Susan Hill, The Mist in the Mirror

Gina Wisker (University of Brighton)
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The Gothic settings of Susan Hill's

The Mist in the Mirror

(1992) include labyrinthine London streets, distant, haunted Northern villages and a school - all of which attest to Hill's reputation as a writer who revived the English ghost story.

The Mist in the Mirror

adopts the traditional ghost tale formulae, an archaic nineteenth-century tone with words such as "dreech" and "mizzle" giving a rather bleak Dickensian air to the whole. The story is told to the narrator by a returned traveller, Sir Jamie Monmouth, who, after an evening in the club, seeks out the narrator and begins gradually to recount his strange tale of threats from beyond the grave. Monmouth, with his skull-like, beak-nosed, gaunt face hands over a written account of his experiences of several years earlier when, having…

634 words

Citation: Wisker, Gina. "The Mist in the Mirror". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 March 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=185, accessed 22 November 2024.]

185 The Mist in the Mirror 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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