It is fascinated by the extradimensional spaces between and beyond, psychic residues and psychic attacks, the natural world's transcendent qualities, the Lessons of the Ancients, the right-hand path and the left.
This will be a difficult and probably very annoying book for some. Hard to recommend. It is eerie and disturbing but it is far from a traditional tale of horror. The poor reviewer Dan was appalled at the lengthy middle section, which is basically conversation and interrogation. I get it; for someone who doesn't love the in-depth yet strangely stylized, chapters-long conversations that dominate many of Algernon Blackwood's books, this will be a slog. But that and so much else delighted me. I love those sorts of things, the reading and often rereading of multi-level conversations, the thought put into each query and response, the respect for the reader who is expected to be just as interested in such contemplative sequences, one who takes their time and is not reading the book simply to turn pages rapidly.
I also love the characters. The four supporting characters (two brothers, a wife, and a child) are all well-characterized, portrayed in varying shades of villainy and victimization. Best of all, the protagonist and the mother who employs him. Dr. Carew comes from a long line of "psychic investigators" like John Silence (Blackwood again) and there is something so compelling about how these types of characters radiate both a calming ease with transcendental mysticism and an innate decency and quiet strength that I suppose can only be called "goodness" if that word didn't come across as so corny. Elizabeth Stone is just as interesting and admirable: an heiress who escaped from a controlling evil and who is forced to return to it, a student of the occult absorbed by the supernatural but never taken over by it, and in the end, a woman whose struggle is basically about not allowing her own will and independent thought to be taken over by any dominating force, whether by an evil aunt's will or a cousin who loves her. Elizabeth resists being subsumed; being her own individual is key to who she is. These are two very attractive characters.
Walton's prose shines. So many surprising phrases and sentences stuck in my mind; she's both a perfectionist and someone who wants to describe things in new and unusual ways. A complex and nuanced writer who trusts her audience. And much like Blackwood (yet again), she has no interest in viewing non-Western spiritual practices with anything approaching condescension. I really appreciated the depth and sympathy in which she portrayed the mystical traditions of other cultures and her ease in imagining some sort of afterlife. As well as how the present world is affected, sometimes infected, by the past.
looks like a ghost messed with that hair a bit
also there is a creepy apparition that takes the form of a hare and who doesn't love that?
This was a fantastic book and right up my alley in every way.
When is a haunted house story not a haunted house story? When it is a Weird Fiction™ haunted house story, of course. The old Weird Fiction Masters blood runs through Walton's veins: some Arthur Machen, a little bit of Lord Dunsany, and a lot of Algernon Blackwood. That blood is not interested in classical ghost stories; it doesn't particularly want to scare you, except perhaps on an existential level. It is fascinated by the extradimensional spaces between and beyond, psychic residues and psychic attacks, the natural world's transcendent qualities, the Lessons of the Ancients, the right-hand path and the left.
This will be a difficult and probably very annoying book for some. Hard to recommend. It is eerie and disturbing but it is far from a traditional tale of horror. The poor reviewer Dan was appalled at the lengthy middle section, which is basically conversation and interrogation. I get it; for someone who doesn't love the in-depth yet strangely stylized, chapters-long conversations that dominate many of Algernon Blackwood's books, this will be a slog. But that and so much else delighted me. I love those sorts of things, the reading and often rereading of multi-level conversations, the thought put into each query and response, the respect for the reader who is expected to be just as interested in such contemplative sequences, one who takes their time and is not reading the book simply to turn pages rapidly.
I also love the characters. The four supporting characters (two brothers, a wife, and a child) are all well-characterized, portrayed in varying shades of villainy and victimization. Best of all, the protagonist and the mother who employs him. Dr. Carew comes from a long line of "psychic investigators" like John Silence (Blackwood again) and there is something so compelling about how these types of characters radiate both a calming ease with transcendental mysticism and an innate decency and quiet strength that I suppose can only be called "goodness" if that word didn't come across as so corny. Elizabeth Stone is just as interesting and admirable: an heiress who escaped from a controlling evil and who is forced to return to it, a student of the occult absorbed by the supernatural but never taken over by it, and in the end, a woman whose struggle is basically about not allowing her own will and independent thought to be taken over by any dominating force, whether by an evil aunt's will or a cousin who loves her. Elizabeth resists being subsumed; being her own individual is key to who she is. These are two very attractive characters.
Walton's prose shines. So many surprising phrases and sentences stuck in my mind; she's both a perfectionist and someone who wants to describe things in new and unusual ways. A complex and nuanced writer who trusts her audience. And much like Blackwood (yet again), she has no interest in viewing non-Western spiritual practices with anything approaching condescension. I really appreciated the depth and sympathy in which she portrayed the mystical traditions of other cultures and her ease in imagining some sort of afterlife. As well as how the present world is affected, sometimes infected, by the past.
looks like a ghost messed with that hair a bit
also there is a creepy apparition that takes the form of a hare and who doesn't love that?
This was a fantastic book and right up my alley in every way.
November 1, 2018
Ever since British author Horace Walpole kick-started the haunted house genre with his seminal short novel of Gothic romance, "The Castle of Otranto" (1765), there have been hundreds of short stories and dozens of novels centered on this most shuddery of literary subjects. But for this reader, the two novels at the very top of the ectoplasmic heap have long been Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" (1959), still the most spine-tingling book that I have ever read, and Richard Matheson's ubercreepy "Hell House" (1971); perhaps not surprisingly, those two were later adapted into exquisitely scary cinematic fare, in, respectively, "The Haunting" (1963) and "The Legend of Hell House" (1973). And I would be remiss if I didn't mention two novels of haunted shenanigans that are beloved by many, Stephen King's "The Shining" (1977), which I personally found more suspenseful than frightening, and Jay Anson's "The Amityville Horror" (supposedly based on fact, and also from '77). Seldom mentioned these days, however, is Evangeline Walton's "Witch House," a novel that has been on my TBR list for ages, and which I have finally gotten an opportunity to read during this Halloween season.
"Witch House" was the first full-length novel from August Derleth's famed Arkham House publishing company. When it was released as an Arkham House hardcover in 1945, with cover art by Ronald Clyne, the selling price was $2.50; today, that volume is selling for $50 - $200 on Amazon and $52 - $315 on eBay! Walton was 38 when the book was released, having been born in Indianapolis in 1907 (four years prior to another female writer of the fantastic from that same city, C. L. Moore). She'd had one book published prior to this one, 1936's "The Virgin and the Swine" (later rereleased as the first part of her Mabinogion Tetralogy and retitled "The Island of the Mighty"), and so "Witch House" became her second published work, although the rest of that tetralogy was apparently already written and languishing in her drawer at home. As for me, I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on the novel's first English-language paperback: the 1962 Monarch Books edition, with a cover price of 35 cents and cover art by Ralph Brillhart. This was my first encounter with Ms. Walton, who turns out to be a meticulous writer; one whose overall output was comparatively small, and who apparently invested inordinate amounts of time in polishing and rehoning her works. And if "Witch House" is not as frightening as the Jackson and Matheson books mentioned up top, it yet remains a beautifully crafted experience, and one that deserves a wider renown today.
In the book, NYC-based physician Dr. Gaylord Carew is asked to come up to New England and tend to a very distressed young patient. It seems that upon the recent death of the 97-year-old harpy Sarai Quincy, her three young heirs--brothers Joseph Quincy and Quincy Lee, as well as their cousin, Elizabeth Quincy--have been left with a considerable fortune, but with one proviso: that the three of them, along with Quincy Lee's Russian wife Zoia and widow Elizabeth's 9-year-old daughter Betty-Ann, spend the next 10 years living under the same roof of the hereditary family home, Witch House, so called due to the satanic nature of some of their Colonial forebears, and located on a barren island off the coast of northern Massachusetts. It also seems that young Betty-Ann is to be Dr. Carew's patient. The poor girl has lately been in hysterics, and claims to have repeatedly seen a giant black hare at her window, as well as Aunt Sarai's eyes following her from a painted portrait. Two of the family pets had been murdered, and poltergeistlike phenomena had occurred in the house (broken dishes, upset chessboards and so on). A trip to California to calm the girl's nerves was to no avail, as Betty-Ann swore that Aunt Sarai's hands were grabbing her own, from 3,000 miles away! Thus, during a stretch of miserably wet and gloomy February weather, Dr. Carew drives up to the little burg of Harperstown, and from there embarks by boat to the haunted pile that is Witch House, to see what he might do to assist....
