The Lodger

Written by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Narrated by Lorna Raver

An elderly couple living in Victorian London had been struggling financially, until an eccentric gentleman answered their ad for a lodger. But as women begin dying at the hands of a serial killer, they start to suspect something too horrific for words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Audio
• Release date: Jan 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9780786133925

Marie Belloc Lowndes

Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947) was an English novelist. Born in London, she was raised in La-Celle-Saint-Cloud, France by a French father and English mother. Her brother, Hilaire Belloc, would later become a prominent writer, activist, and politician. Her mother Bessie Parkes, a principled feminist, was the great granddaughter of influential philosopher Joseph Priestley, whose work had a profound influence on modern chemistry, Christianity, and political liberalism. From a young age, Belloc Lowndes worked to live up to her family name, publishing biographies, memoirs, novels, and plays nearly every year until her death, beginning in 1898. Known for her mystery novels, often based on real events, Belloc Lowndes earned praise from Ernest Hemingway and continues to be recognized as a leading writer of the early twentieth century. The Lodger (1913), her most well-known work, is a retelling of the story of Jack the Ripper, and has been adapted for film several times by such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Maurice Elvey, and John Brahm.

Reviews for The Lodger

[sigmundfraud · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes was first published in 1914 but is still relevant and intriguing today. A first-class, highly acclaimed thriller that is based on the grisly Jack the Ripper murders that occurred in Whitechapel, London twenty years before. It is a real page turner. Definitely worth a tour and available for free as an ebook at Amazon.

[starbox_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"You must bear with me, Mrs Bunting, if I seem a little - just a little - unlike the lodgers you have been accustomed to",, February 20, 2015This review is from: The Lodger (Paperback)This review is from: The Lodger (Paperback)Last read this aged 13, when I loved it. Re-reading it forty years later, I still find it a jolly good read.Set in foggy Victorian London, the novel opens with a married couple - the Buntings, previously servants and now reduced to a state of penury as they fail to find lodgers for their spare rooms. And then comes a knock at the door and their problems seem answered, with the arrival of prospective tenant Mr Sleuth - a gentleman, no less, who pays in advance and likes to read the Bible.But in the first few pages we realise Mr Sleuth is somewhat peculiar: a man who does experiments in his rooms and demands to be left alone. And why does he go out late at night into the foggy streets?Meanwhile London is suffering a series of Jack-the-Ripper type attacks on young women of alcoholic persuasion...Very compelling read indeed, written in 1913.

[reneh-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A poor couple takes a lodger into their house, at the time the town is hounted by a serial killer. The couple slowly start to wonder if their lodger is that serial killer. Are they right or not?
The tension is slowly built up and although we, readers, also suspect the lodger being the killer, we only get an answer at the end of this well-written book.

[schmerguls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was in 8th grade and read The Album, by Mary Roberts Rinehart and thought it was so good that when my sister Colette, then just out of high school and in Omaha going to business school, asked me what I would like for my birthday I said a Mary Roberts Rinehart book. Instead she gave me this book and I read it and was enthusiastically enamored of it. The book was first published in 1913.

[chewdigest · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I remember the old film, The Lodger, as being more intense and suspenseful than this.

[encycl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An Edwardian Thriller. The Buntings, a married couple retired from service, are down on their luck. While trying to preserve their "respectability" they have sold or pawned many of their clothes and furnishings. Just in the nick of time an eccentric gentleman chooses to rent 2 rooms from them at a generous rate. At about the same time a series of gruesome murders start happening, all the work of "The Avenger" (Jack the Ripper). The story continues as Mr and Mrs Bunting begin to suspect just who they might have let in their house as a lodger.The story is well written, and atmospheric. Belloc Lowndes, the sister of Hillaire Belloc, is able to keep the suspense building until the very end. This story was recommended to Ernest Hemingway by Gertrude Stein, as he recounts in A Moveable Feast. I greatly enjoyed it.

[librarygav · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anyone who has seen the old silent movie of "The Lodger" directed by Hitchcock will recognise the plot of this book. Young mysterious lodger boarding at home of elderly couple, "is he or isn't he the serial killer" (based on Jack the Ripper and set in Victorian London). Definitely worth a read, the novel focuses on the elderly couple and how much people are prepared to ignore dangerous clues when they have a rich lodger and need the money!

[charrlygirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a free Kindle ebook, written around 1913.
It's not a horror novel, by today's standards, but it is a fascinating observation about morals and class differences in that time period. It made me think more carefully about what people are willing to do or not do to be comfortable in life. It's a bit slow paced but I thought it was worth the time.

[bnielsen_30 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Mr og Mrs Bunting har det hårdt økonomisk, så en logerende Mr Sleuth er velkommen, selv om han er lidt mærkelig. En af deres bekendte er ved politiet og holder dem detaljeret orienteret om en række mord begået af Hævneren. Ægteparret bliver mere og mere overbevist om at deres logerende er Hævneren, men hvad skal de gøre? Huslejepengene er jo gode nok.Udmærket bog om et moralsk dilemma