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The Shadow in the Corner
M.E. Braddon was a popular British writer during the Victorian Era. Among Braddon’s best known novels are Lady Audley’s Secret and Aurora Floyd. This edition of The Shadow in the Corner includes a table of contents.
Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 1879
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About the author
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
1,015 books378 followersMary Elizabeth Braddon was a British Victorian era popular novelist. She was an extremely prolific writer, producing some 75 novels with very inventive plots. The most famous one is her first novel, Lady Audley's Secret (1862), which won her recognition and fortune as well. The novel has been in print ever since, and has been dramatised and filmed several times.
Braddon also founded Belgravia Magazine (1866), which presented readers with serialized sensation novels, poems, travel narratives, and biographies, as well as essays on fashion, history, science. She also edited Temple Bar Magazine. Braddon's legacy is tied to the Sensation Fiction of the 1860s.
She is also the mother of novelist W.B. Maxwell.
Braddon also founded Belgravia Magazine (1866), which presented readers with serialized sensation novels, poems, travel narratives, and biographies, as well as essays on fashion, history, science. She also edited Temple Bar Magazine. Braddon's legacy is tied to the Sensation Fiction of the 1860s.
She is also the mother of novelist W.B. Maxwell.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 2, 2022
3.5 stars. I loved the writing but the end is predictable and formulaic. Well, maybe not in 1879 when this short story was first published. The good thing about it is that are a lot of gloomy moments in this story which make worthy read this text.
September 27, 2022
For some reason, we seem to like being scared. If in a film, someone is warned never to go into a certain room in an old house, we know that they will. Or if a room has been walled up, never to be disturbed, someone will break it open. Or if someone sleeps in a haunted room, they are bound to regret it. Or an old ruin is said to be cursed, and has been left for centuries without anyone going there … you get the idea. We know for sure what is going to happen in such a story, and nowadays we even have a name for it, calling it “the idiot in the attic” syndrome. Yet we lap it up.
The Shadow in the Corner is such a story. There are no real surprises, but we carry on reading all the same. It was written by Mary Braddon, a famous Victorian author of sensational fiction, whose most famous novel is “Lady Audley’s Secret”, from 1862. She was very popular and prolific, yet she is less well known nowadays than some classic authors. As well as over 80 novels, Mary Braddon also wrote quite a lot of short fiction; some historical and some supernatural, such as the superb and terrifying short story, “The Cold Embrace”. The Shadow in the Corner from 1879 is also a ghost story, but not as inventive as some. It takes place in an old house with a gruesome past.
But of course, the characters in the story dismiss the idea of ghosts.
The story begins:
“Wildheath Grange stood a little way back from the road, with a barren stretch of heath behind it, and a few tall fir-trees, with straggling wind-tossed heads, for its only shelter.”
This is a lonely place, and a “house that bore a bad name among the natives of the village of Holcroft ... was the nearest place where humanity might be found”.
Just three people live in this grim mansion: a wealthy professor, Michael Bascom, and his two servants, Daniel Skegg and his wife. Professor Michael Bascom is fifty-six, but he seems much older, and it is said thereabouts that it is living in such a house which has caused it: a huge house given over to rats and mice, loneliness, and echoes.
Our scene is set.
We are told that Michael Bascom does not miss College life, as he continues with his scientific research, and has made such brilliant discoveries that he might have become famous through the world, if it were not for a catastrophe which befell him. It began thus …
Michael Bascom was deep in thought about atomic theory, when he was interrupted with an outburst from his servant, Daniel Skegg:
“his sudden breaking out into speech was almost as startling as if the bust of Socrates above the bookcase had burst into human language”.
Professor Bascom did not want to be drawn away from his ponderings, nevertheless, Daniel Skegg was adamant. They were all getting on in years, and his wife needed a girl to help her with the work. There was a lot of banter between the two, despite them being master and servant, for they had known each other for a good long time. Daniel Skegg said that it would be difficult to persuade anyone to work there, because of the house’s reputation:
“There’s not a mortal among ’em that will venture across our threshold after nightfall.”