"Witch House," it bears repeating, is never as chilling as the Shirley Jackson book (it is not nearly as atmospheric), and is hardly as horrifying as Matheson's (although there is violence and sudden death in the pages of "Witch House," the sheer number of awful things happening is not nearly as great as in "Hell House"). Still, the book manages to impress. For one thing, Walton presents us with an interesting sextet of characters here: Zoia is the daughter of one of Rasputin's mistresses; Betty-Ann is cute and adorable, when not frightened to the brink of hysteria; the three cousins are novice explorers of the arcane, to the point where the two feuding brothers are said to have fought with objects that they hurled at one another telekinetically; and Carew? He is perhaps the most fascinating of the bunch, having studied the arcane himself in the Far East and in Tibet beside his scientist mother. Now, Carew has the ability to not only read minds, but to put himself to sleep instantly and awaken at any time he chooses (boy, would I love to be able to do that!), as well as hypnotize others with ease. Always in command of the situation and aware of just the right words to say and when, Carew almost comes off like a Dr. Strange type of character here, and more than well equipped to handle the forces arrayed against him and Betty-Ann at Witch House.
Walton, as it turns out, is a wonderful storyteller, and an unusual one. She gives her story glints of strangeness by having her characters engage in conversations that are often borderline elliptical. Some of these discourses, such as between Carew and Joseph, touch on matters of religion, God, fate and predestination, and are delivered in language that does not seem...well, realistic. Her descriptions of Witch House are nebulous at best, and while I was reading the book it seemed to me that this was a possible failing, but upon further reflection, one senses that this may have been a deliberate ploy on the author’s part, to engender a sense of dislocation and strangeness. Witch House is the sort of abode where corridors don’t merely turn or twist, but fork (!); truly, a home from hell. Following the book’s opening pages--a somewhat difficult-to-follow section in which the genealogy of the de Quincy family is traced back to the 17th century--Walton gives us a bravura segment that is practically Lovecraftian in tone, during which we are presented with a newspaper story written by Joseph Quincy that tells of the family's 17th century warlock ancestor, the Huguenot Joseph de Quincy, his namesake. The book takes a good long while before it chills as effectively again, but those scary scenes do eventually crop up, including Carew's first glimpse of that spectral hare; the appearance of the dead Aunt Sarai in a room where Betty-Ann has been led, in a deserted section of the house; the visitation of Sarai in Betty-Ann's sleeping chambers; and the entire, surprising final sequence, of which the less said, the better, I suppose.
While experiencing the book, the reader may marvel that this was only Walton's second published work, as her prose often comes off like that of an old master. Thus, we get lines such as this:
"...Harperstown had aged like a handsome woman, an overworked and disappointed woman, who breaks under the lean, piling years...."
And this:
"...More days, a necklace of days, clear crystals threaded with ebon beads of night. Spring came slowly, like some wan and beautiful woman rising from a sick-bed in a chamber that still smelled of death...."
And this:
"...there was evil, positive, undiluted evil, in Witch House, he did not doubt. His trained faculties had seen enough in these vaporous pictures eddying round Barret to assure him of that. There are plague-spots for the soul as well as for the body, breeding-grounds of spiritual infections, and this old house, so sinister in its building, might be such an one...."
I love it! Actually, in the entire course of Walton's book, I could only come up with a few complaints, but the first is a major one, I’m afraid. Early on, Witch House is described as "a quaint stone structure, low and rambling, like a Breton farmhouse...." But much later on, the house is said to be made of wood, and this wooden nature does play a very large role in the book's final pages. It is a discrepancy that I would have thought a perfectionist (such as Walton was reputed to be) incapable of making, but there it is. And, oh...that old book in the Witch House library entitled "Demonologie," which Carew tells us was written by Cotton Mather? It was actually authored by the Scottish king James VI. And the title of the W. E. H. Lecky volume referred to should be "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," not "History of the Rise and Progress of Rationalism in Western Europe." And to end this nitpicking, is it credible that a 9-year-old would use the word "slaunchwise" during casual conversation? But these minor gaffes aside, the book remains great and delicious fun. It is a novel that practically cries out for a big-screen adaptation of its own. Haunted house films, after all, have always been popular, and this story, if handled correctly by a respectful team (and no, big bucks for special FX would not necessarily be important here), could just result in huge audiences. Are you listening, Hollywood?
Bottom line: I read "Witch House" over the course of a few October evenings and found it a perfect accompaniment to the season. More than highly recommended!
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Evangeline Walton....)
"Witch House" was the first full-length novel from August Derleth's famed Arkham House publishing company. When it was released as an Arkham House hardcover in 1945, with cover art by Ronald Clyne, the selling price was $2.50; today, that volume is selling for $50 - $200 on Amazon and $52 - $315 on eBay! Walton was 38 when the book was released, having been born in Indianapolis in 1907 (four years prior to another female writer of the fantastic from that same city, C. L. Moore). She'd had one book published prior to this one, 1936's "The Virgin and the Swine" (later rereleased as the first part of her Mabinogion Tetralogy and retitled "The Island of the Mighty"), and so "Witch House" became her second published work, although the rest of that tetralogy was apparently already written and languishing in her drawer at home. As for me, I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on the novel's first English-language paperback: the 1962 Monarch Books edition, with a cover price of 35 cents and cover art by Ralph Brillhart. This was my first encounter with Ms. Walton, who turns out to be a meticulous writer; one whose overall output was comparatively small, and who apparently invested inordinate amounts of time in polishing and rehoning her works. And if "Witch House" is not as frightening as the Jackson and Matheson books mentioned up top, it yet remains a beautifully crafted experience, and one that deserves a wider renown today.
In the book, NYC-based physician Dr. Gaylord Carew is asked to come up to New England and tend to a very distressed young patient. It seems that upon the recent death of the 97-year-old harpy Sarai Quincy, her three young heirs--brothers Joseph Quincy and Quincy Lee, as well as their cousin, Elizabeth Quincy--have been left with a considerable fortune, but with one proviso: that the three of them, along with Quincy Lee's Russian wife Zoia and widow Elizabeth's 9-year-old daughter Betty-Ann, spend the next 10 years living under the same roof of the hereditary family home, Witch House, so called due to the satanic nature of some of their Colonial forebears, and located on a barren island off the coast of northern Massachusetts. It also seems that young Betty-Ann is to be Dr. Carew's patient. The poor girl has lately been in hysterics, and claims to have repeatedly seen a giant black hare at her window, as well as Aunt Sarai's eyes following her from a painted portrait. Two of the family pets had been murdered, and poltergeistlike phenomena had occurred in the house (broken dishes, upset chessboards and so on). A trip to California to calm the girl's nerves was to no avail, as Betty-Ann swore that Aunt Sarai's hands were grabbing her own, from 3,000 miles away! Thus, during a stretch of miserably wet and gloomy February weather, Dr. Carew drives up to the little burg of Harperstown, and from there embarks by boat to the haunted pile that is Witch House, to see what he might do to assist....
"Witch House," it bears repeating, is never as chilling as the Shirley Jackson book (it is not nearly as atmospheric), and is hardly as horrifying as Matheson's (although there is violence and sudden death in the pages of "Witch House," the sheer number of awful things happening is not nearly as great as in "Hell House"). Still, the book manages to impress. For one thing, Walton presents us with an interesting sextet of characters here: Zoia is the daughter of one of Rasputin's mistresses; Betty-Ann is cute and adorable, when not frightened to the brink of hysteria; the three cousins are novice explorers of the arcane, to the point where the two feuding brothers are said to have fought with objects that they hurled at one another telekinetically; and Carew? He is perhaps the most fascinating of the bunch, having studied the arcane himself in the Far East and in Tibet beside his scientist mother. Now, Carew has the ability to not only read minds, but to put himself to sleep instantly and awaken at any time he chooses (boy, would I love to be able to do that!), as well as hypnotize others with ease. Always in command of the situation and aware of just the right words to say and when, Carew almost comes off like a Dr. Strange type of character here, and more than well equipped to handle the forces arrayed against him and Betty-Ann at Witch House.
