An Inspector Calls

PENGUIN HORROR: A celebration of the very best literary horror, a series of terrifying novels and tales that for generations have thrilled, captivated and kept readers wide awake at night.A group of travellers find themselves marooned in the Welsh countryside by torrential rains and buffeting winds. Desperate to find shelter from the storm, they flee to a crumbling mansion, where they are reluctantly taken in by the cloistered, erratic Femm family. Strange on first meeting, the secretive family's true peculiarities only become clear as the night unfolds...A gothic treat shot through with the dejection and anxiety of a world recovering from the horrors of the First World War, J. B. Priestley's Benighted is a razor-sharp blend of dark social satire and even darker dread.'There are none too many stories comparable with this one' The New York Times (lib)

J.B. Priestley, the son of a schoolmaster, was born in Bradford in 1894. After leaving Belle Vue High School, he spent some time as a junior clerk in a wool office. (A lively account of his life at this period may be found in his volume of reminiscences, Margin Released.) He joined the army in 1914, and in 1919, on receiving an ox-officers¿ grant, went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. In 1922, after refusing several academic posts, and having already published one book and contributed critical articles and essays to various reviews, he went to London. There he soon made a reputation as an essayist and critic. he began writing novels, and with his third and fourth novels, The Good Companions and Angel Pavement, he scored a great success and established an international reputation. This was enlarged by the plays he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s, some of these, notably Dangerous Corner, Time and the Conways and An Inspector Calls, having been translated and produced all over the world. During the Second World War he was exceedingly popular as a broadcaster. Since the war his most important novels have been Bright Day, Festival at Farbridge, Lost Empires and The Image Men, and his more ambitious literary and social criticism can be found in Literature and Western Man, Man and Time and Journey Down a Rainbow, which he wrote with his wife, Jacquetta Hawkes, a distinguished archaeologist and a well-established writer herself. It was in this last book that Priestley coined the term ¿Admass¿, now in common use. Among his latest books are Victoria¿s Heydey (1972), Over the Long High Wall (1972), The English (1973), Outcries and Asides, a collection of essays (1974), A Visit to New Zealand (1974), The Carfitt Crisis (1975), Particular Pleasures (1975), Found, Lost, Found, or the English Way of Life (1976), The Happy Dream (1976), English Humour (1976) and an autobiography, Instead of the Trees (1977). In 1977 J. B. Priestley received the Order of merit. He died in 1984.

An immersive novel, Benighted easily captures the reader's attention with both psychological insight and dark humor. Forces of nature drive five travelers to a crumbling mansion to wait out a storm. The residents of the mansion are far from welcoming, and their manners are ominous. The stranded "guests" begin the long evening getting familiar with each other through conversational games, providing the reader with acute psychological perception. Discovering the thoughts running through each person's mind during the course of the evening adds empathy to a story that is leading into the shadows. This is a menacing dark house story rife with both fear and heart. ... (Janie C.) (lib)

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An immersive novel, Benighted easily captures the reader's attention with both psychological insight and dark humor. Forces of nature drive five travelers to a crumbling mansion to wait out a storm. The residents of the mansion are far from welcoming, and their manners are ominous. The stranded "guests" begin the long evening getting familiar with each other through conversational games, providing the reader with acute psychological perception. Discovering the thoughts running through each person's mind during the course of the evening adds empathy to a story that is leading into the shadows. This is a menacing dark house story rife with both fear and heart. ... (Janie C.)About the author: John Boynton Priestley OM (13 September 1894 - 14 August 1984) was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator.His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in The Good Companions (1929), which first brought him to wide public notice. Many of his plays are structured around a time slip, and he went on to develop a new theory of time, with different dimensions that link past, present and future.In 1940 he broadcast a series of short propaganda radio talks, which were credited with strengthening civilian morale during the Battle of Britain. In the following years his left-wing beliefs brought him into conflict with the government and influenced the development of the welfare state. (wikipedia.org) (lib)