The Thing in the Woods
One country doctor. A hill full of secrets. Something moving in the woods.
Dr. Haverill takes over a small country practice in the Pennsylvania hills expecting an easy summer – light rounds, good fishing, and three months of country air before the hard work of building a city practice begins. The doctor he is replacing cannot get to the railway station fast enough.
What Haverill finds around Dutchman's Hill is a neighbourhood running on rumour. A hired man who will not pass a hare on the road. A household the whole district has quietly stopped speaking to. A cyclist dead on a quiet stretch of road, a story about the Jersey Devil told half in earnest, and a shape at the edge of the trees that nobody will describe twice. Haverill is a rational man in a place that has stopped being rational, and the further he pushes, the harder it gets to say whether the danger lies in the woods or in the people living beside them.
First published in 1924 under the name Harper Williams, The Thing in the Woods is the work of Margery Williams Bianco – remembered now for The Velveteen Rabbit, and writing here with a hard, unsentimental edge. It is an early and unusually effective piece of American folk horror, built out of local gossip, old grievances, and the fear of the dark.
A carefully restored text. This Squire Press edition is set from the 1924 Robert M. McBride & Company first American edition – not a facsimile dump or an anonymous public-domain reprint, but a clean text reset and proofed for modern readers.
- A new introduction on Margery Williams Bianco, the Pennsylvania Dutch country, and the novel's place in early American horror
- Forty-five original endnotes on local geography, folklore, period medicine, and historical references – gathered at the back, out of the story's way
- A Note on This Edition setting out the source text and the editorial approach
- Further Reading and By the Same Author sections for readers who want to go on
Look Inside
The village was not large. It seemed that Lennox's place was some mile and a half out, and our road led for the most part through woods. It was pretty country. The trees were tall and close-growing, hickory and oak, with young saplings pushing a sturdy growth between. There were boulders everywhere, the sullen granite that in this district crops out through the earth's scant surface, making the small farmer's life a perpetual harvest of stone picking.
It struck me instantly, as I looked at him, that he had been through some recent stress of worry, if not ill-health. He had aged considerably. His face was lined and troubled, and he had an uneasy way with his hands I did not like.
At twelve the mare was hitched and waiting, and Lennox came to bid me good-bye, after a few final instructions. We shook hands, and as he climbed into the buggy and took up the reins I don't think I ever saw a man's face express more utter and absolute relief.