Walton, as it turns out, is a wonderful storyteller, and an unusual one. She gives her story glints of strangeness by having her characters engage in conversations that are often borderline elliptical. Some of these discourses, such as between Carew and Joseph, touch on matters of religion, God, fate and predestination, and are delivered in language that does not seem...well, realistic. Her descriptions of Witch House are nebulous at best, and while I was reading the book it seemed to me that this was a possible failing, but upon further reflection, one senses that this may have been a deliberate ploy on the author’s part, to engender a sense of dislocation and strangeness. Witch House is the sort of abode where corridors don’t merely turn or twist, but fork (!); truly, a home from hell. Following the book’s opening pages--a somewhat difficult-to-follow section in which the genealogy of the de Quincy family is traced back to the 17th century--Walton gives us a bravura segment that is practically Lovecraftian in tone, during which we are presented with a newspaper story written by Joseph Quincy that tells of the family's 17th century warlock ancestor, the Huguenot Joseph de Quincy, his namesake. The book takes a good long while before it chills as effectively again, but those scary scenes do eventually crop up, including Carew's first glimpse of that spectral hare; the appearance of the dead Aunt Sarai in a room where Betty-Ann has been led, in a deserted section of the house; the visitation of Sarai in Betty-Ann's sleeping chambers; and the entire, surprising final sequence, of which the less said, the better, I suppose.
While experiencing the book, the reader may marvel that this was only Walton's second published work, as her prose often comes off like that of an old master. Thus, we get lines such as this:
"...Harperstown had aged like a handsome woman, an overworked and disappointed woman, who breaks under the lean, piling years...."
And this:
"...More days, a necklace of days, clear crystals threaded with ebon beads of night. Spring came slowly, like some wan and beautiful woman rising from a sick-bed in a chamber that still smelled of death...."
And this:
"...there was evil, positive, undiluted evil, in Witch House, he did not doubt. His trained faculties had seen enough in these vaporous pictures eddying round Barret to assure him of that. There are plague-spots for the soul as well as for the body, breeding-grounds of spiritual infections, and this old house, so sinister in its building, might be such an one...."
I love it! Actually, in the entire course of Walton's book, I could only come up with a few complaints, but the first is a major one, I’m afraid. Early on, Witch House is described as "a quaint stone structure, low and rambling, like a Breton farmhouse...." But much later on, the house is said to be made of wood, and this wooden nature does play a very large role in the book's final pages. It is a discrepancy that I would have thought a perfectionist (such as Walton was reputed to be) incapable of making, but there it is. And, oh...that old book in the Witch House library entitled "Demonologie," which Carew tells us was written by Cotton Mather? It was actually authored by the Scottish king James VI. And the title of the W. E. H. Lecky volume referred to should be "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," not "History of the Rise and Progress of Rationalism in Western Europe." And to end this nitpicking, is it credible that a 9-year-old would use the word "slaunchwise" during casual conversation? But these minor gaffes aside, the book remains great and delicious fun. It is a novel that practically cries out for a big-screen adaptation of its own. Haunted house films, after all, have always been popular, and this story, if handled correctly by a respectful team (and no, big bucks for special FX would not necessarily be important here), could just result in huge audiences. Are you listening, Hollywood?
Bottom line: I read "Witch House" over the course of a few October evenings and found it a perfect accompaniment to the season. More than highly recommended!
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Evangeline Walton....)
April 15, 2013
You have to love Inter-Library loan - this book, originally the first volume in famed weird publisher Arkham House's series of novel releases, came up on my reading list and so I put an order in, at the same time also asking for a copy of a 70's paperback that included a reprinting of Evangeline Walton's "The Chinese Woman" which was related to (may have been intended as a prologue at one point) the novel.
They couldn't get me the 70's paperback - or, at least, not without it costing me some money (so I haven't read that story) - but what do they send me for the original novel? Not the 70's paperback reprint as part of Lin Carter's fantasy novel reprint series, not the 80's trade paperback - but the honest to gosh, actual-factual Arkham House edition from 1945! (It's a beautiful little book - compact, with a really tough little binding cloth - from the collection of the University of Idaho).
So, what you have here is a bit of a mixed bag. Having read nothing by Ms. Walton before, and knowing nothing about the book, I expected a supernatural thriller about a haunted house. And on the surface, that's what this is, as Dr. Gaylord Carew (sometimes nicknamed "Gay") is asked to help a young girl living with her mother and cousins in a grand, ancestral home built on an island near Harperstown, Massachusetts. The girl is the focus of some poltergeist activity (objects broken and thrown, missing things, bite marks) and claims a big black hare is stalking her... and the family has a dubious history of witchcraft.
But the actual novel itself is more along the lines of an uneasy hybrid between two types of fictions from 1945, one less expected than the other. Basically, the set-up and structure are more in the mold of a 20th Century, "woman running from a gloomy mansion while a light burns in a lone window" Gothic Romance - a powerful family with dark secrets, children dabbling in occult practices, unhappy and unarranged marriages, embarrassing relations, etc. all set in a New England coastal village. Yes, there's supernaturalism afoot and foregrounded, but the setting is pure Gothic Romance. Except...
Except this is also, a bit surprisingly, an occult detective story. Our main character, Dr. Gaylord Carew, was raised by his mother in India and Tibet after the tragic death of his father. He knows, in classic pulp occult detective hero form, the "mysteries of Asia" and has telepathy, psychic sensitivity, meditation and even some minor telekinesis at his disposal, along with his occult wisdom, a formidable will, strong moral underpinnings and training in psychiatry/psychology. He's cool and reserved, less a man of action than a man of "the talking cure" who observes and analyzes the situation, realizing the subtlety of occult forces and how they work on, and take advantage of, the psyche and weak wills.
So into this hotbed of intrigue he walks, determined to save a little girl.
Unfortunately, this hybrid form works against itself. The writing is uniformly dry, as typifies a lot of occult detective philosophizin' of the period, but that undermines the natural pulp juiciness and florid heat of the Gothic Romance, of which there is little evident (and, in total admissions of my taste, is the only thing that makes most mid-20th century Gothic Romance palatable at all, as the stories are almost all endless hand-wringing, overwrought wailing and "lurv" complications - without the juice, such stuff is deadly dull to me - even if the ghosts are real, as they rarely were in Gothic Romances). The writing also starts as very stiff (again, understandable from the time period and form, but still not engaging), although it does loosen up and stretch a bit as the book progresses.
Being a New England Gothic, you also get those stalwart plot elements - ancestors escaped from Europe with rumors of sorcery around them, and a whaling ship ancestor who brings back a "furrin" bride (in this case, Chinese or possibly Mongol), "tainting" the family line to some degree (the book is interesting in that sense because unlike works of the preceding years, it never makes racial concerns a foreground issue in the family, but they are there to take their expected place in the plot).
There are some nice, small, spooky moments (most of which I've quoted, except for the climax events). The child relates her dreams of black hares and cats bounding along with her up into the sky and to the dark side of the moon where they dance in supplication to some hooded figure (the imagery of the large black hare is, I'll admit, a solid, New England witchcraft one - very resonant and fraught with power). There's also a well-done moment in which a mentally enslaved cat's-paw, used by her wanna-be sorcerer husband to psychically explore the soul of the house in her sleep, describes the experience of "the house within the house". Also a well-done threat as ... The initial climax is also quite creepy.
But these are all small moments in a short book in which, due to the dry writing, nothing much ever seems to happen even when it does. Part of the problem is that most of the juiciest stuff is told in flashback or past tense, related now, and thus robbed of some immediacy (this includes a telekinetic battle with furniture, the death of beloved pets, the previously noted dreams). There's even a sub-climactic event () that sets the finale in motion which should be exciting, but falls flat.
There is a lot of attention paid to most of the characters and their interrelations. The weak-willed Russian wife, daughter of one of Rasputin's thralls, is more of a plot device and mostly ignored, although I did like that Dr. Carew felt sorrow for even her fallen state when he realized her circumstances. The mystery, when solved, is underwhelming. It all ends in a fire, of course, and a nice, if trite, bit of visual symbolism.
