Carried by Storm: A Novel

# Museum Catalog Note

Carried by Storm by Mrs. May Agnes Fleming, published by Street & Smith in 1878, is a Gothic melodrama centered on Sleaford's Farm, a notorious haunted house. Five years prior, a man named Giles Sleaford was murdered—stabbed to death in an attic room—and his ghost allegedly re-enacts the struggle nightly, causing the property to remain empty and feared. The narrative introduces the mysterious figure of George Blake, a newspaper journalist who stands gazing at the farmhouse, particularly at a window belonging to a young woman named Joanna, with whom he apparently eloped. Miss Olga Ventnor, the primary narrator's companion, hints darkly that Joanna possessed demonic qualities and suggests Blake's life has been ruined by association with her. The story unfolds through atmospheric descriptions of the desolate farm and fragmented revelations of past scandal involving the Sleaford family—including two rosy-cheeked sisters and two wild sons—and the cryptic circumstances surrounding Joanna's disappearance.