2 h 6 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 2 h 6 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the cabin you share holds something no sensible traveller can explain?
In The Upper Berth, a man in a smoking room tells his friends about a strange sea crossing. Aboard the Kamtschatka, his cabin unsettles him. Fellow passengers warn that something is wrong. A chill and a sense of another presence test the ordinary traveller’s confidence in his own reason.
By the Waters of Paradise turns from the steamship to a gothic romance shadowed by fate. Together, these supernatural tales by F. Marion Crawford let dread gather through small, odd details. His voice stays calm and clear, even as familiar places begin to feel less safe and the ordinary world seems thin.
What you’ll discover
- A cabin that disturbs Enter a shipboard space where a chill makes the possibility of company deeply unwelcome.
- Reason under pressure Follow a sensible traveller as strange signs test his certainty about what he can trust.
- Romance beneath a shadow Discover a gothic love story whose dark atmosphere carries the weight of fate.
- Fear in small details Notice how Crawford builds unease quietly, letting one odd detail deepen the next.
- Ghosts close to home Explore a Victorian taste for supernatural fear tied to familiar places and guilt.
Who will love it
Readers who like ghost stories told by firelight, sea tales with a cold chill, and gothic romances with old castles, fountains and fate, all in two compact tales.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Dinner Table and a Cursed Cabin
- The Porthole That Will Not Stay Shut
- A Boy Raised Under a Prophecy
- A Face Seen by Moonlight
- A Proposal and a Changed World
- Fate, Luck, and Two Ways of Telling
Who’s who
- BrisbaneA strong, calm, experienced traveller who tells the story of his voyage on the Kamtschatka and insists on finding a rational cause for the horror in his cabin.
- The CaptainA tough, cheerful seaman who cannot afford to laugh off the losses from cabin one hundred and five and agrees to watch the cabin with Brisbane.
- The DoctorA big, easygoing Irish surgeon who keeps his nerves steady by refusing to meddle with ghosts and offers Brisbane a place in his own cabin.
- RobertThe frightened steward who has learned that nobody can keep the porthole shut at night and bets that it will open again.
- Margaret LammasA brisk, witty young woman, known as Daisy, who tells the gloomy lord to stop moping and care about something.
- JudithThe old Welsh nurse who fills the gardens with spirits and speaks of the Woman of the Water and of coffins falling.
- Lady BluebellMargaret's deaf, kindly aunt and the lord's neighbour, who communicates with notes written on a shirt cuff and once knew his grandfather.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 2 h 6 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 4 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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Die obere Koje & Die Wasser des Paradieses
Four guests in one cabin have gone overboard, and a melancholy lord loves a face seen in the moonlight.
Medium level2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Two ghosts, one cold cabin and one moonlit garden. This book holds two tales by F.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Dinner Table and a Cursed Cabin
The first tale opens at the end of a dull dinner party. A broad, strong man named Brisbane asks for a cigar, and everyone stops to listen. He says he has seen a ghost, and the claim draws a chorus of disbelief.
He tells of the steamer Kamtschatka and cabin one hundred and five. When he asks for a berth there, the steward's face changes and he mutters an oath. The cabin looks ordinary, with dull curtains half drawn across the upper berth.
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What is The Upper Berth about?
It is a ghost story told by a man named Brisbane about a voyage on the steamer Kamtschatka. His cabin has a porthole that opens by itself, and several previous guests have gone overboard. He sets out to find the cause.
What does the Woman of the Water mean in By the Waters of Paradise?
She is a spirit that the hero's Welsh nurse, Judith, says lives in the great fountains of the family garden. She is used to frighten the boy and later hangs over the story as a hint of fate and danger.
Who wrote The Upper Berth and when?
F. Marion Crawford, an American novelist who died in 1909, wrote it. It belongs to the nineteenth-century tradition of ghost stories told in the first person, as if recalled after dinner by someone who really saw the thing.
The author
F. Marion Crawford
1854–1909 · American novelist
Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909) was an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in Bagni di Lucca, Italy, and lived in Sorrento, where he died. His novels include Mr. Isaacs (1882), Khaled: A Tale of Arabia (1891), and Stradella (1909). He also wrote supernatural short stories.
More by F. Marion Crawford
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