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Top 10 houseguests in fiction | Jessica Francis Kane

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Visits are great engines for storytelling – and from Jane Austen to Ali Smith, here are some of the best

Two of the most vivid images I carry with me from my childhood reading concern the arrival of a guest. The first is from Carmilla, the early vampire novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. I found the story in my parents’ library, in an anthology of gothic horror, and scared myself half to death reading it. I still don’t like vampire stories. The second is more benign: the children’s classic The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. Both involve carriages rushing through the dark and the anticipation of change that a guest brings.

Allegedly there are only two kinds of story: someone goes on a journey, or someone comes to town. Either way the person has to stay somewhere, so the houseguest story is everywhere once you start looking for it. When I asked on Facebook for favourite examples, I received a flood of suggestions, many more than I would have guessed and ranging across all forms, from plays (Albee’s A Delicate Balance) to short stories (Gorey’s The Doubtful Guest) to novels (Hartley’s The Go-Between).

Related: The top 10 hotel novels

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