Why a Booktrail?
1891. In a remote and crumbling New England mansion, a girl is banned from reading…
Florence and Giles
What you need to know before your trail
In a very old and crumbling New England mansion, a 12-year-old orphan Florence is neglected by her guardian uncle, a man who bans her from reading. However because of his neglect, she is able to find books and read them in secret. She talks to herself and tells herself stories – many of which are inspired by the ghostly gothic atmosphere. She pretends to sleepwalk in order to investigate the house when no one is there. She is worried that someone is trying to harm her little brother Giles.
The first governess at the house meets with a violent death and so then Miss Taylor comes to teach but her arrival is marked with the arrival of something altogether more strange. Florence sees her as a spirit come to do harm and so the challenge is on to find out exactly who and what she is.
Travel Guide
Haunted Mansion in New England
A haunted mansion remote somewhere in New England. It’s the house which is the real setting here – the isolation, the gothic rooms and appearance, the cold whistling wind, the sense of claustrophobia and the feeling of abandonment and two children unloved and uncared for by their guardian uncle.
No need to mention the torture of not being allowed books to read – sounds like torture to us! – but this torture is a little lost girl who is our only narrator so we see the house, the confusion, the loneliness through her eyes.
“Blithe House is a great barn, a crusty stone mansion of many rooms”
“The neglect of a place, tightly pursed, leaked and rotted and mothed and rusted, coldly draughted, dim lit and crawled with dark corners…”
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: Florence and Giles
Author/Guide John Harding Destination: New England Departure Time: 1890s
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