Pre-orders are now open for this title!
Advance orders of this book will be posted as soon as stock arrives in our office - we estimate Autumn 2026.
Please note! If you are buying other titles at the same time and would like these straight away, it’s best to order those separately, otherwise they will all be processed together in Autumn 2026 to save on postage costs for you and for us.
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Manderley Press is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of The Haunting of Lamb House - the second of our titles by Joan Aiken; this one is a ghostly story for adult readers, set in Lamb House, Rye in Sussex.
"Joan Aiken's invention seemed inexhaustible ... her sheer storytelling zest a phenomenon. She was a literary treasure."
- Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials
The Haunting of Lamb House is an eerie and psychologically astute ghost story, weaving literary history with lingering characters from the past. Set within the walls of the real Lamb House in Rye - once home to both Henry James and E.F. Benson - the novel explores the uneasy boundary between imagination and haunting, posturing what might happen when writers become consumed by the stories, and spirits, that came before them.
But despite its gothic atmosphere and creeping sense of unease, the book is also a richly affectionate portrait of literary England, and of Rye in particular: its cobbled streets, shifting sea light and long-standing allure for writers and artists. Lamb House has occupied a unique place in literary imagination for more than a century, associated not only with Henry James and Benson, but also with writers including Rumer Godden, Radclyffe Hall and Joan Aiken herself (who grew up in Mermaid Street, just around the corner).
One of the most original and versatile British writers of the 20th century, Joan has been celebrated for her gothic imagination, razor-sharp wit and extraordinary storytelling range. Best known for classics such as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, her writing for adults reveals an equally brilliant talent for psychological suspense, literary pastiche and ghostly atmosphere. The daughter of the poet Conrad Aiken, she grew up surrounded by literature, yet her fiction remained wholly distinctive: mischievous, intelligent and deeply attuned to the uncanny possibilities hidden within ordinary English life.
Like much of Aiken’s work, The Haunting of Lamb House blurs the line between history and invention, drawing inspiration from real literary figures and documented ghost stories from Lamb House itself. Henry James famously described seeing the ghost of an old man leaning over a garden wall while living there, and E.F. Benson later transformed the house into the setting for several of his most chilling supernatural tales. Aiken takes this rich literary inheritance and turns it into something entirely her own: a playful, unsettling meditation on creativity and possession - and the power of place.
"It is safe to say that no one but Joan Aiken could have written this book, not only because she was born in Rye and has the town in her bones as it were, but also because she has the power - shown in her other books - of evoking strange, often eerie events of the past and making other times, places and people vividly alive. This book goes further: she has taken the real history of Lamb House and interwoven happenings that are purely imaginary, working so skilfully that even those who have lived there can hardly tell which is which!"
So thought novelist Rumer Godden, who also lived in Lamb House (and who wrote China Court - Manderley Press publication number 6). She went on:
"For those who do not sense such things, The Haunting of Lamb House is a most skillful and intriguing interweaving of fact and fiction; to those who do, it is a memorable evocation. In either case it is a little masterpiece."
Each book ordered through the website will be wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a matching silk ribbon, free of charge - and will also include an exclusive bookmark designed to complement the cover design.
Pre-orders are now open for this title!
Advance orders of this book will be posted as soon as stock arrives in our office - we estimate Autumn 2026.
Please note! If you are buying other titles at the same time and would like these straight away, it’s best to order those separately, otherwise they will all be processed together in Autumn 2026 to save on postage costs for you and for us.
*
Manderley Press is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of The Haunting of Lamb House - the second of our titles by Joan Aiken; this one is a ghostly story for adult readers, set in Lamb House, Rye in Sussex.
"Joan Aiken's invention seemed inexhaustible ... her sheer storytelling zest a phenomenon. She was a literary treasure."
- Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials
The Haunting of Lamb House is an eerie and psychologically astute ghost story, weaving literary history with lingering characters from the past. Set within the walls of the real Lamb House in Rye - once home to both Henry James and E.F. Benson - the novel explores the uneasy boundary between imagination and haunting, posturing what might happen when writers become consumed by the stories, and spirits, that came before them.
But despite its gothic atmosphere and creeping sense of unease, the book is also a richly affectionate portrait of literary England, and of Rye in particular: its cobbled streets, shifting sea light and long-standing allure for writers and artists. Lamb House has occupied a unique place in literary imagination for more than a century, associated not only with Henry James and Benson, but also with writers including Rumer Godden, Radclyffe Hall and Joan Aiken herself (who grew up in Mermaid Street, just around the corner).
One of the most original and versatile British writers of the 20th century, Joan has been celebrated for her gothic imagination, razor-sharp wit and extraordinary storytelling range. Best known for classics such as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, her writing for adults reveals an equally brilliant talent for psychological suspense, literary pastiche and ghostly atmosphere. The daughter of the poet Conrad Aiken, she grew up surrounded by literature, yet her fiction remained wholly distinctive: mischievous, intelligent and deeply attuned to the uncanny possibilities hidden within ordinary English life.
Like much of Aiken’s work, The Haunting of Lamb House blurs the line between history and invention, drawing inspiration from real literary figures and documented ghost stories from Lamb House itself. Henry James famously described seeing the ghost of an old man leaning over a garden wall while living there, and E.F. Benson later transformed the house into the setting for several of his most chilling supernatural tales. Aiken takes this rich literary inheritance and turns it into something entirely her own: a playful, unsettling meditation on creativity and possession - and the power of place.
"It is safe to say that no one but Joan Aiken could have written this book, not only because she was born in Rye and has the town in her bones as it were, but also because she has the power - shown in her other books - of evoking strange, often eerie events of the past and making other times, places and people vividly alive. This book goes further: she has taken the real history of Lamb House and interwoven happenings that are purely imaginary, working so skilfully that even those who have lived there can hardly tell which is which!"
So thought novelist Rumer Godden, who also lived in Lamb House (and who wrote China Court - Manderley Press publication number 6). She went on:
"For those who do not sense such things, The Haunting of Lamb House is a most skillful and intriguing interweaving of fact and fiction; to those who do, it is a memorable evocation. In either case it is a little masterpiece."
Each book ordered through the website will be wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a matching silk ribbon, free of charge - and will also include an exclusive bookmark designed to complement the cover design.
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