The reason for this was that an ancestor of Michael Bascom had led a wild life in London, and lost all his money and land, ending up by killing himself in the attic. But Daniel Skegg insisted that his wife could no longer manage the work on her own. Michael Bascom was not overly concerned with Daniel Skegg’s wife:
“she ruled over the solitude of a kitchen, that looked like a cathedral, and numerous offices of the sculler, larder, and pantry class, where she carried on a perpetual warfare with spiders and beetles, and wore her old life out in the labour of sweeping and scrubbing. She was a woman of severe aspect, dogmatic piety, and a bitter tongue.”
However, she was a good plain cook, and ministered diligently to her master’s wants - plus he liked a quiet, undisturbed life. So when Daniel Skegg said after a while that he had found someone, his master’s only condition was that she must be respectable. Maria, the girl taken on, was certainly that. She was an orphan from Yarmouth, innocent, hardworking, and keen to do her duty, even though Daniel Skegg rather grumpily said that she had been educated above her station. Michael Bascom had replied:
“You don’t want a young lady to clean kettles and pans”, but found to his pleasant surprise that she worked extremely hard, and was trained most strictly to know her place by Mrs. Skegg.
At first all was well. Michael Bascom was a light sleeper, and did not want anyone sleeping on the same floor as he did, so it was decided that Maria was to sleep in the attic. This was perfectly alright as she did not know the history of the attic. But sure enough, after a week Maria began to lose her fresh bloom and to look very pale and ill. She could not sleep, but was frightened to tell the Skeggs, who were so very strict with her. Eventually she broke down and told the story to her master.
So what will happen next? Can you write this yourself? You bet you can!
The Professor felt sorry for her, and said that Maria could sleep elsewhere.
“He sat for a long time, till the grey of evening outside his study windows changed to the black of night, and the war-whoop of the wind died away to a low complaining murmur. He sat looking into the fire, and letting his thoughts wander back to the past and the traditions he had heard in his boyhood.”
The girl was told to:
“Read your Bible, Maria, and don’t talk no more about ghosts.”
Maria sat down quietly in her corner by the kitchen fire, and turned over the leaves of her dead father’s Bible till she came to the chapters they two had loved best and oftenest read together.
Meanwhile Michael Bascom, the stern materialist, sat in his own room, pondering over what had happened to his great-uncle, Anthony Bascom. It was a pitiful story of a wasted fortune and a wasted life:
“A riotous collegiate career at Cambridge, a racing-stable at Newmarket, an imprudent marriage, a dissipated life in London, a runaway wife; an estate forfeited to … money-lenders, and then the fatal end.”
It was all perfectly explicable, and the idea of any supernatural element was clearly absurd. Nevertheless he was intrigued to learn about a mind which could believe in ghosts:
“The subject offered an amusing psychological study. This poor little pale girl, now, had evidently got some supernatural terror into her head, which could only be conquered by rational treatment.”
Of course we expected this ending: the idiot in the attic. However educated, well-bred or wealthy, someone will fall victim to the trope.
What is interesting about this story is who believed in the ghost, and who did not. Also, we can see that the resentment and envy between the servants is important. Mr. Skegg is the one who tells Maria , because it is more fitting for a servant to have charge of other servants, than for the master of the house to have to be bothered to do it. This allows Daniel Skegg him to suppress what Professor Bascom had actually said: . Daniel Skegg and his wife had not wanted her to do this because Daniel Skegg is jealous of Maria, who has had a higher education than him or his wife, and became a servant only after her father’s untimely death. They are keen that she should learn her “proper place” in the household. Their master going out of his way to make sure that Maria is happy must have rankled, and also made the Skeggs feel threatened in their positions.
The idea that a young female servant could usurp the more senior servants Daniel Skegg and his wife, and become close enough to the Master of Wildheath Grange, to gain this special distinction, means that Daniel Skegg will do everything he can to manipulate what Maria believes about herself, and what really happened. Daniel Skegg is desperate to maintain the correct boundaries between master and servant, or else the whole system will break down. The old servants would fear any threat which might result in the destruction of the class system and the old ways.