Dr. Gaylord Carew is probably the most interesting aspect of the book - a pulp-derived occult detective in formulation and origin (as opposed to a classic occult detective in the more stuffy British tradition) but one who comports himself more along the lines those classic British characters like John Silence, etc. and less like, say, Jules De Grandin. Dr. Carew has advanced spiritual understandings and believes in spiritual evolution, so evil (or unbalance) isn't there to be merely defeated but to be guided along on it's own long, karmic transformation into good (or balance). So, that's kind of different (although not unknown in characters arising out of early 20th century occult belief circles - an interesting topic for someone to research and write a paper on some day, I'd warrant)
So, in the end, a supernatural novel that's more of a curates egg. Read it if you like spooky Gothic Romances or are interested in Occult Detective characters, but the casual reader can avoid and miss almost nothing.
They couldn't get me the 70's paperback - or, at least, not without it costing me some money (so I haven't read that story) - but what do they send me for the original novel? Not the 70's paperback reprint as part of Lin Carter's fantasy novel reprint series, not the 80's trade paperback - but the honest to gosh, actual-factual Arkham House edition from 1945! (It's a beautiful little book - compact, with a really tough little binding cloth - from the collection of the University of Idaho).
So, what you have here is a bit of a mixed bag. Having read nothing by Ms. Walton before, and knowing nothing about the book, I expected a supernatural thriller about a haunted house. And on the surface, that's what this is, as Dr. Gaylord Carew (sometimes nicknamed "Gay") is asked to help a young girl living with her mother and cousins in a grand, ancestral home built on an island near Harperstown, Massachusetts. The girl is the focus of some poltergeist activity (objects broken and thrown, missing things, bite marks) and claims a big black hare is stalking her... and the family has a dubious history of witchcraft.
But the actual novel itself is more along the lines of an uneasy hybrid between two types of fictions from 1945, one less expected than the other. Basically, the set-up and structure are more in the mold of a 20th Century, "woman running from a gloomy mansion while a light burns in a lone window" Gothic Romance - a powerful family with dark secrets, children dabbling in occult practices, unhappy and unarranged marriages, embarrassing relations, etc. all set in a New England coastal village. Yes, there's supernaturalism afoot and foregrounded, but the setting is pure Gothic Romance. Except...
Except this is also, a bit surprisingly, an occult detective story. Our main character, Dr. Gaylord Carew, was raised by his mother in India and Tibet after the tragic death of his father. He knows, in classic pulp occult detective hero form, the "mysteries of Asia" and has telepathy, psychic sensitivity, meditation and even some minor telekinesis at his disposal, along with his occult wisdom, a formidable will, strong moral underpinnings and training in psychiatry/psychology. He's cool and reserved, less a man of action than a man of "the talking cure" who observes and analyzes the situation, realizing the subtlety of occult forces and how they work on, and take advantage of, the psyche and weak wills.
So into this hotbed of intrigue he walks, determined to save a little girl.
Unfortunately, this hybrid form works against itself. The writing is uniformly dry, as typifies a lot of occult detective philosophizin' of the period, but that undermines the natural pulp juiciness and florid heat of the Gothic Romance, of which there is little evident (and, in total admissions of my taste, is the only thing that makes most mid-20th century Gothic Romance palatable at all, as the stories are almost all endless hand-wringing, overwrought wailing and "lurv" complications - without the juice, such stuff is deadly dull to me - even if the ghosts are real, as they rarely were in Gothic Romances). The writing also starts as very stiff (again, understandable from the time period and form, but still not engaging), although it does loosen up and stretch a bit as the book progresses.
Being a New England Gothic, you also get those stalwart plot elements - ancestors escaped from Europe with rumors of sorcery around them, and a whaling ship ancestor who brings back a "furrin" bride (in this case, Chinese or possibly Mongol), "tainting" the family line to some degree (the book is interesting in that sense because unlike works of the preceding years, it never makes racial concerns a foreground issue in the family, but they are there to take their expected place in the plot).
There are some nice, small, spooky moments (most of which I've quoted, except for the climax events). The child relates her dreams of black hares and cats bounding along with her up into the sky and to the dark side of the moon where they dance in supplication to some hooded figure (the imagery of the large black hare is, I'll admit, a solid, New England witchcraft one - very resonant and fraught with power). There's also a well-done moment in which a mentally enslaved cat's-paw, used by her wanna-be sorcerer husband to psychically explore the soul of the house in her sleep, describes the experience of "the house within the house". Also a well-done threat as ... The initial climax is also quite creepy.
But these are all small moments in a short book in which, due to the dry writing, nothing much ever seems to happen even when it does. Part of the problem is that most of the juiciest stuff is told in flashback or past tense, related now, and thus robbed of some immediacy (this includes a telekinetic battle with furniture, the death of beloved pets, the previously noted dreams). There's even a sub-climactic event () that sets the finale in motion which should be exciting, but falls flat.
There is a lot of attention paid to most of the characters and their interrelations. The weak-willed Russian wife, daughter of one of Rasputin's thralls, is more of a plot device and mostly ignored, although I did like that Dr. Carew felt sorrow for even her fallen state when he realized her circumstances. The mystery, when solved, is underwhelming. It all ends in a fire, of course, and a nice, if trite, bit of visual symbolism.
Dr. Gaylord Carew is probably the most interesting aspect of the book - a pulp-derived occult detective in formulation and origin (as opposed to a classic occult detective in the more stuffy British tradition) but one who comports himself more along the lines those classic British characters like John Silence, etc. and less like, say, Jules De Grandin. Dr. Carew has advanced spiritual understandings and believes in spiritual evolution, so evil (or unbalance) isn't there to be merely defeated but to be guided along on it's own long, karmic transformation into good (or balance). So, that's kind of different (although not unknown in characters arising out of early 20th century occult belief circles - an interesting topic for someone to research and write a paper on some day, I'd warrant)
So, in the end, a supernatural novel that's more of a curates egg. Read it if you like spooky Gothic Romances or are interested in Occult Detective characters, but the casual reader can avoid and miss almost nothing.
May 14, 2012
Walton wrote a novella as a prequel to this, which I thought was more interesting and carried a greater emotional charge than the novel. The British edition of this novel includes that novella - "The Chinese Woman".
Read this again a few weeks ago, including the full prologue (the version of the prologue published by Lin Carter as "The Chinese Woman" in the paperback incarnation of WEIRD TALES was cut). The book is much improved by this additional material. This added context clarifies the behavior of the Lees and much else in the novel, with a broadening of scope for the supernatural threat, and more ominous implications for much that occurred in the book's past and present.
Read this again a few weeks ago, including the full prologue (the version of the prologue published by Lin Carter as "The Chinese Woman" in the paperback incarnation of WEIRD TALES was cut). The book is much improved by this additional material. This added context clarifies the behavior of the Lees and much else in the novel, with a broadening of scope for the supernatural threat, and more ominous implications for much that occurred in the book's past and present.
July 20, 2016
Evangeline Walton is a master storyteller.
This is a matter-of-fact story of a haunted house, and the spiritual struggle for the soul of its victim.
It's out of print. Only 3000 copies were printed, in 1945, from August Derleth's Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_House
Quotes from Witch House:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes...
Quotes from Evangeline Walton:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quot...
Trivia questions on Witch House:
https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
This is a matter-of-fact story of a haunted house, and the spiritual struggle for the soul of its victim.
It's out of print. Only 3000 copies were printed, in 1945, from August Derleth's Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_House
Quotes from Witch House:
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes...
Quotes from Evangeline Walton:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quot...
Trivia questions on Witch House:
https://www.goodreads.com/trivia/work...
February 20, 2021
The first four chapters in I was loving the book. Walton was doing world-building of such a high order it wouldn’t become fashionable until thirty years later. She set the tone beautifully and placed her characters in a rich and complicated family tree that went all the way back to the original Quincy's arrival to New England back in 1652, a Huguenot leech escaping papist forces. The good doctor applied leeches to improve his patients' health and was incidentally a warlock.
As we come forward in time we met four of his present-day descendants all trying to live in a haunted house together. The story set-up was your basic lover’s triangle. Two male cousin descendants both wanted to marry their female cousin descendant. Uninterested in either, she had run off with another man outside the family and had a daughter by him instead. The now ten year old daughter was the fourth descendant living in the ancestral home (called Witch House). An ancestor of the four died recently and her will stipulated that as long as all three adults lived together in the home for ten years as they had when they were children they would inherit. Elizabeth, the female cousin, concerned about her daughter being haunted while living there, hires doctor (and hypnotist) Gaylord Carew to protect them.
