The Landlady (short story)

"The Landlady"
"The Landlady"
Short story by Roald Dahl
Genre(s)	Horror
Publication
Published in	The New Yorker
Publication date	28 November 1959

Last updated June 26, 2024

"The Landlady" is a short horror story by Roald Dahl. It initially appeared in The New Yorker , as did other short stories that would later be reprinted in the 1960 anthology, Kiss Kiss .^[1]

Plot

Billy Weaver is a seventeen-year-old youth who has travelled by train from London to Bath to start a new job. Looking for lodgings, he comes across a boarding-house and feels strangely compelled by its sign saying "Bed and Breakfast". Through the window, he notices a parrot in a cage and a sleeping dachshund on the floor. When he rings the doorbell, it is instantly answered by a middle-aged landlady. Billy discovers that her boarding-house is extremely cheap, and finds the woman somewhat eccentric and absent-minded, but very kind. When Billy signs her guest-book, he finds only two names, both dated more than two years ago: Christopher Mulholland and Gregory W. Temple – names which seem curiously familiar to Billy. The landlady invites Billy for some tea, and Billy tries to remember where he has previously heard the names in the guest-book. He seems to recall that Mulholland was an Eton schoolboy whose disappearance was reported in the newspapers. The landlady assures Billy that her Mulholland was a Cambridge undergraduate, and that Mulholland and Temple are still staying upstairs in her boarding-house. She says that Billy is a handsome young man, as were the two other guests. Billy is surprised to find that the parrot and dachshund he had seen through the window are both stuffed. The landlady says that she stuffs all her pets when they die. Billy finds that his tea tastes faintly of bitter almonds. He asks the landlady whether she has had any other guests since the two young men. The landlady replies, "No, my dear. Only you."

The implication is that the landlady has poisoned Billy's tea with cyanide and intends to stuff his corpse, as she has already done to Mulholland and Temple.

Origin

In the introduction to Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories , a collection of fourteen stories by other writers that he chose as the genre's best, Dahl states that he had always wanted to write a ghost story but had never quite been able to. The closest he came was with "The Landlady", but after reading it through he decided that he had not "brought it off", so changed the ending to make the twist non-supernatural.^[2]

Reception

"The Landlady" won "Best Short Story Mystery" at the 1960 Edgar Awards. This was the second time Dahl was honoured, the first having been for his collection of short stories, Someone Like You (Best Short Story, 1954).^[3]

Screen adaptation

In 1979, Siobhán McKenna appeared in the title role of The Landlady in an episode of the British TV series Tales of The Unexpected , where she played a seemingly charming and maternal, but eccentric, landlady who murders her male tenants and adds them to her collection of stuffed creatures.^[4]

Related Research Articles

Roald Dahl was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. He has been called "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century".

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka.

<i>Matilda</i> (novel) 1988 childrens novel by Roald Dahl

Matilda is a 1988 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. It was published by Jonathan Cape. The story features Matilda Wormwood, a precocious child with an uncaring mother and father, and her time in school run by the tyrannical headmistress Miss Trunchbull.

<i>Kiss Kiss</i> (book) Short story collection by Roald Dahl

Kiss Kiss is a collection of short stories by Roald Dahl, first published in 1960 by Alfred A. Knopf. Most of the constituent stories had been previously published elsewhere.

"William and Mary" is a short story by Roald Dahl, originally published in 1959 and included in his 1960 collection Kiss Kiss. It was later adapted into episodes of Way Out, Late Night Horror and Tales of the Unexpected, as well as The Price of Fear.

"The Way Up to Heaven" is a macabre short story by Roald Dahl. It was originally published in The New Yorker, as were some of the other short stories that would later be reprinted in the 1960 collection Kiss Kiss.

"Genesis and Catastrophe: A True Story" is a short story written by Roald Dahl first published in Playboy magazine and included in his book Kiss Kiss (1960). It is a fictionalised account based upon a true historical incident. It is also known as A Fine Son.

<i>Tales of the Unexpected</i> (short story collection) Short story collection by Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected is a collection of 16 short stories written by British author Roald Dahl and first published in 1979. All of the stories were earlier published in various magazines, and then in the collections Someone Like You and Kiss Kiss.

"Edward the Conqueror" is a short story written by Roald Dahl and first published in the 31 October 1953 issue of The New Yorker.

