Irishwoman Charlotte Riddell was truly a born story-teller. In the course of half a century she produced over 50 books, novels, and tales. She lost all count of her works, possessed very few copies of them herself, and often forgot where certain stories had appeared or what had happened to her rights to them.

Riddell's blending of the realistic and supernatural elements was one of her most noticeable and successful achievements. In Essex she found the right dreary setting for The Haunted House at Latchford, "where beyond the fated house and ruined garden lay the belt of pine trees and the lake of the dismal swamp, which had furnished Crow Hall with no less than two tragedies."