Walton's world-building and creation of convincing characters is top-notch. The interesting anecdotes that reveal the many ancestral characters in the family tree and their motivations for placing the modern day characters in their situation are fun to discover. Every element of the story’s background is well-constructed, thought out, and interesting. It seems at first that we are in the hands of a master storyteller taking her time to weave her web.
Then things start to go horribly wrong with the writing in the novel. After the wonderful set-up we have almost a hundred pages (the book is only 196 pages long) where virtually nothing happens but character conversations. The longest one is between Gaylord and Elizabeth in which Elizabeth recounts family history, especially that between her two cousins and herself, for page after page. It’s simply a long conversation in which the heart of the story is told by Gaylord asking questions and Elizabeth answering. This is the dullest imaginable way to tell a good story. The story needed to be told in dramatic form instead. Truth to tell though, it has characters able to manipulate the world telekinetically, and other mind powers that seem juvenile for the sensibilities of our current era.
After this long, dull section the novel picks up slightly for the last third of the book. At least we’re placed in the novel’s present. Even then there’s very little action, only lengthy descriptions interspersed with conversation. We’re also given long, third-person omniscient sequences of characters’ thoughts. The sum total of the novel is that we have interesting characters in a great conflict that’s told in the dullest, worst way by the author with little to no action. Even the conflict’s physical results are downplayed as barely worth mentioning. It’s hard to believe anyone could make such a wonderful story and then tell it this poorly.
As we come forward in time we met four of his present-day descendants all trying to live in a haunted house together. The story set-up was your basic lover’s triangle. Two male cousin descendants both wanted to marry their female cousin descendant. Uninterested in either, she had run off with another man outside the family and had a daughter by him instead. The now ten year old daughter was the fourth descendant living in the ancestral home (called Witch House). An ancestor of the four died recently and her will stipulated that as long as all three adults lived together in the home for ten years as they had when they were children they would inherit. Elizabeth, the female cousin, concerned about her daughter being haunted while living there, hires doctor (and hypnotist) Gaylord Carew to protect them.
Walton's world-building and creation of convincing characters is top-notch. The interesting anecdotes that reveal the many ancestral characters in the family tree and their motivations for placing the modern day characters in their situation are fun to discover. Every element of the story’s background is well-constructed, thought out, and interesting. It seems at first that we are in the hands of a master storyteller taking her time to weave her web.
Then things start to go horribly wrong with the writing in the novel. After the wonderful set-up we have almost a hundred pages (the book is only 196 pages long) where virtually nothing happens but character conversations. The longest one is between Gaylord and Elizabeth in which Elizabeth recounts family history, especially that between her two cousins and herself, for page after page. It’s simply a long conversation in which the heart of the story is told by Gaylord asking questions and Elizabeth answering. This is the dullest imaginable way to tell a good story. The story needed to be told in dramatic form instead. Truth to tell though, it has characters able to manipulate the world telekinetically, and other mind powers that seem juvenile for the sensibilities of our current era.
After this long, dull section the novel picks up slightly for the last third of the book. At least we’re placed in the novel’s present. Even then there’s very little action, only lengthy descriptions interspersed with conversation. We’re also given long, third-person omniscient sequences of characters’ thoughts. The sum total of the novel is that we have interesting characters in a great conflict that’s told in the dullest, worst way by the author with little to no action. Even the conflict’s physical results are downplayed as barely worth mentioning. It’s hard to believe anyone could make such a wonderful story and then tell it this poorly.
June 3, 2012
I have just finished reading “Witch House”, a Gothic novel by fantasy author Evangeline Walton. Walton is best known for her Mabinogian Tetralogy, a fantasy re-telling of the Welsh Mabinogian, a mediaeval manuscript that contains the mythology of Wales dating back to pre-Christian times.
First published in 1945, “Witch House” bears the distinction of being the first full-length novel to be published by Arkham House, the publishing company created by author August Derleth to collect the works of his friend H.P. Lovecraft into book form. It is also the only foray by Walton into the Gothic genre, not counting the short story “The Chinese Woman” which was published in a 1981 Weird Tales collection and is a prequel to the novel that tells the origin story of the maleficia that resided in Witch House.
When I found out about the existence of the prequel, I stopped reading the novel and sought out “The Chinese Woman”. I was so impressed by the tale of Li Wan, the sixteen year old girl who was sold to Captain Pegleg, an aging salty dog from New England, at a Chinese brothel, which her unsympathetic relatives had sold her to when her father, a local shaman, had passed away.
The captain, a no nonsense man, was a widower who spent his life on the sea to get away from his family, whom he did not get along with. Although way too old for her, he loved Li Wan in his own way and always treated her well despite his family’s outright rejection of his “pagan baggage”. Pegleg’s sons and their respective wives did not care for Li Wan’s ethnicity, non-Christian practices and especially her questionable past. Pegleg’s daughter-in-law, Abigail was so strenuously opposed to Pegleg bringing a “heathen harlot” into the house with her children, she made the whole clan move out of his house while she was there.
Li Wan could not understand how her lord’s family could be so disrespectful to their father. She loved him and bore him a son whom the family promptly took away from her the minute the old captain passed away few years later. Li Wan, seduced by the spirit of the original patriarch, Joseph Quincy, who built the house and infused it with his evil essence after escaping Salem Gaol, during the infamous Salem Witch trials of 1692, placed a curse on the captain’s family, and then committed suicide using a magic knife which was an heirloom from her father. The curse, which included the murder of the male progeny of her stepsons, was accomplished through the use of a spell given to her by Joseph Quincy, who resented his descendant’s rejection of his witchy ways. In this she was also assisted by the boy’s own sister, Sarai, a naughty little creature who aspired to follow in her ancestor’s steps, but whom was very fond of Li Wan and jealous of her brothers. It is Sarai’s spirit, which supposedly haunts Witch House in the novel.
The story picks up right after the death of Aunt Sarai, who took over the house once she was old enough and her relatives had all passed on or moved away. Deciding that she needed to restore the Quincy bloodline, she sought out the grandsons of her young uncle, Li Wan’s little boy, Joseph Lee (Lee being an anglicized spelling of Li) and marry one of them off to their female cousin, Elizabeth Ann Quincy.
Placing the three young people together and keeping them isolated in the house, she was grooming them for coupling when young Elizabeth decided to run away just as things were getting hot and heavy between her and her cousin Joseph, the stronger personality of the two brothers and Elizabeth’s constant companion till that point. Seducing Hugh Stone, a young man from the village, she glamoured him into taking her away from there with the promise of marriage and love. They ran away, got married and had a daughter, Betty-Ann.
It seems that although they went through the motions together, Elizabeth did not really love Hugh, and when they fell on hard times, he despaired and took his own life. Soon after, at the behest of her Aunt Sarai, Elizabeth finally gave in and returned to Witch house with her young daughter, now a precocious young girl of about five or six, from what I gather. By the time they get there, however, Sarai has passed and the will bequeaths all of her wealth and assets to Elizabeth and her two cousins, brothers Joseph and Quincy, under the condition that they all live under the roof of Witch House for nine years straight. From the moment they arrive betty-Ann begins acting out and complaining of being terrorized by Aunt Sarai’s ghost. There are poltergeist type phenomena and things being thrown around rooms as well as pets being killed and all blame Betty-Ann save for her mother. Exasperated, she seeks out the hero of the story, Gaylord Carew (yes, that really is his name) who is a psychologist-healer-mystic of some sort. The bulk of the novel deals with Carew using his extensive occult and psychological knowledge to debunk the supernatural happenings and save Betty-Ann from harm and in the process develop a relationship with Elizabeth.
The supernatural stuff in the book is creepy and the anecdotes of the early days of the house remind me of old folkloric tales of witchcraft from that part of the country. My problem with the story is that some of the occult jargon that Carew spews out to explain the phenomena sounds like late 19th century spiritualist mumbo jumbo. In an effort to sound modern, it actually dates the novel. The best parts are when Walton describes some of the haunting, like a giant black rabbit that appears to Betty-Ann and watches her through the windows, or the portrait of Aunt Sarai that seems to come alive at times, or the ghost of Li Wan, talking to Elizabeth while she naps in the living room. These are well written moments but Carew’s explanations of these phenomena are a bit daft. Also, even though there was a subtextual love story between Carew (or “Gay”, as he is called lovingly by little Betty-Ann) and Elizabeth, I didn’t really get emotionally involved in it like I did with Li Wan’s jeremiad in the prequel.
