Benighted
3.5/5
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About this ebook
In this classic novel of psychological terror, an unrelenting storm forces three travelers to take shelter in a sinister mansion.
A powerful storm rages through the Welsh mountains, driving three travelers off the road. Philip Waverton, his wife, Margaret, and their friend Roger Penderel are desperate to get out of the torrential downpour. Their only option is a mysterious old mansion, home to the bizarre Femm family and their brutish butler, Morgan.
Although the Femms have plenty rooms in their home, they are hesitant to allow guests to stay in them. Instead, Penderel and the Wavertons must settle in for the night by the ground-floor fireplace and hope the storm will pass by morning. But as the hours go by, their situation only gets worse. The storm intensifies, and the dark house begins revealing its secrets—like what lies behind the two locked doors on the top floor. Now the travelers can only pray they survive until morning . . .
Published in 1927, Benighted served as the basis for the 1932 James Whale film The Old Dark House, starring Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, and Gloria Stuart. It was J. B. Priestly’s second novel.
“Priestley’s book is a beautifully written affair, oftentimes thrilling and touching, that this reader found perfect company during a few recent stormy days in late October. . . . The novel will surely manage to chill the modern-day reader.” —Fantasy LiteratureJ. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley was born in Bradford in 1894. He fought in the First World War and was badly wounded in 1916. He went on to study at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and, from the late 1920s, established himself as a successful novelist, playwright, essayist, social commentator and radio broadcaster. He is best known for his 1945 play, An Inspector Calls. J. B. Priestley died in 1984.
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Reviews for Benighted
34 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5J. B. Priestley was an extremely popular author in the late 1920s and the 1930s, and when someone told me about Benighted, I had to read it. I love stories about old, scary houses, and this book inspired a 1930s film, "The Old Dark House," which gave birth to a whole genre of movies.Benighted is the tale of people stranded by a horrendous storm and flooding in a remote corner of Wales. Their place of refuge is an ancient, dark, creepy old manor house inhabited by four of the strangest people you'd never hope to meet. Little do they realize that it will be a severe test of their mental and physical fortitude just to survive the night.Priestley excelled in his depiction of the ancient house and its inhabitants. There is a decided scare factor when reading about them that I enjoyed. Where the book fell flat for me was in the amount of time it spent inside each of the stranded characters' heads. I can see what Priestley was trying to do: the house had such an effect on these people that their attitudes began to change about what they wanted from their lives, but it was just too much-- especially since I didn't particularly like any of them in the first place. By book's end, there's also a question I'd dearly love to have answered, a question that Priestley really didn't want readers to ask.Benighted gave me a glimpse of Priestley's talent, but it failed to hit the bulls-eye.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“It seems to me that life demands so much care to be lived at all decently that it’s hardly worth living.”Blew through this in a fortnight. A nice change of pace after the three-month rally of “Tom Jones”. The speed, however, should be no measure of the depth of this fun yet forgotten satire on the “old dark house” genre. Plenty of elbow room amidst the action for jabs of psychological drama. Plenty of space for pipe smoke to carry the confessions of intrigues, past shames, failed wishes, loves lost in the haze. Sure, it rains the whole damn book, and that could be an all-too-obvious device; except the shadows and creaks and intimations of dark secrets wouldn’t be as compelling. And it is a satire, after all. So, rain on! The movie captures most of this, adding more emphasis to creepy insinuation, distorted images in mirrors and glass, extreme close-ups of half-glimpsed bestial faces. “The Old Dark House” is James Whale at his inimitably campiest. A parody, itself, to be sure. But I don’t believe it reaches the depth and richness and heartache quite like the book. It is uproarious good fun, though, and it was a treat to revisit this classic after that fortnight of reading to the wife—even if I had to dig through those damn tubs in the attic again to find it.“It was queer how excited and happy she was inside, simply because the two of them were there talking about strange things and all the time talking their own strangeness away.”—Benighted by J.B. Priestley
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I bought this book because I enjoyed the James Whale film adaptation, The Old Dark House. Atmospheric and amusing as the film is, the book (naturally) is better.
There are no gruesome shocks in the way of modern horror but, if you let your imagination put you in the shoes of the lonely travellers who find themselves stranded in the strange old Femm house, it is really creepy and horripilating.
Priestley is able to go inside his characters thoughts and history in much more depth than Whale was able to do, and this is where it steps ahead of the film. Also, the ending is much darker than the Hollywood version (though the introduction to my edition says that Whale shot Priestley's ending, but the studio made him change it).I read Benighted during a week of Autumnal rains and storms: a perfect read, providing you're safely indoors with a hot cup of tea and a biscuit. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A charming, weird little book. The plot follows the movie version (The Old Dark House) fairly closely, but there are differences that make the book more compelling. For example, the scene where Margaret and Phillip enter the elder Femm’s bedroom, all massive dark furniture, the high polish reflecting the warm glow of dozens of candles, is really enchanting. Priestley’s depiction of a rampaging psychopath must have been extremely unnerving when the book was first published in 1927.The book seems to be about the upheavals of peoples’ lives in the aftermath of WWI, as well as the changes it brought to England. It reads as a mystery, but its subtle gay touches gave it added life in the underground. After all, James Whale directed the filmed version. It’s the perfect book to leave on the nightstand in the guest bedroom, especially if you don’t want your visitors to dither for more than a few days.