5 h 54 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 5 h 54 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What keeps a house empty: a ghost, a secret, or the weight of its own bad name?
In The Uninhabited House, Charlotte Riddell draws you toward a building nobody will live in. Its bad reputation fills the silence, and rumor does more work than any visitor. This Victorian ghost story makes an empty property a puzzle, with suspicion and secrets at its heart.
Riddell brings her knowledge of London and its business world to the haunted-house tale. Here, the uncanny sits beside money, property and reputation. Fear grows through small things: a closed door, a stranger’s hint, a feeling in a room. The steady pace gives each suggestion space to trouble you.
What you’ll discover
- A house under suspicion Explore the unsettling pull of an empty building whose bad name keeps people away.
- Fear fed by rumor Discover how suspicion can feel as powerful as the possibility of a ghost.
- The business of haunting See money, property and reputation share the stage with the strange and unexplained.
- Small signs of unease Let a closed door or a passing hint draw you deeper into uncertainty.
- A slower kind of dread Settle into measured Victorian prose that lets unease gather rather than rush toward shocks.
Who will love it
Readers who like a ghost story with a puzzle at its heart, a lively comic voice, and a London setting full of lawyers, clerks and riverside lanes, and who enjoy a young hero in love.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A house that haunts a law office
- Miss Blake, a client like no other
- The moneylender and his inquest
- Tenants flee and a colonel complains
- Ghosts go to court
- A young man takes up the challenge
- Strange nights at River Hall
- The watcher and the doctor's night
- What the story is really about
- How the story is told
Who’s who
- PattersonA young clerk in Mr. Craven's law office who tells the story and risks his nerves to live in the haunted house for love of Helena.
- Miss BlakeHelena's Irish aunt, a muddled and ungrateful but loyal client who borrows from the firm and defends her niece fiercely.
- Helena ElmsdaleA gentle, beautiful orphan who owns the house, fears it, and wishes to earn her own bread rather than depend on charity.
- Mr. CravenThe kind, slow-moving lawyer who lends money he never gets back and cannot believe in ghosts, though he suspects someone keeps the house empty.
- Ned MunroPatterson's cheerful friend, a young doctor who doubts the ghost but stays at the house to help him and follows up a clue.
- Colonel MorrisA stiff retired officer who rents the house, flees from what he and his wife have seen, and fights the firm in court.
- Mr. HarringfordA rich builder who spoke kindly of Elmsdale at the inquest and shows an odd interest in buying River Hall.
- Mrs. StottA poor widow who comes to clean the house, then moves in with her children and is not afraid.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 5 h 54 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Das unbewohnte Haus in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Das unbewohnte Haus
by Mrs. J. H. Riddell · 1875
A young clerk spends nights alone in a riverside house where tenants flee, and someone outside is watching him.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Uninhabited House is a ghost story by Mrs. J. H. Riddell, a Victorian novelist who wrote of London business life. It is told by Patterson, once a young clerk in the law office of Messrs. Craven and Son in Buckingham Street, near the Strand.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A house that haunts a law office
The story opens in the offices of Messrs. Craven and Son, where the Uninhabited House is a standing worry. Whether it is let or empty, it gives the firm no peace. When it is let, the tenants quarrel with the firm. When it is empty, the clerks must hunt for someone willing to take it.
Mr. Craven is a kind and slow-moving man. He has a client he cannot refuse, Miss Blake, who owes him money and never repays it. He lends her five and ten pound notes, and enters them in his own private account.
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What is The Uninhabited House about?
It is a Victorian ghost story. A young law clerk named Patterson agrees to live alone in River Hall, a riverside house that no tenant can bear, to find out why it is haunted and who benefits.
Who is Miss Blake in The Uninhabited House?
Miss Blake is the Irish aunt of Helena Elmsdale, who owns the house. She is a comic, muddled and ungrateful client of the law firm, always borrowing money, yet she is devoted to her niece.
Is The Uninhabited House a true story?
No, it is a novel by Mrs. J. H. Riddell, a Victorian author. It was written in the nineteenth century and uses real places such as Buckingham Street and the Thames, though the characters and events are invented.
The author
Charlotte Riddell
1832–1906 · Irish novelist
Mrs. J. H. Riddell was the pen name of Charlotte Riddell, an Irish novelist and editor. She was born in Carrickfergus in 1832 and moved to London in 1855. She wrote novels and ghost stories, including The Uninhabited House, published in 1875. She died in England in 1906.
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