In fine, I preferred the prequel to the novel but still would like to have seen more in this vein from Walton, had she decided to write more tales within the Gothic genre.
First published in 1945, “Witch House” bears the distinction of being the first full-length novel to be published by Arkham House, the publishing company created by author August Derleth to collect the works of his friend H.P. Lovecraft into book form. It is also the only foray by Walton into the Gothic genre, not counting the short story “The Chinese Woman” which was published in a 1981 Weird Tales collection and is a prequel to the novel that tells the origin story of the maleficia that resided in Witch House.
When I found out about the existence of the prequel, I stopped reading the novel and sought out “The Chinese Woman”. I was so impressed by the tale of Li Wan, the sixteen year old girl who was sold to Captain Pegleg, an aging salty dog from New England, at a Chinese brothel, which her unsympathetic relatives had sold her to when her father, a local shaman, had passed away.
The captain, a no nonsense man, was a widower who spent his life on the sea to get away from his family, whom he did not get along with. Although way too old for her, he loved Li Wan in his own way and always treated her well despite his family’s outright rejection of his “pagan baggage”. Pegleg’s sons and their respective wives did not care for Li Wan’s ethnicity, non-Christian practices and especially her questionable past. Pegleg’s daughter-in-law, Abigail was so strenuously opposed to Pegleg bringing a “heathen harlot” into the house with her children, she made the whole clan move out of his house while she was there.
Li Wan could not understand how her lord’s family could be so disrespectful to their father. She loved him and bore him a son whom the family promptly took away from her the minute the old captain passed away few years later. Li Wan, seduced by the spirit of the original patriarch, Joseph Quincy, who built the house and infused it with his evil essence after escaping Salem Gaol, during the infamous Salem Witch trials of 1692, placed a curse on the captain’s family, and then committed suicide using a magic knife which was an heirloom from her father. The curse, which included the murder of the male progeny of her stepsons, was accomplished through the use of a spell given to her by Joseph Quincy, who resented his descendant’s rejection of his witchy ways. In this she was also assisted by the boy’s own sister, Sarai, a naughty little creature who aspired to follow in her ancestor’s steps, but whom was very fond of Li Wan and jealous of her brothers. It is Sarai’s spirit, which supposedly haunts Witch House in the novel.
The story picks up right after the death of Aunt Sarai, who took over the house once she was old enough and her relatives had all passed on or moved away. Deciding that she needed to restore the Quincy bloodline, she sought out the grandsons of her young uncle, Li Wan’s little boy, Joseph Lee (Lee being an anglicized spelling of Li) and marry one of them off to their female cousin, Elizabeth Ann Quincy.
Placing the three young people together and keeping them isolated in the house, she was grooming them for coupling when young Elizabeth decided to run away just as things were getting hot and heavy between her and her cousin Joseph, the stronger personality of the two brothers and Elizabeth’s constant companion till that point. Seducing Hugh Stone, a young man from the village, she glamoured him into taking her away from there with the promise of marriage and love. They ran away, got married and had a daughter, Betty-Ann.
It seems that although they went through the motions together, Elizabeth did not really love Hugh, and when they fell on hard times, he despaired and took his own life. Soon after, at the behest of her Aunt Sarai, Elizabeth finally gave in and returned to Witch house with her young daughter, now a precocious young girl of about five or six, from what I gather. By the time they get there, however, Sarai has passed and the will bequeaths all of her wealth and assets to Elizabeth and her two cousins, brothers Joseph and Quincy, under the condition that they all live under the roof of Witch House for nine years straight. From the moment they arrive betty-Ann begins acting out and complaining of being terrorized by Aunt Sarai’s ghost. There are poltergeist type phenomena and things being thrown around rooms as well as pets being killed and all blame Betty-Ann save for her mother. Exasperated, she seeks out the hero of the story, Gaylord Carew (yes, that really is his name) who is a psychologist-healer-mystic of some sort. The bulk of the novel deals with Carew using his extensive occult and psychological knowledge to debunk the supernatural happenings and save Betty-Ann from harm and in the process develop a relationship with Elizabeth.
The supernatural stuff in the book is creepy and the anecdotes of the early days of the house remind me of old folkloric tales of witchcraft from that part of the country. My problem with the story is that some of the occult jargon that Carew spews out to explain the phenomena sounds like late 19th century spiritualist mumbo jumbo. In an effort to sound modern, it actually dates the novel. The best parts are when Walton describes some of the haunting, like a giant black rabbit that appears to Betty-Ann and watches her through the windows, or the portrait of Aunt Sarai that seems to come alive at times, or the ghost of Li Wan, talking to Elizabeth while she naps in the living room. These are well written moments but Carew’s explanations of these phenomena are a bit daft. Also, even though there was a subtextual love story between Carew (or “Gay”, as he is called lovingly by little Betty-Ann) and Elizabeth, I didn’t really get emotionally involved in it like I did with Li Wan’s jeremiad in the prequel.
In fine, I preferred the prequel to the novel but still would like to have seen more in this vein from Walton, had she decided to write more tales within the Gothic genre.
October 22, 2015
This could have used a little less melodrama and few more instances of things actually happening. While far from pulpy - usually not a complaint - this might have benefited from a few of those impulses. Still, there's plenty of atmosphere with a potent sense of menace, and tale is elegantly wrought, on the whole. The first original novel published by Arkham House.
March 3, 2013
Good tale. Different take on the "haunted house" tale. Review coming soon on Horror 101 for Tales to Terrify...
February 6, 2025
Il ritmo del romanzo l'ho trovato lento, i risultati impiegano molto tempo per presentarsi, e per essere classificato come horror non è successo niente di veramente spaventoso… La scrittura di Evangeline Walton è scorrevole ma risulta purtroppo poco coinvolgente. Nella parte centrale poi perde maggiormente il ritmo, ho trovato nel complesso il romanzo piatto e senza scossoni.
March 19, 2016
This is a really creepy book; it really gets into your head. The story is one of identity projection and possession and the antagonist in the story draws on known mystical principles from the Tibetan tradition. The outcome of the book is predictable, but i think that Walton has delved into the dark possibiliities of mysticism and shown us through this novel the possibilities of reincarnated evil, shadow projection, and theft of the soul identity. Very creepy because it is highly possible.
March 30, 2015
A excellent book. I had heard many good things about it, but had never read it. Now that I have, I wish I had sooner.
July 18, 2024
Extraordinarily disappointing, because somehow I expected this to be an undiscovered classic that I would love, but instead it turned out to be a tiresome uninteresting slog that I stopped bothering with at about the 65% mark. I was fooled by (a) the time period in which it was written (lots of undiscovered classics from then), (b) the cover, (c) the fact that the book recently had a limited edition reprint which sells for umpteen dollars and (d) other editions are hard to find, so presumably those who have one largely want to keep it.
But instead of The Haunting of Hill House, which I loved, it was a dull book with dull characters endlessly talking, recounting events that happened earlier, offstage, and Nothing Happened (except for a chess board getting knocked over) for ever and ever. I think my feelings about this book is what the people who were bored by Hill House felt, except they're wrong and I'm right, of course. Look: I don't need it to be a non-stop thrill ride of an action-adventure, and in fact those books normally bore me only for the opposite reason. I just want interesting stuff to happen. I want it to happen to interesting people. If I'm very lucky, maybe there will even be wonderful passages of writing.
So now I've (over) spent too much money on a first edition of a book I don't like, and there's no crying over spilled milk, but darn it all the same. I guess it has historical interest as the 1st book Arkham House published, but unless you're a big fan of exposition and mansplaining, you probably have better books to try.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
But instead of The Haunting of Hill House, which I loved, it was a dull book with dull characters endlessly talking, recounting events that happened earlier, offstage, and Nothing Happened (except for a chess board getting knocked over) for ever and ever. I think my feelings about this book is what the people who were bored by Hill House felt, except they're wrong and I'm right, of course. Look: I don't need it to be a non-stop thrill ride of an action-adventure, and in fact those books normally bore me only for the opposite reason. I just want interesting stuff to happen. I want it to happen to interesting people. If I'm very lucky, maybe there will even be wonderful passages of writing.
