7 h 0 minAudiobook17 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 0 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What waits in the woods when even the neighbors will not name their fear?
In The Thing in the Woods, Harper Williams draws you into a small community beside a dark forest. The trees stand close enough for sounds to carry at night, yet offer cover for what remains unseen. Guarded neighbors and old secrets turn a familiar country setting into a place of slow dread.
The mystery reaches beyond the woods and into the lives of people who know one another too well. Shared histories leave much unspoken. As strange events stir doubt, fear presses on the mind as well as the senses. What can anyone trust when the night brings things that others do not see?
What you’ll discover
- Woods that hide danger Feel the unease of a forest close enough to hear, but too dark to know.
- Neighbors with guarded histories Look beneath familiar faces for the secrets a small community keeps from view.
- Fear beneath the surface Enter a mystery where silence and withheld knowledge make ordinary encounters feel uncertain.
- A mind under pressure Follow the unsettling doubt that grows when strange experiences have no witness.
- Dread that builds slowly Let odd sounds and unanswered questions draw you deeper into the rural darkness.
Who will love it
Readers who like atmospheric mysteries, dark woods, old country roads, and a sensible narrator pushed toward the unexplained. It suits anyone drawn to early twentieth century horror with a detective's eye for clues.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Doctor Takes an Odd Post
- Pete Fears the Dark Road
- A Patient Scarred by Claws
- Gossip, Ghosts, and Dead Cyclists
- Dinner, a Flat Tire, and a Confession
- A Cut Railing and a Call for Help
- A Ghost, a Friend, and an Orchid Hunter
- A Cry at the Sluice Gate
- What the Story Is Really About
- How the Tale Is Told
Who’s who
- HaverillA young doctor and the narrator, who fills in for a country practice and tries to explain every strange event with common sense.
- George LennoxThe country doctor Haverill replaces, a worn and uneasy man who says he is leaving in a hurry and says little about his neighbors.
- Richard LessingA thin, sleepless chemist who works at night in a lamplit laboratory and carries wounds from an attacker he cannot name.
- Mary LessingLessing's brave, sharp-tongued sister, who runs the household, trusts her own eyes, and wants to know what threatens her brother.
- Jack HerrickHaverill's cheerful and clever friend, who comes to help and keeps his own theory close while he gathers facts.
- Aaron MenningA scarred chicken peddler with a stutter and a bad reputation, whose brother's death still troubles the district.
- PeteThe doctor's hired man, full of charms and fears, who will not drive the road after dark if he can help it.
- Mr. CrowfootA shy, stammering orchid hunter in dark glasses, who boards at the Sliefers' farm and keeps odd hours.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 0 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 17 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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La cosa del bosque
by Harper Williams · 1924
A young doctor takes over a country practice and finds a neighbor torn by claws that no dog could make.
Easy read5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Thing in the Woods is a rural horror mystery by Harper Williams, set in the early twentieth century in the Pennsylvania hills. It follows Haverill, a young doctor fresh from hospital work, who takes a three month post in a small country practice.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Doctor Takes an Odd Post
The story opens on a June evening at a city hospital. Haverill has just finished his term as an intern when his chief, Murchison, hands him a letter. A man named Lennox, in a small Pennsylvania town, wants someone to cover his practice for three months. Haverill has saved every dollar for the day he opens his own office, so a paid summer in the hills seems a gift.
He takes the train to a dusty little station that looks left behind by the century. A hired man named Pete waits there with a buggy and a handsome roan mare, and he has been slipping off to the saloon. The road runs through tall hickory and oak woods thick with gray boulders. When a hare crosses the path, Pete fumbles in his pocket for a lucky charm, and Haverill guesses at once what he is hunting for.
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What is The Thing in the Woods about?
It follows a young doctor, Haverill, who covers a country practice in Pennsylvania for the summer. He meets a neighbor with strange claw wounds, hears local ghost tales, and starts to investigate deaths that no one can explain.
Who is Jakey Menning in The Thing in the Woods?
Jakey is a chicken peddler from the Bend, and he and his half brother Aaron look so alike that people confuse them. A death near Dutchman's Hill last March sets off ghost rumors, and who really died is one of the book's central puzzles.
What is Dutchman's Hill?
It is a wooded rise with a little stream and a plank bridge on the road between the doctor's house and the Lessings' bungalow. Locals say a peddler once drowned there, and the place has a haunted name.
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