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abridged history from Crimson Peak artbook
(I'm playing from the longer history that was posted to GDT's Twitter/the bios given to the actors to get to know their characters, but it's quite lengthy, so let's start here!)
Edith was born on October 9, 1877, to Carter Elias Cushing and Eleanor Wyndham-Beckford. Carter and Eleanor were from very different tiers of society. Carter took pride in being a self-made man; a hard-working businessman who inherited his father’s brick and masonry company. Eleanor, meanwhile, came from wealth–a reputable British lineage her family was keen for her to preserve. She was forbidden from marrying beneath her class, but love drove them to marry in secret, and soon the newlyweds were forging a new life in the bustling heart of New England.
After three miscarriages, Eleanor’s fourth pregnancy went to term and Edith was born–an event nothing short of a heavenly blessing. Both parents, but particularly Carter, fell in love with her immediately; Edith was the apple of her father’s eye. Working hard to establish his own successful construction firm, Carter settled down in Buffalo to design and build their dream home–a most modern mansion with every comfort imaginable. Edith loved the sunlight, the dining room table that was large enough to hide under, and the apple trees in the orchard outside.
Edith also found solace at the Cushings' summer home on the Great Lakes. It was a magical place. Here Edith’s young imagination could run wild. She was enchanted by a family of wild rabbits that lived on their cottage grounds, giving each of them a name and creating stories about their comings and goings. One summer, Edith arrived at the cottage to discover that the rabbits had disappeared. Carter comforted her by giving her a note supposedly written by the rabbits, saying goodbye. Edith read and embellished that rabbit note for many years, and in spite of her father’s poor penmanship, she always found a little of her childhood wonder in it. The free-spirited young Edith had an insatiable imagination, and it was by her mother’s side that she learned to dream while awake. They would read together frequently and go shopping for new books together.
Eleanor’s sudden, unexpected death to cholera and the boundless grief that followed forged a unique bond between Edith and her father. In truth, Edith provided as much emotional support to Carter as he did to her. Over the years, they remodeled and redesigned the family house–but Edith and Eleanor’s rooms remained untouched. They were sacred spaces, frozen in time. Edith and her father were stricken with pain and loss that would last their entire lives. However, it would not be the last time Edith saw her mother.
Already haunted by her memory, Edith was ten years old when she was first visited by her mother’s ghost. The event affected her deeply. She tried to cope with this strange episode, first through childhood drawings and later in her literary compositions. Her stories were not all about whimsical love–they were populated with ghosts, spiritualism, and the unexplained. Reading and writing became Edith’s refuge from the world, and her intelligence both elevated and isolated her. She yearned to become an author and travel the world–but her father’s love and the expectations of society encaged her.
Only one young man came close to giving Edith the romance and distraction she so desperately craved: her childhood friend Alan McMichael. They shared a kiss one summer. Edith dismissed it as an experiment to inspire her writing, to know how it felt to kiss a boy, but for Alan, it was everlasting. Even when he traveled to England to study medicine, he dreamt of her. And she of him–though it was less out of love and more out of jealousy. He was traveling the world, living out her dream–a dream she was consistently denied. Despite her money and position, Edith felt trapped. Even as a young adult, she retained her unquenchable thirst for adventure. She even joked with her father about the need for tragedy in a life that is entirely ordinary.
She would experience such tragedy soon enough.
In 1887 Buffalo, New York, American heiress Edith Cushing, daughter of wealthy businessman Carter Cushing, is visited by her mother's ghost who warns, "Beware of Crimson Peak."
In 1901, Edith is now a budding author, and meets English baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe and his sister, Lucille. Thomas seeks investors for his invention, a digging machine to revive his family's clay mines, but Mr. Cushing rejects his proposal. Thomas and Edith become romantically attached, leading her father to hire a private detective who uncovers unsavory facts about the Sharpe siblings. Mr. Cushing bribes them to leave America, forcing Thomas to "break Edith's heart" by disparaging her and her novel.
Thomas returns Edith's manuscript with a letter explaining his actions, and they reconcile. Mr. Cushing is brutally murdered, raising the suspicions of Edith's childhood friend, Dr. Alan McMichael. Thomas marries Edith — giving her a ring taken from Lucille — and they arrive at Allerdale Hall, the Sharpes' dilapidated Cumberland mansion, which is sinking into the red clay mine below. Lucille plies Edith with tea made from "firethorn berries", and Thomas persuades her to put her father's fortune toward his machine. He mentions that the estate is referred to as "Crimson Peak" due to the warm red clay seeping through the winter snow.
Edith begins to notice Thomas' absence from their shared bedroom during the night. She eventually grows weak and begins coughing up blood, plagued by nightmares and visited by gruesome red ghosts around Allerdale. One of the spirits tricks her into opening a closet, where she discovers wax phonograph cylinders, before chasing her into the cellars, where she finds a locked trunk engraved with the name "Enola". Thomas takes Edith on a trip to the local post office, where she receives a letter addressed to E. Sharpe. Snowed in for the night, they finally make love, which Lucille is infuriated to learn.
Edith steals a key from Lucille bearing the inscription "Enola" and unlocks the trunk to find a gramophone and secret documents. Using the gramophone to listen to the audio recordings on the wax cylinders, and while reading the paper documents, Edith learns that Thomas previously married three other wealthy women — including Enola Sciotti, the letter’s intended recipient — and that Lucille has been poisoning Edith with tea as part of the siblings' "marriage and murder" scheme to finance Thomas' inventions. Edith confronts her husband and sister-in-law, catching them in an incestuous embrace, and Lucille pushes her from a balcony.
