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Susan Hill (born February 5, 1942) is a British popular writer of fiction and non fiction. Her novels have been best sellers, and she remains best known for her ghost story The Woman in Black. more...

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Other notable novels have been I'm the King of the Castle and The Mist in the Mirror.

Biography

Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, a seaside resort on the North East coast of Yorkshire. Her hometown was later referred to in her novel A Change for the Better (1969) and some short stories especially "Cockles and Mussels". She attended Scarborough Convent School, where she became very interested in the theatre and literature. Her family left Scarborough in 1958 and moved to the city of Coventry where her father worked in car and aircraft factories. She took A levels in English, French, History and Latin, proceeding to an English degree at King's College London. By this time she had already written her first novel which was published by Hutchinson in her first year at university. She received some unwelcome publicity related to the sexual content of her novel and how some of the media thought it unfitting of a "schoolgirl" of her age, which embarrassed her and her family for several years afterward.

Her first serious novel Gentlemen and Ladies was published in 1968. This was followed in quick succession by A Change for the Better, I'm the King of the Castle, The Albatross, Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, A Bit of Singing and Dancing and In the Springtime of Year, all written and published between 1968 and 1974. In 1975 she married Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells and they moved to Stratford upon Avon. Their first daughter, Jessica, was born in 1977 and their second daughter, Clemency, was born in 1985. Hill has recently founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, which has published one work of fiction per year.

Writing

Susan Elizabeth Hill has remained a popular and consistent writer throughout her career. Her novels are usually written in a descriptive and emotive gothic style which her fans sometimes refer to as hypnotic. She has been especially noted for her ghost story The Woman in Black which she wrote in 1982. She expressed an interest in the traditional English ghost story which relies on suspence and atmosphere to create its impact, similar to the classic ghost stories by Montague Rhodes James and Daphne du Maurier. The novel was turned into a play in 1987 and it quickly became a sensation. The play is still running in the West End of London to this day. It was also filmed for a TV movie in 1989. She wrote another ghost story with similar ingredients, The Mist in the Mirror, to follow up in 1992. She also wrote a sequel to du Maurier's Rebecca entitled Mrs De Winter in 1993.

Read more at Wikipedia.org