MRS GOD CL

Esswood House. Home and estate of the Seneschal family, aristocratic patrons of the literary arts for well over a hundred years. D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, and Henry James were privileged to call themselves guests and Esswood Fellows. Even minor poets such as Isobel Standish found in Esswood a respite from the outer world and its refined atmosphere an inspiration for her work. There was always talk of a hidden secret in Esswood'¬"s past, and the Seneschal children were often so pale and sickly, but don'¬"t all English manor houses have a few ghost stories to call their own? When Professor William Standish receives the rare honor of an Esswood Fellowship, and the chance to study Isobel'¬"s private manuscripts at close hand, he is thrilled beyond his wildest ambitions. But something seems slightly off at Esswood House. He hears faint laughter in the halls, the pitter-pattering of small feet in the night; strange faces appear in the windows of the library, and there are those giant dollhouses in the basement . . . Never before published as a separate volume, Mrs. God is a very different kind of ghost story from one of America'¬"s most celebrated authors.

Peter Straub is the New York Times bestselling author of seventeen novels. His two collaborations with Stephen King, The Talisman and Black House, were international bestsellers. In 2006, he was given the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award. Peter and his wife live in New York City.