First Thoughts: The Woman in Black, and other Ghost Stories

WITH an illustrious career stretching back half a century, and winner of such prestigious honours as the Somerset Maugham Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Whitbread Award, Susan Hill ranks comfortably among the powerhouses of post-war British literature.

Yet as prolific, versatile and acclaimed as she is, her reputation lies largely with one book.

With ‘The Woman in Black’, Hill established herself not only as a masterful exponent of the traditional ghost story but as the natural heir to the likes of Henry James, Dickens and, most obviously, MR James.