In The Shadow in the Corner Mary Braddon is using a traditional ghost story to scare her readers. But the subtext addresses a deeper fear: the breaking down of traditional values, and the class system. By the end of the story the status quo has been maintained, and the threat removed. Perhaps the real chilling fear in this story is not any supernatural haunting, but the suggestion that the servants might start controlling the Estate, or aspire to marry out of their class. If that were to happen, then the Skeggs, and the readers, believe that the whole order of society might break down, and chaos would ensue.
Is the “shadow in the corner” then, a metaphor for the threat of class conflict? Is that what this story is apparently so conventional? Is the subtext really at the back of what disturbed Mary Braddon’s readers? We are left to ponder.
The Shadow in the Corner is such a story. There are no real surprises, but we carry on reading all the same. It was written by Mary Braddon, a famous Victorian author of sensational fiction, whose most famous novel is “Lady Audley’s Secret”, from 1862. She was very popular and prolific, yet she is less well known nowadays than some classic authors. As well as over 80 novels, Mary Braddon also wrote quite a lot of short fiction; some historical and some supernatural, such as the superb and terrifying short story, “The Cold Embrace”. The Shadow in the Corner from 1879 is also a ghost story, but not as inventive as some. It takes place in an old house with a gruesome past.
But of course, the characters in the story dismiss the idea of ghosts.
The story begins:
“Wildheath Grange stood a little way back from the road, with a barren stretch of heath behind it, and a few tall fir-trees, with straggling wind-tossed heads, for its only shelter.”
This is a lonely place, and a “house that bore a bad name among the natives of the village of Holcroft ... was the nearest place where humanity might be found”.
Just three people live in this grim mansion: a wealthy professor, Michael Bascom, and his two servants, Daniel Skegg and his wife. Professor Michael Bascom is fifty-six, but he seems much older, and it is said thereabouts that it is living in such a house which has caused it: a huge house given over to rats and mice, loneliness, and echoes.
Our scene is set.
We are told that Michael Bascom does not miss College life, as he continues with his scientific research, and has made such brilliant discoveries that he might have become famous through the world, if it were not for a catastrophe which befell him. It began thus …
Michael Bascom was deep in thought about atomic theory, when he was interrupted with an outburst from his servant, Daniel Skegg:
“his sudden breaking out into speech was almost as startling as if the bust of Socrates above the bookcase had burst into human language”.
Professor Bascom did not want to be drawn away from his ponderings, nevertheless, Daniel Skegg was adamant. They were all getting on in years, and his wife needed a girl to help her with the work. There was a lot of banter between the two, despite them being master and servant, for they had known each other for a good long time. Daniel Skegg said that it would be difficult to persuade anyone to work there, because of the house’s reputation:
“There’s not a mortal among ’em that will venture across our threshold after nightfall.”
The reason for this was that an ancestor of Michael Bascom had led a wild life in London, and lost all his money and land, ending up by killing himself in the attic. But Daniel Skegg insisted that his wife could no longer manage the work on her own. Michael Bascom was not overly concerned with Daniel Skegg’s wife:
“she ruled over the solitude of a kitchen, that looked like a cathedral, and numerous offices of the sculler, larder, and pantry class, where she carried on a perpetual warfare with spiders and beetles, and wore her old life out in the labour of sweeping and scrubbing. She was a woman of severe aspect, dogmatic piety, and a bitter tongue.”
However, she was a good plain cook, and ministered diligently to her master’s wants - plus he liked a quiet, undisturbed life. So when Daniel Skegg said after a while that he had found someone, his master’s only condition was that she must be respectable. Maria, the girl taken on, was certainly that. She was an orphan from Yarmouth, innocent, hardworking, and keen to do her duty, even though Daniel Skegg rather grumpily said that she had been educated above her station. Michael Bascom had replied:
“You don’t want a young lady to clean kettles and pans”, but found to his pleasant surprise that she worked extremely hard, and was trained most strictly to know her place by Mrs. Skegg.
