John Harding 2-Book Gothic Collection
A unique chance to read these two chilling Gothic tales from the brilliant storyteller John Harding together. Modern Gothic classic Florence & Giles and it’s sequel The Girl Who Couldn’t Read are a must for fans of Edgar Allen Poe.A pair of Gothic novels that will chill and delight.FLORENCE & GILESNew England, 1891Alone in a crumbling mansion, 12-year-old orphan Florence is neglected by her guardian uncle and banned from reading. By day she secretly devours books, creating a unique language of her own invention and by night, she sleepwalks the corridors plagued by a reoccurring nightmare.With the arrival of a new teacher, Miss Taylor, strange phenomena begin to occur. And Florence blames the new governess and fears for Giles’ safety. Without any adult to whom she can turn for help, Florence must use her ingenuity to both protect her little brother and preserve her private world.Inspired by and in the tradition of Henry James' s The Turn of the Screw, Florence & Giles is a gripping gothic page-turner told in a startlingly different and wonderfully captivating narrative voice.THE GIRL WHO COULDN’T READNew England, The 1890sWhen a young doctor begins work at an isolated mental asylum, he is expected to fall in with the shocking regime for treating the patients. He is soon intrigued by one patient, a strange amnesiac girl who is fascinated by books but cannot read. He embarks upon a desperate experiment to save her but when his own dark past begins to catch up with him, he realises it is she who is his only hope of escape.In this chilling literary thriller from a master storyteller, everyone has something to hide and no one is what they seem.
Читать John Harding 2-Book Gothic Collection онлайн беплатно
A GOTHIC COLLECTION
Florence & Giles
The Girl Who Couldn’t Read
John Harding
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Copyright © John Harding 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
John Harding asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works.
Catalogue copies of these books are available from the British Library.
These novels are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in them are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780008162955
Version: 2015-09-07
Contents
Copyright
About the Author
Also by John Harding
About the Publisher
JOHN HARDING
Florence & Giles
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
First published by Blue Door in 2010
Copyright © John Harding 2010
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2010
Cover photographs © Scott Dingman/Getty Images (girl looking through broken window); Shutterstock (stairwell).
John Harding asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © February 2010 ISBN: 9780007315062
Version: 2015-09-07
For Norah
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
The Swan
Part One
It was April, I remember, though my spirit was December,
When a broken bird was lifted from the darkness of the lake,
In the sun white feathers gleaming, from her mouth black water streaming,
While within my voice was screaming until I thought my heart would break;
It was I who watched her dying, drifting, drifting, waiting in her wake
For God her soul to take.
It is a curious story I have to tell, one not easily absorbed and understood, so it is fortunate I have the words for the task. If I say so myself, who probably shouldn’t, for a girl my age I am very well worded. Exceeding well worded, to speak plain. But because of the strict views of my uncle regarding the education of females, I have hidden my eloquence, under-a-bushelled it, and kept any but the simplest forms of expression bridewelled within my brain. Such concealment has become my habit and began on account of my fear, my very great fear, that were I to speak as I think, it would be obvious I had been at the books and the library would be banned. And, as I explained to poor Miss Whitaker (it was shortly before she tragicked upon the lake), that was a thing I did not think I could bear.
Blithe House is a great barn, a crusty stone mansion of many rooms, so immense it takes my little brother, Giles, who is as fast of limb as he is not of wit, three minutes and more to run through its length, a house uncomfortabled and shabbied by prudence, a neglect of a place, tightly pursed (my absent uncle having lost interest in it), leaked and rotted and mothed and rusted, coldly draughted, dim lit and crawled with dark corners, so that, even though I have lived here all of my life that I can remember, sometimes, especially on a winter’s eve in the fadery of twilight, it shivers me quite.
