Summary
Summary of The Forsaken Inn
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A manuscript opens a buried mystery
A traveler caught in a storm receives a manuscript written by the last landlady of a ruined inn. Its pages lead back to the Happy-Go-Lucky Inn, where a young bride and her strangely cheerful husband spend a troubling night in the oak parlor. The landlady, Clarissa Truax, cannot put her fears aside.
Sixteen years later, a visitor brings information that gives those fears new meaning. Her account draws together a crime, a love story and the clues she has stubbornly preserved.
Key idea 2
The bride fears the oak parlor
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Key idea 3
The departing box leaves troubling clues
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Key idea 4
A hidden chamber changes the past
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Key idea 5
Felt recalls love tangled with greed
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Key idea 6
Broken promises surround Honora's wedding
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Key idea 7
New guests awaken the landlady's suspicions
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Key idea 8
Listening reveals an innocent daughter's love
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Key idea 9
A crime reaches beyond its victims
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Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who love gothic mysteries, haunted houses and hidden rooms, and who enjoy old diaries, letters and a sharp-eyed narrator, will find a story of crime, love and justice beside the Hudson.
What this book is
The Forsaken Inn is a gothic mystery by Anna Katharine Green, an American writer best known for her detective fiction. It is set beside the Hudson River, between Albany and Poughkeepsie, in the years around the American Revolution. A traveler caught in a storm is rescued by a stranger and handed a manuscript. It was written by the last landlady of a ruined inn, and its pages were found under her pillow.
The diary opens in 1775. A pale young bride and her too cheerful husband spend one night at the Happy-Go-Lucky Inn, in a gloomy ground floor room called the oak parlor. They drive away the next morning, and the landlady, Clarissa Truax, cannot shake her fear. Sixteen years later, an old gentleman from Virginia tells her something about her own house that she never knew. From there the book moves through letters, a hermit's confession and the arrival of two foreign ladies who take a strange interest in the same room.
You get a mystery told in the voice of a sharp, stubborn woman who trusts her instincts and writes down every clue. You also get a love story inside a crime story, and settings that range from candlelit corridors to a cave in the Catskills. Let us begin with the night of January 27, 1775, and a very large box.
In this summary
- 1A Veiled Bride and a Heavy BoxFree
- 2The Box Is Lighter Going Out
- 3A Secret Room Behind the Mantel
- 4A Grave in the Garden, Letters from Tamworth
- 5A Hermit's Tale of Two Women
- 6A Wedding Stopped, Another Held
- 7Two Elegant Strangers Watch the Oak Parlor
- 8The Landlady Listens at the Wall
- 9Guilt, Innocence, and a House That Remembers
Key point 1 of 9
A Veiled Bride and a Heavy Box
The story proper begins on January 28, 1775, in the diary of Clarissa Truax, who keeps the Happy-Go-Lucky Inn beside the Hudson. She cannot sleep. The night before, a couple arrived in a carriage followed by a wagon, and she cannot stop thinking about them. She decides to write down everything she saw, hoping that putting it in order will calm her mind.
The husband calls himself Edwin Urquhart. He is handsome and polite, yet he laughs too often and pays more attention to his luggage than to his wife. Above all he loves one enormous box, which he says holds books. He watches every hand that touches it. Mrs. Truax notices that he lets a stranger help his sick wife up the steps while he guards the box.
The wife, who is called Honora, wears a thick veil. When she lifts it, the landlady sees a refined face marked by trouble. The husband walks past two fine airy rooms and insists on the stuffy oak parlor, because it is on the ground floor and easy to reach with the box. The moment Honora steps inside, she murmurs a few strange words about oak walls. Then she faints onto the black floor. When she begins to stir, Mrs. Truax asks how long they have been married, and he flares into rage and then smooths it over with a smile.
The room itself seems to press on the heart. Oak paneling climbs the walls, the bed curtains are gray, and the one west window is blocked by heavy cloth. Mrs. Truax tears down the curtains and builds a fire, though the husband seems to protest. Honora begs to be moved somewhere else, and Edwin refuses, saying they will sleep here or nowhere.
That evening the couple sit on opposite sides of the room, he beside his box and she by the fire. He orders a supper for his wife, who looks surprised, as if she never eats at night. Near midnight a shriek rises from downstairs and is quickly smothered. Mrs. Truax dresses and hurries toward the room, and the cry hangs over the inn like a question.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Why does Burritt suspect something was changed inside the box?
Right. “He says the box was lighter going out than coming in, and that it felt loose inside, where yesterday it was packed tight.”Not quite. “He says the box was lighter going out than coming in, and that it felt loose inside, where yesterday it was packed tight.”
What do Tamworth and Dr. Kenyon conclude after the hidden chamber is opened?
Right. “Dr. Kenyon and Tamworth reason that the woman who drove away with Urquhart was not the woman who arrived with him.”Not quite. “Dr. Kenyon and Tamworth reason that the woman who drove away with Urquhart was not the woman who arrived with him.”
What question does young Honora's innocence bring into the story?
Right. “Watch how the book asks whether a child should pay for what her parents did, and how another character answers that question by his actions.”Not quite. “Watch how the book asks whether a child should pay for what her parents did, and how another character answers that question by his actions.”
Questions about The Forsaken Inn
What is The Forsaken Inn about?
It follows Clarissa Truax, a landlady on the Hudson River, as she tries to explain what happened when a strange couple stayed one night in 1775. Years later, a hidden room behind the oak paneling sets new events in motion.
Who wrote The Forsaken Inn and when is it set?
Anna Katharine Green, an American writer known for detective fiction, wrote it. The story is set beside the Hudson River in the years around the American Revolution, with diary entries dated from 1775 to 1795.
What does the oak parlor mean in the book?
The oak parlor is a gloomy ground floor room at the Happy-Go-Lucky Inn. It is the center of the mystery, and a hidden chamber lies behind its carved mantel. A warning about oak walls echoes through the story.
Who is Mark Felt in The Forsaken Inn?
Mark Felt is a man who loved a woman named Marah Leighton and shut himself away in a Catskills cave after losing her. He knows the Urquhart and Dudleigh families, and his story gives Tamworth the missing history.
