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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
At a lonely roadside inn, strangers come and go—but secrets refuse to leave.
In The Forsaken Inn, Anna Katharine Green makes an abandoned inn the setting for a Gothic mystery of concealment and dark deception. People arrive from elsewhere, bringing lives that others cannot fully know. In this shadowy place, the gap between what someone says and what they hide becomes a source of fear.
Green builds suspense through clues, patient reasoning and knowledge drawn out little by little. Who deserves trust when a public face conceals a private truth? The story invites you to weigh details and question appearances, while its measured pace lets uncertainty gather around the inn and the secrets it holds.
What you’ll discover
- An inn full of uncertainty Enter a lonely stopping place where passing strangers give suspicion room to grow.
- Secrets revealed by degrees Feel the pressure build as concealed knowledge comes into view little by little.
- Trust under a shadow Question the distance between the face someone shows and the truth they carry.
- Clues worth your attention Follow a carefully shaped plot that rewards patient reasoning and attention to detail.
- The pull of Gothic suspense Discover how a shadowy setting and measured pace can make uncertainty feel deeply unsettling.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this book if you love old houses with secrets, mysteries built from letters and diaries, and clues followed beside a sharp-eyed narrator.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A guest guards the wrong treasure
- The departing box raises new questions
- The oak parlor conceals another room
- Felt remembers love clouding his judgment
- Broken weddings leave an ominous warning
- Watchful guests return attention to the walls
- Appearances protect what people keep hidden
- Serving truth is different from revenge
- Small clues connect rooms and voices
Who’s who
- Clarissa TruaxThe sharp, practical landlady of the Happy-Go-Lucky Inn, who keeps a journal of her fears and is determined to learn what happened under her roof.
- Edwin UrquhartA handsome, smiling guest who guards a heavy box and a stuffy ground floor room with more care than he gives his sick wife.
- Honora UrquhartA pale, gentle young bride who faints in the oak parlor and pleads not to be left alone in it.
- BurrittThe inn's loyal handyman, who senses that the box changed weight and searches the garden and riverbank for answers.
- Anthony TamworthAn elderly, white-haired Virginian who knows an old tale of a hidden chamber and pledges his last years to finding the truth.
- Mark FeltA broken, passionate man living alone in a mountain cave, who holds the key to the story of two cousins and a wedding.
- Marah LeightonA dark-eyed, mocking beauty who longs for wealth and splendor and attracts the love of more than one man.
- Madame LetellierA graceful, watchful guest who arrives with her daughter and shows a puzzling interest in the locked oak parlor.
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The Forsaken Inn
by Anna Katharine Green · 1890
A landlady's diary records a veiled bride, a heavy box, and a room whose oak walls make guests shiver.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Oak walls! Ah, my soul! It has come soon!”
In short
What would you do if a guest's heavy box seemed lighter on the morning he left than on the night he arrived? That small puzzle starts a sixteen year riddle for Clarissa Truax, who keeps a roadside inn on the Hudson River in the winter of 1775.
The Forsaken Inn at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h3 h 10 min fast, 4 h 45 min slow
- Length
- 57,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1890by Anna Katharine Green
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A veiled bride and a heavy box arrive
On a January evening in 1775, a handsome couple drives up to the inn, followed by a wagon piled with luggage. The husband gives his name as Edwin Urquhart, and his wife is called Honora. Mrs. Truax takes to the wife at once and dislikes the husband almost as quickly.
What troubles her most is a huge box that he says holds books. He watches every hand that touches it and looks at it more lovingly than he looks at his sick wife. He insists on the ground floor oak parlor, because the box can be carried straight in. The young wife stops on the threshold and murmurs a strange remark about oak walls. Then she faints.
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Details
- First published
- 1890
- Language
- English
- Level
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Cite this edition
Green, Anna Katharine. The Forsaken Inn. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-forsaken-inn.
Green, A. K. (2026). The forsaken inn. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-forsaken-inn (Original work published 1890)
Green, Anna Katharine. The Forsaken Inn. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-forsaken-inn.
@book{green2026forsaken,
author = {Green, Anna Katharine},
title = {The Forsaken Inn},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-forsaken-inn},
note = {First published 1890}
}
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What is The Forsaken Inn about?
It follows Clarissa Truax, the landlady of a Hudson River inn, who records the strange behavior of a couple in 1775. Sixteen years later, a hidden room is opened, and an investigation begins that draws in a hermit and two mysterious guests.
Who is Mrs. Truax in The Forsaken Inn?
Clarissa Truax is the owner of the Happy-Go-Lucky Inn and the writer of the journal that makes up much of the book. She is practical, observant, and brave, and she uses cunning to protect her house and seek justice.
What does oak walls mean in The Forsaken Inn?
It refers to the oak-paneled parlor at the inn, where the story's central secret is hidden. A young bride speaks the words on entering it, after an old woman has warned her at a wedding gate.
The author
Anna Katharine Green
1846–1935 · American detective novelist
Anna Katharine Green (1846–1935) was an American novelist born in Brooklyn, New York. She wrote detective fiction, including The Leavenworth Case, published in 1878, and That Affair Next Door, published in 1897. She married actor and furniture designer Charles Rohlfs in 1884. She lived in Buffalo, New York, where she died.
“Oak walls! Ah, my soul! It has come soon!”
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