Harriet Prescott Spofford

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

The Thief in the Night

A classic romance from one of the great forgotten authors of American literature, Harriet Prescott Spofford.

The Making of a Fortune - A Romance

Excerpt from The Making of a Fortune: A Romance Needed his grasp, his combination, his ideas. I don't think we can afford to be left out of it, John, said Mr. Mount castle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A Romance (Classic Reprint)

The Making of a Fortune

Originally published in 1860, the formative Gothic novel ‘Sir Rohan’s Ghost’ by Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835–1921), one of nineteenth-century America’s most significant woman writers, relates the tale of a tormented British aristocrat who struggles to retain his sanity while suffering horrifying visitations from the spectre of his dead lover amid the agonies of an already fragile mind. Setting her tale in the enigmatic Sir Rohan’s beautiful-yet-decaying estate, Spofford immerses readers in a ghost story that marries lush imagery with an atmosphere of impending, mysterious doom. Upon its initial publication, a reviewer writing for ‘The Baltimore Sun’ deemed ‘Sir Rohan’s Ghost’ as ‘a strange, weird production, fascinating and exciting [...] A work of genius and not without moral significance’. Dating from a time when women writers like Spofford were increasingly making their voices heard by reshaping the character of popular American literature, ‘Sir Rohan’s Ghost’ remains to this day an engaging and important work of Gothic fiction.

Sir Rohans Ghost. A Romance

Example in this ebook I. ALLY AND THE CHILDREN OF THE HILL. Ally was lost—the little blue-eyed dear! That is to say, she was nowhere to be found. And of course there was commotion in the Valley. Michael, the gardener, was going one way; and John, the house-man, another; and Pincher, one of the loggers, was making for the hills with Uncle Billy in one direction, and Old Uncle and Will and Charlie had gone up in another; and Aunt Rose and Aunt Susan were hunting through the house; and Janet and Essie were running this way and that—and it was noon, and still they hadn’t found her. Will was sure Ally would be found in the strawberry-patch on the farther edge of the intervale across the river, and as the boat was on the other side he had offered to swim over and fetch it. Charlie had been equally sure that she was looking for bear-cubs again in the hollow half-way up Blue Top. Aunt Susan was convinced that she had fallen asleep somewhere under a bush, when she could not be found in the house. Aunt Rose thought she might have been taken to drive by people passing through the Valley—sometimes some of them were—and they would bring her back. “Of course,” said Old Uncle, “they’ll bring her back! Ally’ll turn up all right—she makes more noise, when she sets about it, than all the rest of you put together!” Nevertheless, Old Uncle—who believed in whipping, at least he said he did—was making for the hollows of Blue Top as he said it. For Ally was really the darling of the household, always bright and sweet-tempered, and daring and ready for anything. Essie, who was Ally’s twin, felt indignant with Old Uncle for talking so when no one knew what had become of Ally; she gave it as her opinion that the fairies had taken her into their own invisible country—the fairies who haunted the Valley, as every one knew, or else why should they be seen sailing away on the early breeze in chariots like cobwebs, leaving their coverlets, long spreads of jewels, shining on the sides of all the slopes of Blue Top and Green Ridge. But Essie was always imagining something that wasn’t so, Will said. Janet said nothing. In her own mind, although she didn’t like to speak of it, she believed Ally had gone up into the clouds round Blue Top to find Aunt Susan’s baby who, they understood, had been taken away by the Children of the Hill. Janet knew that Ally had carried a sore spot in her tender heart ever since that day last fall when Aunt Susan was up in the garret, and not knowing that the twins were there, had kissed the tiny shirt. Janet was a little older than the twins, and she was not quite sure that they had understood correctly what Aunt Rose had said one day after Aunt Susan had come home from a long walk, trying to hide that she had been crying—Aunt Rose had whispered that Aunt Susan had been up to the Children of the Hill. Yes, plainly, to Janet’s mind, Ally had taken it into her own hands to discover if they were right or wrong. For it was brave little Ally who, if there was anything to adventure about, always adventured. It was Ally to whom things were always happening. If there was a scrape round, Ally was always the one sure to get into it, although she usually contrived to come out on top—except on those two dreadful times of which you shall hear—for she had a courageous little spirit and a loving little heart. And it was this courageous spirit, and this loving heart full of childish sympathy for Aunt Susan, that had taken Ally away now all by herself. She loved everything so much that she had no thought of being harmed by anything. So Janet reasoned. And when, by and by, you learn where she had really gone, and what it was she brought home, perhaps you will think that the result of this particular adventure of Ally’s was one of the pleasantest things that ever befell the Children of the Valley. To be continue in this ebook

The Children of the Valley

Harriet Prescott Spofford was a regular contributor of short stories to the well known journal, The Atlantic Monthly. Spofford was well known and well liked at the end of the 19th century for her vivid gothic and fantastic tales. 'Circumstance' is the finest example of her work, dealing with themes of reality, religion, sex and fear. This short story was originally published in 1860 and we are here republishing it with a introductory biography of the author.

Harriet Prescott Spofford

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