Jim Clayburn (All Souls')

Jim Clayburn is the deceased husband of Sara Clayburn, the story’s protagonist. Jim Clayburn was a cousin of the story’s narrator. Together with his wife he lived at their property, Whitegates, in New England. Whitegates was built by Jim’s grandparents and he was the third generation to make a living from farming the surrounding land. Jim and Sara Clayburn do not have children. Jim Clayburn, as well as the whole Clayburn family, were seen as a “good influence”[1] by the local community. Jim is used in the story to construct a background to events and explain why Sara Clayburn lives at Whitegates with only her servants.

[1] Edith Wharton, “All Souls’,” in: The Demanding Dead – More Stories of Terror and the Supernatural, ed. Peter Haining (London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2007), 184.