At first all was well. Michael Bascom was a light sleeper, and did not want anyone sleeping on the same floor as he did, so it was decided that Maria was to sleep in the attic. This was perfectly alright as she did not know the history of the attic. But sure enough, after a week Maria began to lose her fresh bloom and to look very pale and ill. She could not sleep, but was frightened to tell the Skeggs, who were so very strict with her. Eventually she broke down and told the story to her master.
So what will happen next? Can you write this yourself? You bet you can!
The Professor felt sorry for her, and said that Maria could sleep elsewhere.
“He sat for a long time, till the grey of evening outside his study windows changed to the black of night, and the war-whoop of the wind died away to a low complaining murmur. He sat looking into the fire, and letting his thoughts wander back to the past and the traditions he had heard in his boyhood.”
The girl was told to:
“Read your Bible, Maria, and don’t talk no more about ghosts.”
Maria sat down quietly in her corner by the kitchen fire, and turned over the leaves of her dead father’s Bible till she came to the chapters they two had loved best and oftenest read together.
Meanwhile Michael Bascom, the stern materialist, sat in his own room, pondering over what had happened to his great-uncle, Anthony Bascom. It was a pitiful story of a wasted fortune and a wasted life:
“A riotous collegiate career at Cambridge, a racing-stable at Newmarket, an imprudent marriage, a dissipated life in London, a runaway wife; an estate forfeited to … money-lenders, and then the fatal end.”
It was all perfectly explicable, and the idea of any supernatural element was clearly absurd. Nevertheless he was intrigued to learn about a mind which could believe in ghosts:
“The subject offered an amusing psychological study. This poor little pale girl, now, had evidently got some supernatural terror into her head, which could only be conquered by rational treatment.”
Of course we expected this ending: the idiot in the attic. However educated, well-bred or wealthy, someone will fall victim to the trope.
What is interesting about this story is who believed in the ghost, and who did not. Also, we can see that the resentment and envy between the servants is important. Mr. Skegg is the one who tells Maria , because it is more fitting for a servant to have charge of other servants, than for the master of the house to have to be bothered to do it. This allows Daniel Skegg him to suppress what Professor Bascom had actually said: . Daniel Skegg and his wife had not wanted her to do this because Daniel Skegg is jealous of Maria, who has had a higher education than him or his wife, and became a servant only after her father’s untimely death. They are keen that she should learn her “proper place” in the household. Their master going out of his way to make sure that Maria is happy must have rankled, and also made the Skeggs feel threatened in their positions.
The idea that a young female servant could usurp the more senior servants Daniel Skegg and his wife, and become close enough to the Master of Wildheath Grange, to gain this special distinction, means that Daniel Skegg will do everything he can to manipulate what Maria believes about herself, and what really happened. Daniel Skegg is desperate to maintain the correct boundaries between master and servant, or else the whole system will break down. The old servants would fear any threat which might result in the destruction of the class system and the old ways.
In The Shadow in the Corner Mary Braddon is using a traditional ghost story to scare her readers. But the subtext addresses a deeper fear: the breaking down of traditional values, and the class system. By the end of the story the status quo has been maintained, and the threat removed. Perhaps the real chilling fear in this story is not any supernatural haunting, but the suggestion that the servants might start controlling the Estate, or aspire to marry out of their class. If that were to happen, then the Skeggs, and the readers, believe that the whole order of society might break down, and chaos would ensue.
Is the “shadow in the corner” then, a metaphor for the threat of class conflict? Is that what this story is apparently so conventional? Is the subtext really at the back of what disturbed Mary Braddon’s readers? We are left to ponder.
December 28, 2024
I enjoyed this old ghost story, I found it rather sad. I've been listening to quite a few of these old tales read by Tony Walker on The Classic Ghost Stories podcast, well worth a listen.
