«The Haunted Woman & A Voyage to Arcturus» by David Lindsay

The Haunted Woman - Isabel Loment, engaged to the ordinary and unexceptional Marshall Stokes, leads a peripatetic existence as the ward of her aunt, Ann Moor. Their travels take them to the downlands of Sussex, to Runhill Court, an ancient home owned by Henry Judge. There Isabel discovers a strange staircase few can see, which leads upwards to three doors. She chooses one, which opens onto a room that appears to exist only part of the time; what might lie behind the other doors remains a mystery….David Lindsay was an author now best remembered for the philosophical science fiction novel A Voyage to Arcturus. The secret of Lindsay's originality as a novelist lies in his metaphysical assumptions.

A Voyage to Arcturus - The story is set at Tormance, an imaginary planet orbiting Arcturus, which, in the novel is a double star system, consisting of stars Branchspell and Alppain. The lands through which the characters travel represent philosophical systems or states of mind, through which the main character, Maskull, passes on his search for the meaning of life. Described by critic and philosopher Colin Wilson as the "greatest novel of the twentieth century", it was a central influence on C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, and through him on J. R. R. Tolkien, who said he read the book "with avidity".