Just Sleep - Bedtime Stories for Adults · Bedtime Stories with Taesha Glasgow

The Invisible Girl

·37 min·3 clips

A watercolor painting of a lovely girl in a desolate tower bears the eerie inscription 'The Invisible Girl'.

The Just Sleep Podcast presents a soothing bedtime reading of The Invisible Girl by Mary Shelley, introduced by host Tayshia as a slightly spooky short story. The frame narrative begins with an unnamed traveler who stumbles upon a mysteriously furnished chamber inside what appeared to be a desolate ruined tower on a Welsh sea cliff. A portrait of a beautiful young woman labeled The Invisible Girl hangs above the fireplace, and the old caretaker tells the story behind it. The main narrative follows Henry Vernon, the melancholy son of a baronet, who hired fishermen to sail him along the Welsh coast during threatening weather. A beacon burning in the tower guides the party safely to shore during the storm, saving their lives. Henry is consumed by grief for Rosina, a cheerful orphan who grew up in his father's house and whom he secretly loved. Sir Peter Vernon, his tyrannical father, had violently opposed their attachment and, through his malicious widowed sister Mrs. Bainbridge, drove Rosina from the estate after intercepting a letter she wrote to Henry. Rosina had been missing for months and was presumed drowned. Henry arrives in the area seeking her grave. At the tower, Henry searches repeatedly for whoever is lighting the beacon but finds only emptiness — until a sleepless night leads him back to the darkened chamber where he hears another presence, speaks aloud, and is answered by Rosina's voice crying his name. She had been living in secret in the tower's vault for months, terrified to reveal herself lest Sir Peter find her, surviving in hiding and burning the nightly beacon hoping Henry would notice. Weakened and wasting, she had begun to fear she would die before seeing him again. Henry brings her back to civilization, Sir Peter — overcome with remorse — joyfully consents to their marriage, and the portrait in the tower was placed there by Henry to commemorate the scene of their reunion.

As heard by us

Mary Shelley's seaside gothic tale is read with a soft chill and a steady, drowsy pace.

Mary Shelley's The Invisible Girl settles into a hushed, slightly spooky atmosphere: a ruined tower on a bleak promontory over the sea, a household shaped by tenderness and restraint, and a danger that gathers through family pressure rather than spectacle.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A slightly spooky Mary Shelley read when you want to wind down with a hush of ruin and late-night suspense.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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