The Victorian Chaise-longue |
 |
 click here for more details, find new or used items |
Marghanita Laski, P.D. James
|
|
Pages: (Paperback)
ISBN: 0953478041
Pub: Persephone Books Ltd
Pub date: 1999-06-22
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 245953
Reader Reviews:
Gothic read (5/5 people found this helpful)
This has got to be one of the most chilling short stories I've ever read. It's about a young married woman who is suffering from tuberculosis. She dozes off on a chaise longue that she had purchased from an antique shop. She realises that somehow, she has been transported to 90 years ago and finds herself trapped inside the body of another young women who is also ill. So begins her nightmare as she struggles to get back to her own time in order to save her life.
This is a perfect gothic read for a dark winter's evening or Halloween night.
Victorian horror (19/19 people found this helpful)
Most readers of classic Victorian fiction have surely wished that they could be transported back to the slower pace and more refined lifestyle of the nineteenth century. After reading this novel, you will never wish that again. First published in 1953, this is the story of Melanie, a rather spoilt young woman recovering from TB (still a threat only fifty years ago). Melanie goes to sleep one afternoon on a Victorian chaise-longue she picked up in an antique shop, and wakes up as Milly, a young woman in the nineteenth century. The horror comes from the fact that Melanie is still Melanie, with all her twentieth-century knowledge, yet she is trapped in another woman's body, a woman who has transgressed in some unspecified way. The sights and smells of the period are vivid- the butter which has gone slightly rancid, the smell of clothes which are never thoroughly washed. When Melanie can no longer delude herself that she is dreaming, the terror of her situation becomes overwhelming. This slight novel is written in a spare, matter-of-fact style which only makes the story more believable. The Victorian atmosphere- overcrowded, stuffy, suffocating- is beautifully evoked. Another wonderful reprint from Persephone.
Similar Products
Little Boy Lost
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
Greenery Street (Persephone book)
Mariana
Someone at a Distance (Persephone Classics)
Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> General
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback