The Haunted Hotel

The Haunted Hotel

Information about the writer

William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was born in London, the son of a well-known Royal Academician landscape artist, William Collins. From the age of 12 to 15, he lived with his parents in Italy, which made a great impression on him. At age 17, he left school and was apprenticed as a clerk to a firm of tea merchants, but after five unhappy years, during which he wrote his first novel, Iolani, he entered Lincoln's Inn to study law. Iolani remained unpublished for over 150 years until 1999. After his father's death in 1847, Collins produced his first published book, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A. (1848), and also considered a career in painting, exhibiting a picture at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1849, but it was with the release of his first published novel, Antonina, in 1850 that his career as a writer began in earnest. In March 1851, Collins was introduced to Charles Dickens by a mutual friend. They became lifelong friends and collaborators. Collins never married, but from 1858 lived on and off with a widow, Mrs. Caroline Graves.

William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces. His best-known works are The Woman in White, The Moonstone, Armadale and No Name. Collins enjoyed ten years of great success following publication of The Woman in White in 1859. His next novel, No Name combined social commentary ---the absurdity of

the law as it applied to children of unmarried parents (see Illegitimacy in fiction) – with a densely plotted revenge thriller. Armadale, the first and only of Collins's major novels of the 1860s to be serialized in a magazine other than All the Year Round, provoked strong criticism, generally centered upon its transgress villainess Lydia Gwilt; and provoked in part by Collins's typically confrontational preface. The novel was simultaneously a financial coup for its author and a comparative commercial failure: the sum paid by Cornhill for the serialization rights was exceptional, eclipsing by a substantial margin the prices paid for the vast majority of similar novels, yet the novel failed to recoup its publisher's investment. The Moonstone, published in 1868, and the last novel of what is generally regarded as the most successful decade of its author's career, was, despite a somewhat cool reception from both Dickens and the critics, a significant return to form and reestablished the market value of an author whose success in the competitive Victorian literary marketplace had been gradually waning in the wake of his first \"masterpiece\". Viewed by many to represent the advent of the detective story within the tradition of the English novel, The Moonstone remains one of Collins's most critically acclaimed productions, identified by T. S. Eliot as \"the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels...in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe\finest detective story ever written\".

Summary

Herbert John Westwick, the first Baron Montbarry, was enticed by Countess Narona. He discarded his fiancée Agnes Lockwood and married Mrs. Narona. All of

his relatives did not welcome their marry. Besides, the first Baron Montabrry paid £10000 for insurance. Mrs. Narona was the beneficiary.

After their wedding, the couple went abroad to have their honeymoon companied by Baron Rivar who was her lover but pretended to be Narona's cousin. Later they rented an old palace in Venice. During these days, Herbert John Westwick kept to himself. He lived in seclusion. One day, he caught a cold. However, the two famous doctors from Italy had nothing to do with his illness. He died from it. Insurance agent set up a special committee to investigate the affair. But all of the committee’s efforts suggested it was a natural dead. So ,as a beneficial ,Narona got the £10000 from the life insurance. After getting the sum of money, Narona and Rovar went to America.

But there was still a doubtful point. Baron Montbarry’s travel attendant Ferrari disappeared secretly before the Baron’s death. Emily who was Ferrari’s wife had received three letters. All of them suggested Ferrari’s unsatisfactory about the boring life in the palace. He couldn’t stand the abnormal relationship between Narona and Baron Rivar. He didn’t choose to go away because of the generous and timely salary. Emily received a sum of£1000 disguisedly ,and she believed it was Narona and Rivar who murdered his husband.

Hearing Herbert John Westwick dead, Adnes Lockwood soaked herself into sorrow. She missed hin very much. With Francis’s help and her own struggle she got better and better.

The old palace was rebuilt an became a hotel .coincidently, who ever of the relatives had strange feelings and experiences once they live in the room which Herbert John Westwick had lived. They had horrible dreams , saw a dead person or a body with no head, found blood points, and even a blooded head.

With the efforts of the Baron’s brothers, this murdered case appeared its bottom. Ridiculously, it was spoken out by Narona who became a mad woman eventually.

Rivar lost his money in gamble. He asked his lover Naroana to earn money for him,and thought out this terrible idea. In order to get the money, they murdered Baron Montabry. To attracted the suspectors’ attention, they made Ferrari’s body placed Baron’s body. That is, Ferrari caught bronchitis and died from it. Either the doctors or the inspectors looked into the attendant’s body. The true Baron’s body was hidden by the two villains.

In all ,at the end ,every people had the life that they wanted. The murderers deserved the ending they had.

My comments

This book uses the third person to narrator the story. it is convenient for readers to understand it. And the story involves the characteristics of the time and the customs. When I read the novel, I have an idea of the England culture. As for the plot, it is very interesting that the author set suspense in the beginning, which

attracts readers feel like to knowing the ending. About the story itself, it tells that however a person is bad, he must be responsible to his own conscience, and get the ending he deserves.