- The Little Stranger is also the title of one of the Color Classics series produced 13 March 1936, in three-strip Technicolor, by Fleischer Studios. It is also the 2018 film adaptation of Waters' novel.
 First edition cover | |
| Author | Sarah Waters |
|---|---|
| Genre | Gothic novel |
| Publisher | Virago Press |
Publication date | June 4, 2009 |
| ISBN | 978-1-844-08601-6 |
The Little Stranger is a 2009 gothic novel written by Sarah Waters. It is a ghost story set in a dilapidated mansion in Warwickshire, England in the 1940s. Departing from her earlier themes of lesbian and gay fiction, Waters' fifth novel features a male narrator, a country doctor who makes friends with an old gentry family of declining fortunes who own a very old estate that is crumbling around them. The stress of reconciling the state of their finances with the familial responsibility of keeping the estate coincides with perplexing events which may or may not be of supernatural origin, culminating in tragedy.
Reviewers note that the themes in The Little Stranger are alternately reflections of evil and struggle related to upper class hierarchy misconfiguration in post war Britain. Waters stated that she did not set out to write a ghost story, but began her writing with an exploration of the rise of socialism in the United Kingdom and how the fading gentry dealt with losing their legacies. A mix of influences is evident to reviewers: Henry James, Shirley Jackson, Wilkie Collins, and Edgar Allan Poe. The novel was mostly well received by critics as Waters' strengths are exhibited in setting of mood and pacing of the story. It is Waters' third novel to be short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.[1]
- ^ The Little Stranger Archived 8 October 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Man Booker Prize website. Retrieved on 15 September 2009.