MENU

Books

Hobbe’s Folly

Adam Macqueen

Book cover: Hobbe’s Folly

1904: Naive bookseller’s assistant Henry Canning arrives at Hareswood Lodge to catalogue the library of its late owner. But he’s unprepared for the horrors that lurk within Matthew Hobbe’s collection – and something even more terrible that still lingers in the room itself.

The present day, and a young council officer is tasked with finding the story behind an unassuming brick building that is all that stands in the way of a vast new housing development. But to the concern of his colleagues, Ben finds himself growing more and more obsessed with the secret of Hobbe’s Folly. Why does it have no doors or windows? Is it to keep people out – to keep something too awful to imagine trapped inside?

Adam Macqueen’s Haunted Tales were a collection of short stories whose chills lingered long in the imagination. Now, in his first full-length ghost story, he channels the masters of the genre both old and new in two intertwined narratives that build into a horrifying whole – and will ensure readers never look at the view beyond their windows in quite the same way ever again.

Hardback

ISBN: 9781800756922

Published: October 8, 2026

Ebook

ISBN: 9781800756939

Published: October 8, 2026

Book cover: Hobbe’s Folly

Category:
Fiction

Reviews for Hobbe’s Folly

Praise for Haunted Tales:

‘A cracking little book’ – The Spectator

‘An atmospheric collection of spooky stories’ – Observer

‘Guaranteed to give you goosebumps’ – Best Magazine

Author

Adam Macqueen

Author image: Adam Macqueen

Adam Macqueen is the author of books including The Prime Minister’s Ironing Board and The Lies of the Land: An Honest History of Political Deceit. The King of Sunlight, his biography of the soap manufacturer William Hesketh Lever, was named by The Economist as one of its books of the year. He has contributed to Private Eye since 1997, and wrote the bestselling history of the magazine which was published for its 50th anniversary in 2011. He has written two Tommy Wildeblood crime novels, published in 2020 and 2022.