December 23, 2021
Absolutely terrifying short ghost story. The themes of suicide and a wasted life of regrets were placed center stage, becoming the true horror of this story. The descriptions of the shadow were incredibly eerie and became all the more so, once the MC finds the hook in the wall and realizes what that shadow actually is.
February 2, 2020
What a sad story. But those characters. The way Braddon depicts the older couple, for example. They are so real in their righteousness.
December 17, 2021
This story reminds me of a horror movie entitled "The Babadok". The latter recounts the emotional and psychological crisis of a young woman subsequent to the death of her husband. Belonging to the horror genre, the film obviously features a monster. The young widow and her son are tormented with fear, pain, and helplessness. But at the end, it is not very difficult to perceive that the monster itself was only symbolic of the woman's state of mind, of her psychoses, and of her suicidal tendencies following the tragedy that had ended her matrimonial life.
Similarly, Braddon's story is a fine tale of its genre. It features an old mansion, a suicide, a ghost; in short, all the hallmarks of horror fiction. But just like the Babdook, the shadow on the wall is only symbolic of the state of mind of those who take shelter in that gloomy room. This fact became quite obvious when Michael Bascom had decided to spend a night in the "haunted" chamber. The first thing that was brought to his notice was the desolate nature and gloominess of the upper floor. In such a dreary atmosphere, the human mind is bound to dwell on the most painful subjects that preoccupy its unconscious realm. Michael was no exception to the rule, but the explicit mention of the peacefulness of his mind and the stability of his affairs explains how such nightly disturbances were of a light nature, and did not cost him more than a little discomfiture.
His ancestor Anthony Bascom, whose ghost was believed to haunt the room, presents a completely different case. Having being deserted by his wife, ruined by his creditors, and reduced to want and disgrace, this man was not half as lucky as his descendent. Thus, having locked himself for the night in this fatal abode, he must have spent long hours dwelling upon painful remembrances and depressing thoughts. When he could take no more of this painful strain, he resorted to self-destruction. The same tragedy was enacted again when the young hired girl was lodged in the same quarters. The latter had lost her father a short time before joining Wildheath Grange. This deceased parent was her everything. His loss had, accordingly, tormented her greatly. In the desolate atmosphere of her room, the thought and the memories of the dear old man, and of the acute change in her prospects must have overwhelmed her at last, and induced her to hang herself as a means of instant relief.
Stories like The Shadow in the Corner are valuable in that they touch upon issues like depression; cases that go unnoticed or neglected by most people, but which end almost always in a tragedy. The tragedy could have been prevented, at least in the case of the second victim, but the narrow-mindedness of people when it comes to mental illness make them ignore any such ailment and behave as though it did not exist.
Similarly, Braddon's story is a fine tale of its genre. It features an old mansion, a suicide, a ghost; in short, all the hallmarks of horror fiction. But just like the Babdook, the shadow on the wall is only symbolic of the state of mind of those who take shelter in that gloomy room. This fact became quite obvious when Michael Bascom had decided to spend a night in the "haunted" chamber. The first thing that was brought to his notice was the desolate nature and gloominess of the upper floor. In such a dreary atmosphere, the human mind is bound to dwell on the most painful subjects that preoccupy its unconscious realm. Michael was no exception to the rule, but the explicit mention of the peacefulness of his mind and the stability of his affairs explains how such nightly disturbances were of a light nature, and did not cost him more than a little discomfiture.
His ancestor Anthony Bascom, whose ghost was believed to haunt the room, presents a completely different case. Having being deserted by his wife, ruined by his creditors, and reduced to want and disgrace, this man was not half as lucky as his descendent. Thus, having locked himself for the night in this fatal abode, he must have spent long hours dwelling upon painful remembrances and depressing thoughts. When he could take no more of this painful strain, he resorted to self-destruction. The same tragedy was enacted again when the young hired girl was lodged in the same quarters. The latter had lost her father a short time before joining Wildheath Grange. This deceased parent was her everything. His loss had, accordingly, tormented her greatly. In the desolate atmosphere of her room, the thought and the memories of the dear old man, and of the acute change in her prospects must have overwhelmed her at last, and induced her to hang herself as a means of instant relief.