So now I've (over) spent too much money on a first edition of a book I don't like, and there's no crying over spilled milk, but darn it all the same. I guess it has historical interest as the 1st book Arkham House published, but unless you're a big fan of exposition and mansplaining, you probably have better books to try.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
August 28, 2025
Il prologo è stato il miglior prologo che io abbia mai letto (di solito li salto perché sono noiosi) e già il fatto che il libro inizia con un albero genialogico ti fa capire che sarà complicato ed intricato ed il prologo è stato fondamentale.
Scorreva molto bene, interessantissimo e molto bello sapere quello che è successo prima di tutto. I primi capitoli un po’ pesanti e molto sconnessi dal prologo, quindi mi sono risultati lunghissimi, poi la storia mi ha rapito e ho divorato il libro.
Il finale non mi è piaciuto, mi ha deluso molto… me lo aspettavo completamente diverso
Scorreva molto bene, interessantissimo e molto bello sapere quello che è successo prima di tutto. I primi capitoli un po’ pesanti e molto sconnessi dal prologo, quindi mi sono risultati lunghissimi, poi la storia mi ha rapito e ho divorato il libro.
Il finale non mi è piaciuto, mi ha deluso molto… me lo aspettavo completamente diverso
July 25, 2025
Eerie book far from the traditional horror stories.
The neurologist and occultist Gaylord Carew is called to treat a child suffering from strange visions since she transferred back to Witch House with her mother joining the other heirs to gain access to the family inheritance.
However, the house does not agree to have Gaylord helping the child.
Hysteria, hallucinations or just a haunted house?
My favourite part was the first one with a true horror atmosphere but I have to say that the whole book has been a very enjoyable read.
I recommend this book though may not be of the liking of everyone as does not reflect the standard and expected horror features.
The neurologist and occultist Gaylord Carew is called to treat a child suffering from strange visions since she transferred back to Witch House with her mother joining the other heirs to gain access to the family inheritance.
However, the house does not agree to have Gaylord helping the child.
Hysteria, hallucinations or just a haunted house?
My favourite part was the first one with a true horror atmosphere but I have to say that the whole book has been a very enjoyable read.
I recommend this book though may not be of the liking of everyone as does not reflect the standard and expected horror features.
February 8, 2025
Mi aspettavo di meglio. L'immagine e la quarta di copertina racchiudono più mistero della storia stessa che, invece, si rivela inutilmente prolissa
February 14, 2021
I'll start with a warning: Witch House is not an easy read. At just under two hundred pages you'd probably think it would fly by in a matter of hours. It does not. The late Evangeline Walton was a very talented author who did not dumb down her books for the masses. What I mean is that this slim little novel is dense and demands your attention. You cannot skim through and expect to get the full feel of the story. Take your time to really digest the scenes as they play out, however, and you'll find Witch House to be a really lovely read.
So...what is it about? Well, Witch House is about an ancestral home once owned by a rather nasty old woman most people were convinced was a witch. She's passed on now and left the house and all her assets to three cousins. Unfortunately for them, the will stipulates that they must live in the house for the next ten years, cannot make any changes to the structure or furnishings, and must have nightly meetings around a massive painting of the old evil gal herself. Strange, yes, but worth it.
Or so one would think. The problem now is little Betty-Anne, daughter to one of the cousins, who is suddenly being tormented by shadows, hounded by a massive black hare, and having inanimate objects hurled at her. In comes Doctor Gaylord Carew, a man all-too familiar with the supernatural, ready to end this little girl's haunting and set the house at rest.
Sound interesting? It was. I'll tell you what else it was: difficult, confusing at times, convoluted at others, but still worth the effort. When I first started reading it I felt like I'd been dropped in the middle of a series about this Doctor Carew, and at the end I'm still not so sure I hadn't. Even so, I urge you to continue on past those first fifty pages, because it gets SO GOOD once you do. If you like a classic haunted house/witchcraft story then this is the book for you. Good luck though; it's seriously rare now and rather difficult to find a copy for under $50 or so.
So...what is it about? Well, Witch House is about an ancestral home once owned by a rather nasty old woman most people were convinced was a witch. She's passed on now and left the house and all her assets to three cousins. Unfortunately for them, the will stipulates that they must live in the house for the next ten years, cannot make any changes to the structure or furnishings, and must have nightly meetings around a massive painting of the old evil gal herself. Strange, yes, but worth it.
Or so one would think. The problem now is little Betty-Anne, daughter to one of the cousins, who is suddenly being tormented by shadows, hounded by a massive black hare, and having inanimate objects hurled at her. In comes Doctor Gaylord Carew, a man all-too familiar with the supernatural, ready to end this little girl's haunting and set the house at rest.
Sound interesting? It was. I'll tell you what else it was: difficult, confusing at times, convoluted at others, but still worth the effort. When I first started reading it I felt like I'd been dropped in the middle of a series about this Doctor Carew, and at the end I'm still not so sure I hadn't. Even so, I urge you to continue on past those first fifty pages, because it gets SO GOOD once you do. If you like a classic haunted house/witchcraft story then this is the book for you. Good luck though; it's seriously rare now and rather difficult to find a copy for under $50 or so.
January 18, 2012
I'd give it ZERO if I could ... I actually got angry at how crappy this book was ... This is the opposite of every single thing that a novel should be. I threw my copy away after finishing it. Why finish it if it was so bad? It got to the point where I want to see if it sustained its shittiness ... and it did!
February 9, 2014
I read this novel some time ago in a paperback edition and it has not held up well. However, this edition is outstanding with the extra material well worth reading. The binding, illustrations and font chosen make the book a lovely object. I gave this a four because the edition is so lovely as is everything I have seen from Centipede Press.
October 22, 2019
Meh.
A man of science is actually a mystic/good warlock 🥴. He saves and gets the girl ( yawn ) who is actually a witch (👍) without any usable powers (☹️). The villain is her evil warlock cousin who would’ve bound her to him with marriage/rape (🤢) and would’ve gotten away with it if his plan just hadn’t been so darn clever.
Ugh.
A man of science is actually a mystic/good warlock 🥴. He saves and gets the girl ( yawn ) who is actually a witch (👍) without any usable powers (☹️). The villain is her evil warlock cousin who would’ve bound her to him with marriage/rape (🤢) and would’ve gotten away with it if his plan just hadn’t been so darn clever.
Ugh.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 2, 2012
A tight, galloping Gothic thriller that walks a fine line between psychological and supernatural horror - just the kind of thing I love!
October 11, 2025
Evangeline Walton’s Witch House is a curious blend of Gothic atmosphere, psychological horror, and occult intrigue. First published in 1945, it feels very much like a product of its time—full of shadowy corridors, repressed emotions, and a slow, dreamlike tension that builds more from dread than from action.
The story centers on a young girl, Betty-Ann, who becomes the focus of strange and terrifying events in a house haunted by its dark family history. Dr. Gaylord Carew, a rational man drawn into the world of psychic forces, must confront not only the supernatural elements but also the lingering influence of generational guilt and madness.
Walton’s prose is elegant and often poetic, creating a rich, claustrophobic mood. However, the pacing is uneven—what starts as a promising psychological ghost story sometimes gets bogged down in excessive dialogue and exposition. The characters, while intriguing, can feel stiff, and the emotional stakes are muted beneath the novel’s formal style.
The final act, where the house itself becomes the stage for an otherworldly confrontation, delivers strong imagery but not quite the emotional payoff one might expect. The burning of the house, meant as a cleansing conclusion, feels symbolic but a bit abrupt.
In the end, Witch House is an atmospheric and historically interesting novel—especially for fans of early American occult fiction—but it lacks the narrative drive or depth of character to make it truly memorable. A solid read for Gothic enthusiasts, but not Walton’s finest work.
The story centers on a young girl, Betty-Ann, who becomes the focus of strange and terrifying events in a house haunted by its dark family history. Dr. Gaylord Carew, a rational man drawn into the world of psychic forces, must confront not only the supernatural elements but also the lingering influence of generational guilt and madness.
Walton’s prose is elegant and often poetic, creating a rich, claustrophobic mood. However, the pacing is uneven—what starts as a promising psychological ghost story sometimes gets bogged down in excessive dialogue and exposition. The characters, while intriguing, can feel stiff, and the emotional stakes are muted beneath the novel’s formal style.
The final act, where the house itself becomes the stage for an otherworldly confrontation, delivers strong imagery but not quite the emotional payoff one might expect. The burning of the house, meant as a cleansing conclusion, feels symbolic but a bit abrupt.
In the end, Witch House is an atmospheric and historically interesting novel—especially for fans of early American occult fiction—but it lacks the narrative drive or depth of character to make it truly memorable. A solid read for Gothic enthusiasts, but not Walton’s finest work.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 13, 2025
L'occultista (e neurologo) Gaylord Carew viene contattato da Elizabeth Quincy affinché curi Betty-Ann, sua figlia di nove anni. La bambina ha episodi di isteria e allucinazioni, infatti vede una grande lepre nera alla finestra e gli occhi del dipinto di Zia Sarai muoversi come per seguire ogni suo movimento. La terribile Sarai dopo la sua morte ha lasciato la tenuta di famiglia, Witch House, una singolare dimora isolata su un'isola al largo delle coste del Massachusetts, ai fratelli Joseph e Lee Quincy e ad Elizabeth. Da quando Elizabeth si trasferisce a Witch House cominciano i problemi per sua figlia. Cosa si nasconde dietro alle allucinazioni della bambina? Chi è il responsabile? La casa stessa è malvagia?
Il romanzo, datato 1945, è un horror/gotico davvero interessante. L'ambientazione è quella della classica casa stregata, in cui accadono cose misteriose e spaventose, cose a cui non si può dare una spiegazione razionale, almeno fino all'ingresso in scena di Carew. I personaggi sono caratterizzati molto bene, alcuni sono davvero malvagi, altri delle vittime, e c'è la figura del salvatore. Numerosi sono i discorsi tra personaggi che riguardano l'esistenza, le considerazioni sul bene e sul male, le idee su pratiche come ipnosi e controllo mentale. La figura chiave del romanzo è a mio avviso quella di Carew, che mantiene una neutralità e un sangue freddo indispensabili nel contrastare il male sotto ogni sua forma. Rappresenta la forza benevola che non vacilla, il suo credo è così forte da sventare ogni attacco che si presenta nei confronti di Betty-Ann e sua madre. È il simbolo stesso del trionfo del bene sul male.
È stata una lettura interessante e piacevole. Lo stile è molto scorrevole. Contiene un prologo di più di 90 pagine che racconta delle generazioni precedenti a quella di cui andremo a leggere nella storia vera e propria.
Ciò che amo di più dei libri scritti tanti anni fa è l'imprevedibilità della conclusione. Non si riesce mai a comprendere se il finale è positivo o negativo se non nel momento in cui viene espresso. Prima è impossibile farsi un'idea e questo lascia una grande suspence nel lettore e sguinzaglia tutta la mia attenzione.
Il romanzo, datato 1945, è un horror/gotico davvero interessante. L'ambientazione è quella della classica casa stregata, in cui accadono cose misteriose e spaventose, cose a cui non si può dare una spiegazione razionale, almeno fino all'ingresso in scena di Carew. I personaggi sono caratterizzati molto bene, alcuni sono davvero malvagi, altri delle vittime, e c'è la figura del salvatore. Numerosi sono i discorsi tra personaggi che riguardano l'esistenza, le considerazioni sul bene e sul male, le idee su pratiche come ipnosi e controllo mentale. La figura chiave del romanzo è a mio avviso quella di Carew, che mantiene una neutralità e un sangue freddo indispensabili nel contrastare il male sotto ogni sua forma. Rappresenta la forza benevola che non vacilla, il suo credo è così forte da sventare ogni attacco che si presenta nei confronti di Betty-Ann e sua madre. È il simbolo stesso del trionfo del bene sul male.
È stata una lettura interessante e piacevole. Lo stile è molto scorrevole. Contiene un prologo di più di 90 pagine che racconta delle generazioni precedenti a quella di cui andremo a leggere nella storia vera e propria.
Ciò che amo di più dei libri scritti tanti anni fa è l'imprevedibilità della conclusione. Non si riesce mai a comprendere se il finale è positivo o negativo se non nel momento in cui viene espresso. Prima è impossibile farsi un'idea e questo lascia una grande suspence nel lettore e sguinzaglia tutta la mia attenzione.
September 19, 2020
This was a very "talky" book. A lot more tell than show, and the goodguy and the badguy had a lot of philosophical banter. But still, it was atmospheric and enjoyable and quite mature a read. For you D&D fans, even though the book is from 1945, it's basically about a magic-user driving a little girl mad so that he can get into bed with her mom (not the most brilliant plan...), but a paladin comes and saves the day. I didn't expect to be reading a super hero book, but the protaganist has ESP, detect evil, danger sense, and dispel magic capabilities, thanks to his training in Tibet. With all the portraits of older members of the house up and the extensive backstory about them, this book was probably an inspiration for Tegel Manor.
February 27, 2021
This is a surprisingly fun book, a MOST satisfying horror/weird tale. The history of the Witch House, whose first owner, shrouded in dark rumours, arrived to America in 1652, is enchanting. The family history completely sucks you in. The setting is dark and very detailed. This is a superbly built world.
Sure, some of its trappings and the powers of the characters seem a bit naive from our modern perspective. But they also add a certain charm, like that of the B-movies from the 50's.
PS. The synopsis on the back of this edition - about a little girl who is destined to be a handmaiden to the Devil? That's just total clickbait. Oh, well - not click? - Pageturnbait. One thing this book is definitely NOT about is being a handmaiden to the Devil.
...Or IS IT?
Sure, some of its trappings and the powers of the characters seem a bit naive from our modern perspective. But they also add a certain charm, like that of the B-movies from the 50's.
PS. The synopsis on the back of this edition - about a little girl who is destined to be a handmaiden to the Devil? That's just total clickbait. Oh, well - not click? - Pageturnbait. One thing this book is definitely NOT about is being a handmaiden to the Devil.
...Or IS IT?
May 19, 2021
The novel begins nicely. One expects some tragic things might happen in the haunted house after having read about the macabre family history of the main characters, but there is little witchcraft left in the family; in the end, it's more about what thrives most human beings: love, friendship, attraction, jealousy and revenge. That's maybe what makes this novel very interesting. I loved the end too, with the maleficent aunt Sarai stepping out of her portrait. It reminded me of my own nightmares of not being able to move while something dark is approaching.
August 7, 2024
Witch House is by no means a bad book, but it's very dense, very chewy. The plot is a very solid gothic romance underpinned with tropes dating back to the very heart of the witch hysteria in Europe. The story has good bones. Walton chose to bedeck the whole thing narrative in what would eventually become new age psychobabble. From time to time she would cut through the metaphysics and call a spade a spade but for the most part, everything was deeply couched in pseudo-clinical jargon. I enjoyed the story, but I did not enjoy gnawing my way through the fripperies to get to it.
July 12, 2025
DNF with only 50 more pages to go, I called it quits. This book is beyond boring. 90% of the story is just flashbacks, that are confusing to follow, and drag on and on. When we finally do get to any supernatural happenings, it’s for a paragraph or two and then over.
I kept hoping this book would pick up, I kept saying, ok we have to have covered all the backstory by now, only to get MORE flashbacks. I truly have no desire to know how this book ends, and I wish I didn’t spend the .25¢ on it at the flea market.
Save your time, this one is a stinker!
I kept hoping this book would pick up, I kept saying, ok we have to have covered all the backstory by now, only to get MORE flashbacks. I truly have no desire to know how this book ends, and I wish I didn’t spend the .25¢ on it at the flea market.
Save your time, this one is a stinker!
December 20, 2017
It's surprising I like this book, because it's much more talky than anything else. It's very much in an older style of occult thriller where there's lots of explanation of how everything can be explained by the powers of the mind and lots of talk about how various characters' personalities are shaping and influencing events in the eponymous manse, but only occasionally do the dark forces manifest. Still, Walton managed to make me enjoy it.
April 19, 2025
Bello. Una storia che mi ha ricordato “L’incubo di Hill House” e “L’ora delle streghe” di Anne Rice
Ho apprezzato le divagazioni quasi filosofiche e il linguaggio mai banale. Avrei solo voluto che tutti i personaggi fossero descritti con la stessa cura.
Ho apprezzato le divagazioni quasi filosofiche e il linguaggio mai banale. Avrei solo voluto che tutti i personaggi fossero descritti con la stessa cura.
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