The Tower

Marghanita Laski was an English journalist who was science fiction critic for The Observer in the 1960s, biographer of Jane Austen, George Eliot and Rudyard Kipling and author, most notably, of the timeslip novella, 'The Victorian Chaise Longue' and the terrifying short story, 'The Tower'.

First published in 1955 in Cynthia Asquith's 'Third Ghost Book' it's the story of Caroline, the young wife of the domineering Neville, who decides to strike out on her own for some solo siteseeing at the end of which, with evening closing in, she spots and decides to climb the 420 steps of a tower stood amidst a ruined village.

Laski's story, one of very few short stories that she produced, has long been a staple of anthologies of supernatural fiction and deservedly so.  A deceptively simple seeming tale, beautifully written and with a devastating sting at it's end that floored me when I first read it.

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