The Little Stranger (2009)
The Little Stranger is a 2009 fiction book written by Sarah Waters and Jaime Zulaika Goicoechea.
A post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, and Dr Faraday is called to Hundreds Hall, the Georgian seat of the Ayres family for two centuries. The house is failing: crumbling masonry, weed-choked gardens, a stable clock frozen at twenty to nine. Faraday, a working-class doctor drawn to the family's fading gentility, keeps returning as small, inexplicable disturbances gather around them. Sarah Waters writes a slow, exact ghost story where class anxiety and thwarted desire matter as much as anything that goes bump in the dark. The dread accumulates quietly, and what truly haunts Hundreds Hall stays an open question. Elegant, patient, genuinely unsettling.
Quick answers
What is The Little Stranger about?
A post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, and Dr Faraday is called to Hundreds Hall, the Georgian seat of the Ayres family for two centuries. The house is failing: crumbling masonry, weed-choked gardens, a stable clock frozen at twenty to nine. Faraday, a working-class doctor drawn to the family's fading gentility, keeps returning as small, inexplicable disturbances gather around them. Sarah Waters writes a slow, exact ghost story where class anxiety and thwarted desire matter as much as anything that goes bump in the dark. The dread accumulates quietly, and what truly haunts Hundreds Hall stays an open question. Elegant, patient, genuinely unsettling.
When was The Little Stranger published?
The Little Stranger was published in 2009.
Who made The Little Stranger?
The Little Stranger was written by Sarah Waters and Jaime Zulaika Goicoechea.
Similar books
Explore The Little Stranger guides
The Little Stranger in our writing
- Companion guide: Ghosts & Hauntings
- Companion guide: Gothic Romance
A few thoughts on The Little Stranger
Readers who like their hauntings ambiguous should try The Innocents, the 1961 film that keeps the viewer guessing whether the Ghosts & Hauntings are real or a mind unravelling, and Crimson Peak, which shares the decaying aristocratic house and buried class resentment. Both prize atmosphere and doubt over shock.
Slow-burn ghost stories set in decaying old houses
The Little Stranger lets Hundreds Hall crumble alongside the Ayres family's fading class status, and Dr Faraday's arrival never quite explains what stirs inside the walls. Crimson Peak and The Innocents build the same dread from a great house in decline, Flowers in the Attic and The Little Friend hide their horror in family secrets, and Aura and Edwin Drood wrap uncanny turns around old, watchful buildings.