Reviewing ”Grim Tales” for ”[[The Academy (periodical)|The Academy]]” in 1893, James Stanley Little described “Man-Size in Marble” as “perhaps too reminiscence of [[Prosper Mérimée]]’s more daring effort” (the 1837 story “[[La Vénus d’Ille]])”.<ref name=”Little”/>
Reviewing ”Grim Tales” for ”[[The Academy (periodical)|The Academy]]” in 1893, James Stanley Little described “Man-Size in Marble” as “perhaps too reminiscence of [[Prosper Mérimée]]’s more daring effort” (the 1837 story “[[La Vénus d’Ille]])”.<ref name=”Little”/>
Writing in 2014, Nick Freeman offered “Man-Size in Marble” as an example of “short, startling and often horrific tales that could be read at a sitting or indeed, read aloud” that emerged in the late-1880s. Freeman describes Laura’s death as “strongly symbolic of rape”, and notes the story as an example of Nesbit casting “a sceptical eye on men’s martial behaviour and on their faith in rationalism”.<ref name=”Freeman”/>
Writing in 2014, Nick Freeman offered “Man-Size in Marble” as an example of “short, startling and often horrific tales that could be read at a sitting or indeed, read aloud” that emerged in the late-1880s. Freeman describes Laura’s death as “strongly symbolic of rape”, and notes the story as an example of Nesbit casting “a sceptical eye on men’s martial behaviour and on their faith in rationalism”.<ref name=”Freeman”/>
Writing in 2018, Andrew Hock Soon Ng noted that scholars have regarded “Man-Size in Marble” as a “feminist exposé”. Ng suggested that “Laura’s depiction possibly satirizes the professional woman who lives ‘a full and independent life as man’s equal'”.<ref name=”Ng”/> Writing in 2013, Brian Johnson also identified feminist themes in the story, suggesting that Nesbit “[exploits] the structures of both the fantastic marvellous and the uncanny to produce a feminist counter-discourse on [[patriarchy]] in which the symbolic order itself is coded as monstrous and the human (female) “other” is its innocent victim.”<ref name=”Johnson”/>
Writing in 2018, Andrew Hock Soon Ng noted that scholars have regarded “Man-Size in Marble” as a “feminist exposé”. Ng suggested that “Laura’s depiction possibly satirizes the professional woman who lives ‘a full and independent life as man’s equal'”.<ref name=”Ng”/> Writing in 2013, Brian Johnson also identified feminist themes in the story, suggesting that Nesbit “[exploits] the structures of both the fantastic marvellous and the uncanny to produce a feminist counter-discourse on [[patriarchy]] in which the symbolic order itself is coded as monstrous and the human (female) “other” is its innocent victim.”<ref name=”Johnson”/>
<ref name=”Freeman”>{{cite book |chapter=The Victorian Ghost Story |title=Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |isbn=9780748654994 |page=101 |year=2014 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2QzsAQAAQBAJ |editor1-first=Andrew |editor1-last=Smith |first=Nick |last=Freeman }}</ref>
<ref name=”Freeman”>{{cite book |chapter=The Victorian Ghost Story |title=Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |isbn=9780748654994 |page=101 |year=2014 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2QzsAQAAQBAJ |editor1-first=Andrew |editor1-last=Smith |first=Nick |last=Freeman }}</ref>
<ref name=”Freeman2″>{{cite book |chapter=E. Nesbit’s New Woman Gothic |title=Women and the Victorian Occult |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=9781317982524 |page=183 |year=2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1XzfAQAAQBAJ |editor1-first=Tatiana |editor1-last=Kontou |first=Nick |last=Freeman }}</ref>
<ref name=”Golby”>{{cite web|access-date=21 December 2024|url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/dec/21/a-ghost-story-for-christmas-woman-of-stone-far-too-good-to-only-exist-as-festive-tv|title=A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone – far too good to only exist as festive TV|date=21 December 2024|first=Joel|last=Golby|work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>
<ref name=”Golby”>{{cite web|access-date=21 December 2024|url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/dec/21/a-ghost-story-for-christmas-woman-of-stone-far-too-good-to-only-exist-as-festive-tv|title=A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone – far too good to only exist as festive TV|date=21 December 2024|first=Joel|last=Golby|work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>
Short story by E. Nesbit
“Man-Size in Marble” is a short story by the English writer E. Nesbit, first published in Home Chimes in December 1887. Set in the English village of Brenzett, the story concerns a grim legend concerning marble statues. Widely anthologised, it has been adapted several times, including the 2024 short film Woman of Stone.
Plot summary
Newly-weds Jack and Laura move to a cottage on the outskirts of the English village of Brenzett. Nearby the cottage is a church which contains two marble sculptures of knights in plate armour, who are reputedly locally to have been “fierce and wicked men, marauders by land and sea, who had been the scourge of their time” whose house stood on the present site of the cottage.
After three months have passed, Jack returns home from a visit to his neighbour, the Irish doctor Kelly, to find Laura crying due to Mrs. Dorman, their cook and housekeeper, having advised she must leave at the end of the month. After Jack quizzes Mrs. Dorman, she reveals a local legend that at eleven o’clock on All Saints’ Eve each year, the two knights rise from their slabs and walk to the site of their former home. Mrs. Dorman advises Jack to lock the cottage’s door early on All Saint’s Eve, and to “make the cross-sign over the doorstep and on the windows”. Jack decides not to pass the legend on to Laura.
