The Lost Stradivarius

In 1867, Miss Sophia Maltravers writes from Bath to her nephew at Oxford to fulfill a dying request and detail the facts of his father’s ruin. Years earlier, while an undergraduate himself, her brother discovered a Stradivarius violin concealed in a hidden chamber. When he drew his bow across its strings, the music summoned a presence that had waited centuries to return.

Framed as a warning delivered on the son's coming of age, the narrative tracks a quiet descent into obsession. As the young man plays the instrument, the unseen force attached to it binds itself to his life. The history—compiled from Sophia's memories and the notes of an associate, Mr. Gaskell—documents a possession enacted through sound, tracing a student's deterioration until his death.

J. Meade Falkner’s 1895 novel is a staple of late-Victorian supernatural fiction, establishing the antiquarian ghost story tradition built around dangerous historical artifacts.