"Lamb to the Slaughter" is a 1953 short story by Roald Dahl. It was initially rejected, along with four other stories, by The New Yorker, but was published in Harper's Magazine in September 1953. It was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (AHP) that starred Barbara Bel Geddes and Harold J. Stone. Originally broadcast on April 13, 1958, this was one of only 17 AHP episodes directed by Hitchcock. The episode was ranked #59 of the Top 100 Episodes by TV Guide in 2009. The story was adapted for Dahl's British TV series Tales of the Unexpected. Dahl included it in his short story compilation Someone Like You. The narrative element of the housewife killing her husband and letting the policemen eat the evidence was used by Pedro Almodóvar in his 1984 movie What Have I Done to Deserve This?, with a leg of mutton.

Tales of the Unexpected is a British television series that aired between 1979 and 1988. Each episode told a story, often with sinister and wryly comedic undertones, with an unexpected twist ending. Every episode of series one, twelve episodes of series two, two episodes of series three, two episodes of series four, and one episode of series nine were based on short stories by Roald Dahl collected in the books Tales of the Unexpected, Kiss Kiss, and Someone Like You.

<i>The Great Automatic Grammatizator</i> Collection of short stories by Roald Dahl

The Great Automatic Grammatizator is a collection of thirteen short stories written by British author Roald Dahl. The stories were selected for teenagers from Dahl's adult works. All the stories included were published elsewhere originally; their sources are noted below. The stories, with the exception of the war story "Katina", possess a deadpan, ironic, bizarre, or even macabre sense of humor. They generally end with unexpected plot twists.

Roald Dahl: Collected Stories is a hardcover edition of short-stories by Roald Dahl for adults. It was published in the US in October 2006 by Random House as part of the Everyman Library. It includes all Roald Dahl's stories in chronological order as established by Dahl's biographer, Jeremy Treglown, in consultation with the Dahl estate. A few of the short stories were not published chronologically in book form, but appeared later, collected in More Tales of the Unexpected (1980). The collection contains all of the short stories published in the following collections:

More Tales of the Unexpected is a collection of nine short stories by Roald Dahl. It was published in 1980 by Penguin. Five of the stories were published in prior collections, while the other four had not been previously collected in book form.

"Dip in the Pool" is a macabre short story by British writer Roald Dahl, originally published in the 19 January 1952 edition of The New Yorker. It later appeared in the collection Someone Like You (1953).

"Pig" is a macabre short story by Roald Dahl that was published in Dahl's 1960 collection Kiss Kiss. The world it presents is one that is cruel and violent. It is a cautionary tale warning parents of the danger of ill-preparing a child for the dangers and realities of the greater world, particularly the shielding of children from things perceived as bad by the parents, but accepted by the world at large.

<i>The Mildenhall Treasure</i> 1999 non-fiction work by Roald Dahl

The Mildenhall Treasure is a non-fiction work written by British author Roald Dahl. It tells the story of the discovery in 1942 near Mildenhall in Suffolk of the Mildenhall Treasure, now held in the British Museum.

"Royal Jelly" is a short horror story by Roald Dahl. It was included in Dahl's 1960 collection Kiss Kiss and his 1979 collection Tales of the Unexpected, and later published as a standalone volume in 2011 and included in the February 1983 issue of Twilight Zone Magazine.

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) was a British author and scriptwriter, and "the most popular writer of children's books since Enid Blyton", according to Philip Howard, the literary editor of The Times. He was raised by his Norwegian mother, who took him on annual trips to Norway, where she told him the stories of trolls and witches present in the dark Scandinavian fables. Dahl was influenced by the stories, and returned to many of the themes in his children's books. His mother also nurtured a passion in the young Dahl for reading and literature.

"My Lady Love, My Dove" is a short story by British writer Roald Dahl, originally published in The New Yorker in April 1952. It later appeared in the collection Someone Like You (1953). The story concerns a wealthy middle-aged couple who entertain a younger couple for dinner and games of Bridge, which they all play at a high level. By hiding a microphone in their guest bedroom, they discover something entirely unexpected about their guests.

References

↑ "All works by Roald Dahl". The New Yorker . Retrieved 1 October 2014.
↑ Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories by Dahl, Roald (2012) Paperback . Retrieved 21 September 2018– via Amazon.
↑ "Edgars Database.". Retrieved 1 October 2014.
↑ Tales of the Unexpected (TV Series), "The Landlady" (1979). ^{[ user-generated source ]}