9 h 1 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 9 h 1 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What makes you the same person when your outward appearance no longer tells the same story?
In The Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs, Florence Marryat brings an ordinary name into the world of the uncanny. The title promises a change of form or appearance. That promise opens an unsettling question: what remains of a person when the signs by which others know them are altered?
This Gothic tale belongs to the late Victorian world of strange stories and unexplained events. Hannah Stubbs stands at the heart of its mystery of transformation and identity. Read with an eye for the tension between the familiar and the extraordinary, and for what a changed appearance might hide or reveal.
What you’ll discover
- An ordinary name unsettled Meet the contrast between Hannah Stubbs’s everyday name and the extraordinary change her title promises.
- The mystery of identity Consider what makes someone the same person from one day to the next.
- A change beyond appearances Explore how transformation can suggest the revealing of something hidden beneath a familiar form.
- The Victorian taste for mystery Enter a literary world drawn to the uncanny, the strange, and the unexplained.
- Questions that stay close Let a tale of altered appearance turn your thoughts toward how we recognise one another.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy Victorian ghost stories, séance scenes in dim rooms, and lively tales where landladies, servants and gentlemen collide. It suits readers who like puzzles of identity and a narrator with humor.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A locked attic room and a confession
- The dark room frightens the doctor
- A maid whose furniture will not stay still
- A kind lie, a voice and a veiled lady
- A keyhole costs Hannah her family
- A marriage made to keep a medium
- Hannah wakes up and grows bold
Who’s who
- Hannah StubbsA clumsy young maid from Shropshire whose furniture moves by itself. She wants only to be rid of her visions and win back her sweetheart.
- Signor RicardoAn exiled Italian nobleman teaching languages in London. He wants his dead wife to tell him whether he was right to kill her.
- Karl SteinbergA young German doctor and Ricardo's only friend. He wants scientific proof of life after death and has little faith in women.
- Mrs. BattlebyThe Soho landlady who calls her lodger a mystery. She wants a respectable house and cannot rest until she learns what happens upstairs.
- JamesA voice from the empty air that calls itself Hannah's guiding control. He says he was a street vendor and wants her treated gently.
- LeonoraRicardo's dead wife, whose veiled, dark-eyed figure appears in the séances. Ricardo longs to hear her say whether she was faithful.
- Joe BrushwoodHannah's village sweetheart, handsome and pious on Sundays. He wants a quiet life and will not marry a girl who sees ghosts.
- Mrs. StubbsHannah's strict Methodist mother, a laundress with many mouths to feed. She wants her daughter respectable and rejects anything she thinks of as devilry.
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La strana trasfigurazione di Hannah Stubbs
by Florence Marryat · 1896
A Soho landlady keeps a locked attic room, and a farm girl's furniture will not stop dancing.
Medium level5–10 hours to readItaliano
Excellent
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In short
Why would a landlady in Soho never be allowed to open one room in her own house? In Florence Marryat's novel, the answer lies behind a black-draped door at the top of Mrs. Battleby's lodging house, where an Italian teacher burns incense and waits for the dead.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A locked attic room and a confession
Mrs. Battleby keeps a lodging house in Soho, and her best tenant is Signor Ricardo, Professor of Italian. He pays on time and keeps to a clock, yet she also calls him a mystery. He rented her three attic rooms three years ago and keeps the third one locked. Her neighbor Mrs. Blamey suggests terrible crimes and proposes breaking down the door. The landlady defends him loudly and refuses.
Ricardo is a tall, stooped man with a pointed beard and very little money. His only friend is Doctor Karl Steinberg, a young German who scolds him for skipping meals. Ricardo answers with a strange question. Has the doctor ever loved a woman so much that his soul joined hers? Steinberg says no, and calls women a necessary evil.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1896
- Language
- Italiano
- Reading time
- 5 h 50 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Marryat, Florence. The Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-strange-transfiguration-of-hannah-stubbs.
Marryat, F. (2026). The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-strange-transfiguration-of-hannah-stubbs (Original work published 1896)
Marryat, Florence. The Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-strange-transfiguration-of-hannah-stubbs.
@book{marryat2026strange,
author = {Marryat, Florence},
title = {The Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-strange-transfiguration-of-hannah-stubbs},
note = {First published 1896}
}
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What is The Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs about?
It follows a young Shropshire maid whose furniture moves by itself, and the Italian teacher and German doctor who use her as a medium. As the séances continue, Hannah changes in surprising ways, and the book asks what is happening to her.
Who is James in the story?
James is a voice that speaks from the empty air during Hannah's trances. He calls himself her guiding control, says he was an unlettered street vendor in life, and warns the men to treat her gently.
What does the transfiguration in the title mean?
The word points to the change in Hannah, from a shy, clumsy maid into a bolder, sharper woman who claims a title. The book lets you watch that change in her speech, dress and manner, and invites you to ask what lies behind it.
The author
Florence Marryat
1833–1899 · English novelist and actress
Florence Marryat (1833–1899) was a British novelist and actress. She was born in Brighton and died in London. Her first novel, Love’s Conflict, appeared in 1865. She wrote novels, short stories, and books about spiritualism. Her later fiction included The Blood of the Vampire, published in 1897.
More by Florence Marryat
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