I can't recall whether I read this 1962 novel when I was a child, but I could have sworn that I'd seen the 1989 feature film adaptation with Stephanie Beacham and Mel Smith. It didn't take too many pages to realise that I hadn't, because this isn't the werewolf book I was expecting at all. Clearly, I mixed these particular wolves up with 'The Company of Wolves', about a different British country house. This is a genre novel, but only just, because it's alternate history and that's mostly setting, at least in this initial book.Joan Aiken didn't intend it at the time but it sparked a longer running series of fifteen books that appear to explore the alternate history more deliberately.

It's a period piece, set not far into the reign of Good King James III, who took the British throne in 1832. That's a deliberately provocative name, because the name of James, when preceded by King, carries different weight in the United Kingdom depending on where you might be at the time. Let me divert you from this review for a quick history lesson.

When James Charles Stuart was crowned James I, King of England and Ireland, in 1603, he wasn't inexperienced, having already been James VI, King of Scotland, for thirty-two years. This was the point when three countries united into one. His grandson, who was technically James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, holds two records not likely to be broken. He's the most recent British monarch to be a Roman Catholic and the most recently to be deposed, during the Glorious Revolution of 1688, at which point the British parliament became more powerful than the throne.

What's more, there will never be a King James III, good or otherwise, because those numbers got quickly confusing, the first James tending to be known as "James the first and sixth". That's due to a decision in 1953 when the new monarch took the name of Elizabeth II, because there had been a prior Queen Elizabeth in England if not in Scotland. Using the highest number means that, unless Scotland does obtain its independence from the United Kingdom at some point in the future, any new king adopting James as his official name would become James VIII, thus forever leaving Good King James III firmly in the realms of fiction. And, with that, back to the book!

The thoroughly fictional Good King James III is on the throne and one of his earliest achievements is the completion of a Channel Tunnel linking England to France in a way that we only achieved in our reality in 1994. We don't know how successful it was because Aiken never tells us, but she does make one side effect very clear: a vast quantity of wolves have migrated through the tunnel into the English countryside, where they've become a notable menace. They're on the cover of almost every edition of the book and they're a constant background threat in the text too. What's rather surprising is that they stubbornly remain so, never truly shaping the story in any real way, beyond making a metaphor possible: the real wolves of the story are both human.

The lead characters are two young ladies, Bonnie and Sylvia, even though they haven't met when the novel begins. Bonnie is the daughter of Sir Willoughby Green, the richest man in five counties, and Sophia, Lady Green, who is about to embark on a journey abroad for her health. They own a mansion and estate, Willoughby Chase, with countless servants. Sylvia is her cousin, who lives in a Park Lane flat in London with Jane Green, Sir Willoughby's sister, who is Aunt Jane to both Bonnie and Sylvia. Jane is poor but stubborn, just about scraping along at a posh address but refusing to ask for help, except to send Sylvia to Willoughby Chase, knowing that she's holding her back.

So far, so good but, with Bonnie's parents about to set sail and Aunt Jane staying in London, there must be a new character to look after the girls and here's where it goes horribly wrong. She's Miss Slighcarp, apparently a fourth cousin of Sir Willoughby, and she's to be their governess. Bonnie is a wild and spirited child, far more sympathetically so than her portrayal in the 1989 movie, and she manages to make the worst possible impression on Miss Slighcarp. However, the new governess is also strict, severe and suspicious. As soon as Bonnie's parents are out of the house, she seizes firm control, firing most of the servants, wearing Lady Green's dresses and ordering an immediate sale of Bonnie's toys and ponies. And that's just the beginning.

Without the werewolf element I was expecting, I found 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' to be an amalgam of the social commentary of Charles Dickens, which were set a little later than this, and the gothic tradition, which began a little earlier.

The gothics favoured sprawling country mansions, which fits Willoughby Chase to a tee, especially once Miss Slighcarp empties it of servants. Bonnie and Sylvia stumble on a particularly important secret passage and there's a young man living in a cave on the estate, underneath the Temple of Hermes. Simon, who keeps geese and makes metheglin, a mead using heather, is Bonnie's friend and he plays a major part in this story. Sylvia's train ride, which isn't a long one but takes twenty-four hours at only fifteen miles per hour, feels gothic as well, especially when a wolf leaps into her compartment through a glass window.

Dickens favoured urban environments, of course, and the scenes in London are clearly influenced by his work, right down to the condition of Aunt Jane when the girls visit her in London late in the novel. Both new characters at this point, Gabriel Field and Abednego Gripe, a doctor and a lawyer respectively, could have walked right off the pages of a Dickens novel. I got the impression that a crucial location in the book, the orphanage that the ruthless Gertrude Brisket blatantly runs as a workhouse, was rural but the film makes it urban and it's Dickensian either way.

Of course, all the names I'm referencing are quintessential Dickens names, as are others. Bonnie has a maid named Pattern and the housekeeper is Mrs. Shubunkin. The cook at Mrs. Brisket's is a Mrs. Moleskin and the idiot inspector, who fails to notice any wrongdoing, is Mr. Friendshipp, with two Ps. And, of course, there's Josiah Grimshaw, who reaches Willoughby Chase by misadventure. He's a genial gentleman who happens to share Sylvia's compartment on the train but, just as it's pulling into the station closest to Willoughby Chase, he's knocked unconscious by his own luggage and wakes up with amnesia. Bonnie rescues him, of course, and takes him home to recover, where he turns out to be much more than she expected.

I enjoyed this a great deal, even without any supernatural element. It's really a period crime story for a young audience, written in the tradition of Dickens but with a gothic flavour that the wolves floating around in the background underline wonderfully. While it counts as alternate history, it's not particularly interested in working that angle, unfolding believably for the historical period in our reality. I have at least one of the fourteen further books in the series, one prequel and a slew of sequels, many of which focus on Dido Twite, a character not even introduced yet. I'm tempted to track down some more and dive into them. I want to know where the alternate history goes.

After finishing this novel, I followed up by watching the 1989 feature film adaptation, which is the weaker of the two but still worth seeing. It follows this relatively closely for most of the story but departs from it further and further until it wraps up roughly where it should. It minimises Simon's part, which is a shame; ditches all the London scenes, which weakens the ending considerably; and transforms the claustrophobic orphanage into a set of action sequences, which looks great on film but changes the tone. It was interesting to see Richard O'Brien as the Willoughby Chase footman though. ~~ Hal C F Astell