Susan Hill’s ghost stories are traditional fare. I made the mistake of watching the dramatisation first. The Small Hand novella dates from 2004, but only this year has it been dramatised for television by the the BBC. You may know her first one, which has had hugely successful adaptations round the world. In recent years she has written a ghost story to be published around Christmas, or at the end of the year. Susan Hill is a talented author, who seems equally at home writing literary fiction, or a series of crime novels. Librarian's Note: There is more than one author by this name. Hill has recently founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, which has published one work of fiction per year. Their first daughter, Jessica, was born in 1977 and their second daughter, Clemency, was born in 1985. In 1975 she married Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells and they moved to Stratford upon Avon. This was followed in quick succession by A Change for the Better, I'm the King of the Castle, The Albatross and other stories, Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, A Bit of Singing and Dancing and In the Springtime of Year, all written and published between 19. Her next novel Gentleman and Ladies was published in 1968. The novel was criticised by The Daily Mail for its sexual content, with the suggestion that writing in this style was unsuitable for a 'schoolgirl'.

By this time she had already written her first novel, The Enclosure which was published by Hutchinson in her first year at university. At Barrs Hill she took A levels in English, French, History and Latin, proceeding to an English degree at King's College London. Her fellow pupils included Jennifer Page, the first Chief Executive of the Millennium Dome. Hill states that she attended a girls’ grammar school, Barr's Hill. Her family left Scarborough in 1958 and moved to Coventry where her father worked in car and aircraft factories. She attended Scarborough Convent School, where she became interested in theatre and literature. Her hometown was later referred to in her novel A Change for the Better (1969) and some short stories especially 'Cockles and Mussels'. Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1942.

A ghost story the small hand