The Haunting of Alma Fielding

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2020

By: Kate Summerscale

Write A Review

Hardcover | 1 December 2020

At a Glance

Hardcover
352 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
3.6 x 14.4 x 22.2

Hardcover

RRP $39.99

$35.40

11%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $8.85 with

or

Aims to ship in 5 to 10 business days

Longlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize
A Pick of the Autumn in The Times, Sunday Times, Observer and The Guardian

London, 1938. Nandor Fodor - a Jewish Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the Institute of Psychical Research - reads of the case of thirty-four-year-old Alma Fielding, a housewife in South London plagued by a poltergeist, and hastens to the scene of the haunting.

This unassuming suburban woman has become the eye of a storm of chaos; in her modest home, china flies off the shelves, eggs fly through the air; stolen jewellery appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, and beetles appear from under her gloves; a terrapin materialises on her lap in the middle of a car journey.

But, as Fodor discovers when he assumes his scrupulous investigation, the case is even stranger than the sum of its parts. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens and darkens over Europe, Fodor unravels the peculiar case of Alma Fielding, and finds a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, difference, loss.

With rigour, profundity and insight, the award-winning Kate Summerscale delves into the notorious and extraordinary and unearths the vivid and the human.

About the Author

Kate Summerscale is the author of the number one bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the Galaxy British Book of the Year Award, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and adapted into a major ITV drama. Her first book, the bestselling The Queen of Whale Cay, won a Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award. Her third book, Mrs Robinson's Disgrace, was a Sunday Times bestseller; while her fourth, The Wicked Boy, was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010, she lives in London.

Industry Reviews

'A page-turner with the authority of history'
Philippa Gregory

'As gripping as a novel. An engaging, unsettling, deeply satisfying read'
Sarah Waters

'An empathetic, meticulous account of a spiritual unravelling; a tribute to the astonishing power of the human mind - but also a properly absorbing, baffling, satisfying detective story'
Aida Edemariam

“Hidden realities of a different kind lie beneath the story of Kate Summerscale's The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story, which delves into the 1930s case of the “Croydon Poltergeist”, investigated by Nandor Fodor, chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research”
Guardian, Autumn highlights

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.