Benighted

John Boynton Priestley (1894 - 1984)

Phillip and Margaret Waverton, along with a cheerful young acquaintance Roger Penderel, finds themselves driving through a terrible storm with no solace to be found. Fortunately they espy a craggy, old house on a hill right as the road they are on is washed away, and they stop to take shelter for the night. Inhabiting this house are the peculiar Femms, a wiry, creaking old man and his blustery, deaf sister, attended to by a grotesque, hulking brute of a mute butler named Morgan. They are told the master of the house, Sir Roderick, is confined upstairs in bed. What bizarre dark secrets will be uncovered on this haunting and mysterious night?
Thrill to Priestley's classic of gothic literature which was adapted into the influential film The Old Dark House in 1932 and again in 1963. - Summary by Ben Tucker

Genre(s): Crime & Mystery Fiction, Gothic Fiction

Language: English

Keyword(s): Mystery (738), Gothic (57), thriller (19), old dark house (1)