Description:The single most
striking quality of Francis Beeding's 'The House of Doctor Edwardes' is
the sense of foreboding and uncertainty that pervades every scene, the
hallmarks of many great mystery.
From the very first page of the
prologue, Beeding makes the very air the characters live and breathe in
seem to crackle with an ominous electricity. It is surely what appealed
to Alfred Hitchcock when he found in Beeding's work the inspiration for
his classic, unforgettable film, 'Spellbound'.
Fans of Hitchcock
will want to take special notice of 'The House of Dr. Edwardes', for,
unlike other adaptations, 'Spellbound' strays rather dramatically from
its source material. Not only do the differences offer fascinating peeks
into the great director's creative vision, they also ensure that even
Hitchcock fans familiar with 'Spellbound' will find much in Beeding?s
novel that will surprise and delight.
The "house" of the title
is in fact a lunatic asylum in France, and Dr. Edwardes is the head
psychiatrist and presiding genius there. And although he is a highly
esteemed, almost iconic figure in psychiatric circles, there is
something clearly amiss.
The novel opens with a puzzling,
ominous episode in which a patient being transported to the asylum grows
agitated as the car bringing him there approaches its destination. He
suddenly screams "the gorge of the devil" and attacks and kills one of
his supervisors.
On the heels of this terrible and inauspicious
arrival is another newcomer to the asylum, Dr. Constance Sedgwick. A
promising but inexperienced psychiatrist, Dr. Sedgwick accepts a
position on Dr. Edwardes' staff to learn at the feet of the great man.
But
she arrives to discover that Dr. Edwardes has taken a leave of absence
to calm his nerves, and it does not take her long to discover that the
house is hardly in order. It is probably evident from just that short
description that this work has much to say about madness, power and
terror.