On All Saints’ Eve, Laura is uneasy, referring to her previously having had “presentiments of evil”. At half-past ten, Jack decides to smoke his pipe outside, insisting Laura remain at home due to being tired. Walking outside, Jack hears the clock strike eleven; looking through the cottage window, he sees Laura lying in her chair by the fire. Deciding to walk to the church, Jack hears a rustling in the woods, which he ascribes to poachers. He is surprised to find the church door open, and shocked to find the stone slabs bare.
Rushing back to the cottage, Jack encounters Kelly, who insists that he was “dreaming or drinking” and persuades Jack to return to the church. Seeing the statues back on the slabs, Jack believes he must have been mistaken. Examining the statues, Kelly observes that the hand of one statue is damaged. Returning to the cottage, Jack and Kelly find the front door and parlour door standing open. They find Laura’s body by the window, with a marble finger clenched in her hand.
Publication
“Man-Size in Marble” was first published in the London magazine Home Chimes in December 1887. It was Nesbit’s first published work of fiction.[1] It was collected in Nesbit’s books Grim Tales (1893) and Fear (1910). It has since been anthologised many times.[2] Writing for the CEA Critic in 2011, Terry W. Thompson stated that “Man-Size in Marble” is Nesbitt’s “most frequently anthologized work”.[3]
The story was inspired by the tomb of John Fagge and his son in St Eanswith’s Church, Brenzett.[1]
Reception
Reviewing Grim Tales for The Academy in 1893, James Stanley Little described “Man-Size in Marble” as “perhaps too reminiscence of Prosper Mérimée‘s more daring effort” (the 1837 story “La Vénus d’Ille)”.[4]
Writing in 2014, Nick Freeman offered “Man-Size in Marble” as an example of “short, startling and often horrific tales that could be read at a sitting or indeed, read aloud” that emerged in the late-1880s. Freeman describes Laura’s death as “strongly symbolic of rape”, and notes the story as an example of Nesbit casting “a sceptical eye on men’s martial behaviour and on their faith in rationalism”.[5] Writing in 2013, Freeman described the story as “imbued with radical political energy that remains unusual in Gothic fiction“.[6]
Writing in 2018, Andrew Hock Soon Ng noted that scholars have regarded “Man-Size in Marble” as a “feminist exposé”. Ng suggested that “Laura’s depiction possibly satirizes the professional woman who lives ‘a full and independent life as man’s equal'”.[7] Writing in 2013, Brian Johnson also identified feminist themes in the story, suggesting that Nesbit “[exploits] the structures of both the fantastic marvellous and the uncanny to produce a feminist counter-discourse on patriarchy in which the symbolic order itself is coded as monstrous and the human (female) “other” is its innocent victim.”[8]
Adaptations
On November 1, 1968, “Man-Size in Marble” was adapted into “The Marble Knights”, an episode of the South African horror anthology radio drama series Beyond Midnight.
On 12 April 1977, the story was adapted into an episode of the radio drama series CBS Radio Mystery Theater starring Paul Hecht, Roberta Maxwell, Frances Sternhagen, and Fred Gwynne.
On 4 July 1997, an adaptation of the story by Christopher Hawes starring Carolyn Jones and Stephen Critchlow aired on BBC Radio 4.[9]
On 24 December 2024, the story was adapted by Mark Gatiss into Woman of Stone, part of the BBC supernatural anthology series A Ghost Story for Christmas, starring Éanna Hardwicke as Jack Lorimer and Celia Imrie as Edith Nesbit.[10]
References
- ^ a b Morton, Lisa; Klinger, Leslie S., eds. (2022). Haunted Tales: Classic Stories of Ghosts and the Supernatural. Simon & Schuster. p. 118. ISBN 9781639361984.
- ^ “Man-Size in Marble”. Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 12 November 2025.
- ^ Thompson, Terry W. (2011). ““Presentiments of Evil”: Sourcing “Frankenstein” in Edith Nesbit’s “Man-Size in Marble”“. CEA Critic. 73 (2). The Johns Hopkins University Press: 91–100. Retrieved 12 November 2025 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Little, James Stanley (10 June 1898). “New Novels”. The Academy. 43 (1, 101): 502.
- ^ Freeman, Nick (2014). “The Victorian Ghost Story”. In Smith, Andrew (ed.). Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion. Edinburgh University Press. p. 101. ISBN 9780748654994.
- ^ Freeman, Nick (2013). “E. Nesbit’s New Woman Gothic”. In Kontou, Tatiana (ed.). Women and the Victorian Occult. Routledge. p. 183. ISBN 9781317982524.
- ^ Ng, Andrew Hock Soon (2018). “The Fantastic and the Woman Question in Edith Nesbit’s Male Gothic Stories”. In McCormick, Lizzie; Mitchell, Jennifer; Soares, Rebecca (eds.). The Female Fantastic: Gendering the Supernatural in the 1890s and 1920s. Routledge. ISBN 9781351107778.
- ^ Johnson, Brian (2013). “Beyond the Lure: Teaching Horror, Teaching Theory”. In Ahmad, Aalya; Moreland, Sean (eds.). Fear and Learning: Essays on the Pedagogy of Horror. McFarland & Company. p. 117-119. ISBN 9780786468201.
- ^ “Man-Size in Marble by Edith Nesbit”. BBC.co.uk. Retrieved 12 November 2025.
- ^ Golby, Joel (21 December 2024). “A Ghost Story for Christmas: Woman of Stone – far too good to only exist as festive TV”. The Guardian. Retrieved 21 December 2024.
