The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs

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About this book

At Mrs. Battleby's lodging house in Soho, a dependable Italian teacher has become a source of gossip. Signor Ricardo pays his bills regularly, but keeps one attic room locked and pursues studies that worry his friend Doctor Steinberg. Hannah Stubbs, a country girl newly taken into service, adds to the household's puzzles when crockery rattles around her and a kitchen table appears to move by itself. Florence Marryat places these incidents within a novel about spiritualism.

Domestic conversation gives the strange events an everyday setting, with rent, meals and household duties sharing space with unexplained powers. Later, an inheritance takes Steinberg to Berlin, while Ricardo waits for his letters and feels the loss of his companionship. The contrast between ordinary needs and supernatural possibilities gives readers a way into a story concerned with money, friendship, loneliness and the search for hidden knowledge.

About the author

Florence Marryat

Florence Marryat (1833-1899) was an English novelist, actress, and spiritualist, a prolific and popular Victorian author whose interest in séances and the supernatural infused much of her fiction.