Susan Hill

Hi everyone.

Happy Halloween.

I think today's episode calls to mind Susan Hills' The Woman in Black, It starts with a young man sitting by the fire one winter's night, with cozy thoughts of Christmas.

Out of the corner of his eye, the veiled figure of a lady dressed in mourning appears, standing motionless, with eyes fixed on him.

As the story unfolds, the man, a newly qualified doctor, is compelled to leave his cheerful parlour and head towards a derelict house in an isolated spot to face whatever is waiting for him there.

And then if you'd rather see Get Your Chills on stage at the Playhouse Theatre in Somerset West, you can catch a masterpiece of gothic storytelling with the play The Woman in Black.

Susan Hill's classic ghost story told with two actors, a minimal set and maximum dread.

The fear lives in what you don't see.

This run is until the 7th of November.

Yes.

The Woman in Black, if you don't know, I think most of it's these days for the Daniel Radcliffe movie, but it's based on a really great book from the early 80s by Susan Hill, I want to say.

It's a very classical throwback to M.R. James, that kind of old English ghost story.

But with a really nasty twist to it.

Hello, and welcome to your IGCSE English Literature Revision Podcast.

I'm your study guide tutor, and today we're going on a deep dive into one of the most psychologically intense and rewarding novels on the Cambridge International Syllabus, Susan Hill's I'm the King of the Castle.

Now, if you've already read this novel, you'll know it's not exactly a cozy bedtime read.

It's dark, it's claustrophobic, it's deeply unsettling, and it builds towards one of the most devastating endings in modern British fiction.

Let's get started.

First, let's set the scene.

I'm the King of the Castle was published in 1970 by Susan Hill, a British author who was already establishing herself as a writer of psychological fiction.

The novel is set in a large, isolated Victorian country house called Waring's, somewhere in rural England.

Highly recommend her.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra kaw k-h-a-w i think that's how you say your last name um it's rooted in japanese folklore of vengeful ghost brides and even the cover of this one is terrifying like you pull the book off the shelf and you know yep this this is a horror novel and finally the scariest book i've probably ever read but would still 100 with enthusiasm recommend um The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

Creepy children, a haunted house, and you guessed it, a woman in black.

I read this book when I was on maternity leave with my first child.

Which 2004 comedy horror film has the initials SOTD? Question 4.

Which gothic horror novel by Susan Hill has the initials TWIB? Question 5 is this months element spelling question.

Which mythical creature is spelt out when you write down in this order the chemical symbols for Vanadium, Moericium, Phosphorus, Iodine and Rhenium? which mythical creature is spelt out when you write down in this order the chemical symbols for Vanadium, Meraseum, Phosphorus, Iodine and Rhenium.

Ok and you can keep on trying to work out some of those answers while we move on to round 4 which is all about ghosts.

The 2004 comedy horror film that has the initials SOTD is Shaun of the Dead.

Question 4.

The gothic horror novel by Susan Hill that has the initials TWIB is The Woman in Black.

Question 5.

Well, I'm about to go on holiday, and I was hoping to find something that I can just lose myself in.

And we are reissuing a memoir by Susan Hill next spring called The Magic Apple Tree.

And I've been doing a bit of research on...

I've, you know, read The Woman in Black and some of her other literary novels, but she is remarkably prolific and in several genre.

You have Daniel Radcliffe playing Arthur Kipps, a deeply grieving widowed lawyer who is sent to settle an estate at Eel Marsh House, which is this decaying manor in a remarkably remote hostel village.

And the adaptation of Susan Hill's novel here is incredibly tactile.

Oh, it really is.

Like when you read classic Victorian Gothic prose, authors like Emily Brontë or Charles Dickens spend pages describing the dampness of the air, the chill of the fog, the physical drag of the mud.

The dread comes not from being hunted by a monster, but from being trapped by the past.

Let's examine Susan Hill's 1983 novel, The Woman in Black.

This book is a masterful modern homage to classic Gothic atmosphere, and the setup intentionally echoes Dracula.

It does.

She is a literal omen of death.

Shortly after she appears, a tragic accident in the village kills a small child.

But here's the structural genius of Susan Hill's execution.

Despite the book being titled The Woman in Black, the ghost herself rarely makes a physical appearance.