Stories like The Shadow in the Corner are valuable in that they touch upon issues like depression; cases that go unnoticed or neglected by most people, but which end almost always in a tragedy. The tragedy could have been prevented, at least in the case of the second victim, but the narrow-mindedness of people when it comes to mental illness make them ignore any such ailment and behave as though it did not exist.
December 28, 2024
This short story was just ok. It was pretty boring to start with as the author spent time listing the chores the new maid would be doing, and for such a short story there seemed a lot of filler. In modern language, this story would probably have been a page long.
A wealthy man named Michael Bascom living in an apparently haunted old house hires a new maid called Maria, who is totally unaware of the house's dark past. Maria's bedroom is in one of the attic rooms, the only room up there that is suitable to live in. The first time Michael meets her, he's struck by her manners and her beauty.
The next time he sees her, she's pale and looks exhausted. After some coaxing she eventually tells him there's a strange shadow in the corner of the room.
The ending would've been pretty shocking back when this story was first written. I was surprised the author described it as she did. While it was somewhat expected, it was pulled off very well and made an otherwise pretty dull story much more interesting.
A wealthy man named Michael Bascom living in an apparently haunted old house hires a new maid called Maria, who is totally unaware of the house's dark past. Maria's bedroom is in one of the attic rooms, the only room up there that is suitable to live in. The first time Michael meets her, he's struck by her manners and her beauty.
The next time he sees her, she's pale and looks exhausted. After some coaxing she eventually tells him there's a strange shadow in the corner of the room.
The ending would've been pretty shocking back when this story was first written. I was surprised the author described it as she did. While it was somewhat expected, it was pulled off very well and made an otherwise pretty dull story much more interesting.
July 28, 2019
Historia de sabor amargo, oscura, muy oscura como pocas he leído. Ubicándonos en tiempo y espacio esta gran escritora incomprendida para la época debido al género y el tipo de historias, nos deja un fuerte mensaje para que prestemos atención a la temeridad ajena.
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October 10, 2025
It was fine, nothing special, and not really that deep. We were asked to read this for women’s writing and feminist theory but it’s mainly hysteria and not taking women seriously that is the feminist themes but there isn’t much time to go all that deep. It also ends quite abruptly and felt like there was something missing from it. Like is it the room that’s haunted or is it Anthony the haunter? What motive does Anthony have for haunting it? There could’ve been more.
February 5, 2020
A tragedy left an existential stain in an old room and a pitiful young maid is forced to lodge there. Her employer believed her fear to be unsustained so he decides to stay a night there on his own to prove her wrong.
February 22, 2021
(Read in a transcription from the internet that wasn't this edition.) Mary Braddon tries to make your flesh creep in a nice little horror story. Characters feel like unique people, which is what Braddon always seems to have done best.
April 27, 2021
A brilliant gothic ghost story with a great atmosphere. Beautifully written, intriguing, and sad, amazing how much was packed into such a short story. I will absolutely be looking to read further Mary Elizabeth Braddon stories.
April 22, 2023
When a young maid comes to work at an old mansion that has a history of being haunted, she soon starts to see mysterious shadows in her room. No Spoilers! Highly Recommend It!
June 5, 2024
Un cuento de terror victoriano que alguien me recomendó a raíz de hablar sobre Mariana Enríquez. Tenebroso para la época, pero muy predecible.
December 29, 2024
3.75 stars
October 2, 2025
not scary👎👎👎👎👎👎👎
sad👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
sad👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
November 3, 2024
Short ... and sweet? Okay, definitely not sweet, but it was a fun, unsettling, and jarring story perfect for October. Prior to reading it, you should know it deals with suicide in a pretty stark way.
November 10, 2022
I listened to the audiobook of this.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews