The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

by Alice Denham

Tie-in novel to the 1968 - 1970 TV series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. The series was based on the 1947 film of the same name; the film had been adapted from the 1945 novel by R. A. Dick

Genres: Paranormal

127 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Alice Denham (born January 21, 1933 in Jacksonville, Florida) is an American model, writer and scholar. She was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for the July 1956 issue. Her centerfold was photographed by Mike Shea and Lawrence Tirschel. Denham posed for other men's magazines during her modeling career, but she was as well known for her academic achievements as for her physical attributes. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina in 1949 and a master's degree from the University of Rochester in 1950, and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society. Her writing talents were obvious to Playboy; several Playmates have written the text that accompanied their pictorials, but Denham is the only Playmate to have written a short story that was published in the same issue as her centerfold. Denham pursued a career in writing and education. She's written several short stories and novels, including Amo and My Darling from the Lions, and taught creative writing at the City College of New York, where she served as an adjunct professor of English from 1970 to 1980. She also held fiction-writing seminars at the University of Toronto for several years. According to The Playmate Book, she has completed her memoirs and also is writing a non-fiction book about her family's "migration from South Carolina and Scotland to Florida at the time of the Seminole Indian Wars."

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of you may be familiar with The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as a movie! It is a very good movie, even if it does contain Rex Harrison. You may also be aware that it is based off a novel.

This is not the book I read.

There is also a novelization of the movie, which seems kind of stupid, and a score, and a critical review/making of for the movie. None of those are the book I read. There was also a TV show. Which spawned a book.

And that is the book I read.

I gotta say, though, I really did love it. The original book (and movie) are somewhat melodramatic romances with gothic edges. Don't get me wrong, I love me some melodrama. This book, though, is actually a murder mystery, wherein our heroine (only loosely based on the original book's heroine) is accused of murder and has to clear her name, with the help of the eponymous ghost.

To summarize, Mrs. Carolyn Muir moves to Maine, to a place called Gull Cottage, after her husband's death. Unfortunately for her, the original owner of the place hasn't really gotten around to moving out, despite being dead, and he's really cranky about people invading his personal space. He reconciles himself in fairly short order (this all happens in the first chapter, I'm given to understand it's most of the original novel), and they get along fairly well until a lady gets shot on the lawn. Turns out she's Mrs. Muir's dead husband's former high school sweetheart-turned-secretary (I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate!). Some poor crime scene maintenance later, Mrs. Muir is charged with the murder, and hijinks ensue.

Guys, I just, I really loved it, okay. It's funny and cute and short and has little tantalizing hints of the original romance, plus a genuinely fun relationship between Mrs. Muir and Daniel Gregg (the ghost). Well worth an afternoon's read.

[Renee Koppelman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this version when I looked up about the old NBC tv series from the 70’s. Having read the original and loving the movie as well as the book I had to get a hand on it.
It was a weird contrived murder mystery that one can read in an hour. It was quite fun if a bit odd.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

So cheesey and definitely reads like a story based on a tv show rather than on the movie. But it is also kind of fun as well, a bit of a snapshot of the time.

[Asails F · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was not my usual read but I read it because Alice Denham was a girl friend of Bill Gaddis. She was unusual for her time in that she was an early Playboy Bunny who published her first story in the same issue of Playboy she posed in.

Her book the Ghost and Mrs Muir was made into a TV show which became popular in the 60's. Not my think but interesting as it is Alice Denham and she holds a key to the history of the beat generation.

[Chris]

My bad. I got the wrong book from the library. What should have been the charmed, romantic original 1945 tale by R.A. Dick, later adapted into a wonderful movie with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison, turned out to be a 1968 cheesy, clumsy re-hash - written by a Playboy Bunny - that was based on the TV series. Don't bother. Get a copy of the original or watch the lovely movie instead.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Met Alice with William Gaddis back around 1960 when she stayed at our house. Again with William...Many years later when she was a book signing for her autobiography with her husband...Life is so surreal.

[Joe Rodeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

An American classic.

Great short mystery that plays along the lines between the hallucinatory and the supernatural. The talented author creates a disgusting villain in perfect counterpoint to an angelic heroine.

[Mesembryanthemum · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is 1960s fan-fiction, not an adapted version of the classic romance novel. (I admit it—I bought this version by mistake.)

This book is a feeble mystery with a cartoon baddie and lots of police idiocy. But it's not too horrible, so I finished it. 2.5 stars.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not like the movie. I have heard that the television series was based off this book. Either way, this was a good quick read.

[Allena Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a excellent murder mystery.I really like it.