Alan has learned what Mr. Cushing uncovered about the Sharpes: Thomas's multiple marriages and Lucille's time in a mental institution. He travels to Allerdale Hall to rescue Edith, arriving just after she has been pushed. Tending to her injuries, Alan prepares to leave with Edith, but Lucille stabs him and demands that Thomas finish the job. Thomas, instead, inflicts a nonfatal stab wound to Alan before hiding him in the cellar.
Lucille forces Edith to sign a transfer deed granting the Sharpes ownership of her estate, and confesses to having murdered Thomas’ previous wives and having borne a child with Thomas that soon died — these are the ghosts who have appeared to Edith. Lucille admits to murdering Edith's father, as well as her own mother when she discovered Lucille and Thomas' sexual relationship. Edith stabs Lucille with her pen and flees, but is confronted by Thomas, who has truly fallen in love with her. He burns the deed and begs his sister to join him and Edith in a new life together, but an enraged Lucille stabs him to death. She pursues Edith with the cleaver she used to kill her mother, but is halted by Thomas' ghost, allowing Edith to kill her with a shovel. Edith silently bids Thomas farewell before he vanishes.
Edith and Alan are rescued by the villagers, and Lucille becomes the ghost of Allerdale Hall, playing her piano for eternity. The end credits imply that Edith has written a novel based on her experiences, titled Crimson Peak.
Edith was born on October 9, 1877, to Carter Elias Cushing and Eleanor Wyndham-Beckford. Carter and Eleanor were from very different tiers of society. Carter took pride in being a self-made man; a hard-working businessman who inherited his father’s brick and masonry company. Eleanor, meanwhile, came from wealth–a reputable British lineage her family was keen for her to preserve. She was forbidden from marrying beneath her class, but love drove them to marry in secret, and soon the newlyweds were forging a new life in the bustling heart of New England.
After three miscarriages, Eleanor’s fourth pregnancy went to term and Edith was born–an event nothing short of a heavenly blessing. Both parents, but particularly Carter, fell in love with her immediately; Edith was the apple of her father’s eye. Working hard to establish his own successful construction firm, Carter settled down in Buffalo to design and build their dream home–a most modern mansion with every comfort imaginable. Edith loved the sunlight, the dining room table that was large enough to hide under, and the apple trees in the orchard outside.
Edith also found solace at the Cushings' summer home on the Great Lakes. It was a magical place. Here Edith’s young imagination could run wild. She was enchanted by a family of wild rabbits that lived on their cottage grounds, giving each of them a name and creating stories about their comings and goings. One summer, Edith arrived at the cottage to discover that the rabbits had disappeared. Carter comforted her by giving her a note supposedly written by the rabbits, saying goodbye. Edith read and embellished that rabbit note for many years, and in spite of her father’s poor penmanship, she always found a little of her childhood wonder in it. The free-spirited young Edith had an insatiable imagination, and it was by her mother’s side that she learned to dream while awake. They would read together frequently and go shopping for new books together.
Eleanor’s sudden, unexpected death to cholera and the boundless grief that followed forged a unique bond between Edith and her father. In truth, Edith provided as much emotional support to Carter as he did to her. Over the years, they remodeled and redesigned the family house–but Edith and Eleanor’s rooms remained untouched. They were sacred spaces, frozen in time. Edith and her father were stricken with pain and loss that would last their entire lives. However, it would not be the last time Edith saw her mother.
Already haunted by her memory, Edith was ten years old when she was first visited by her mother’s ghost. The event affected her deeply. She tried to cope with this strange episode, first through childhood drawings and later in her literary compositions. Her stories were not all about whimsical love–they were populated with ghosts, spiritualism, and the unexplained. Reading and writing became Edith’s refuge from the world, and her intelligence both elevated and isolated her. She yearned to become an author and travel the world–but her father’s love and the expectations of society encaged her.
Only one young man came close to giving Edith the romance and distraction she so desperately craved: her childhood friend Alan McMichael. They shared a kiss one summer. Edith dismissed it as an experiment to inspire her writing, to know how it felt to kiss a boy, but for Alan, it was everlasting. Even when he traveled to England to study medicine, he dreamt of her. And she of him–though it was less out of love and more out of jealousy. He was traveling the world, living out her dream–a dream she was consistently denied. Despite her money and position, Edith felt trapped. Even as a young adult, she retained her unquenchable thirst for adventure. She even joked with her father about the need for tragedy in a life that is entirely ordinary.
She would experience such tragedy soon enough.
And the rest is the plot summary of Crimson Peak, so please skip if you don't want the spoilers.
In 1887 Buffalo, New York, American heiress Edith Cushing, daughter of wealthy businessman Carter Cushing, is visited by her mother's ghost who warns, "Beware of Crimson Peak."
In 1901, Edith is now a budding author, and meets English baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe and his sister, Lucille. Thomas seeks investors for his invention, a digging machine to revive his family's clay mines, but Mr. Cushing rejects his proposal. Thomas and Edith become romantically attached, leading her father to hire a private detective who uncovers unsavory facts about the Sharpe siblings. Mr. Cushing bribes them to leave America, forcing Thomas to "break Edith's heart" by disparaging her and her novel.
Thomas returns Edith's manuscript with a letter explaining his actions, and they reconcile. Mr. Cushing is brutally murdered, raising the suspicions of Edith's childhood friend, Dr. Alan McMichael. Thomas marries Edith — giving her a ring taken from Lucille — and they arrive at Allerdale Hall, the Sharpes' dilapidated Cumberland mansion, which is sinking into the red clay mine below. Lucille plies Edith with tea made from "firethorn berries", and Thomas persuades her to put her father's fortune toward his machine. He mentions that the estate is referred to as "Crimson Peak" due to the warm red clay seeping through the winter snow.
Edith begins to notice Thomas' absence from their shared bedroom during the night. She eventually grows weak and begins coughing up blood, plagued by nightmares and visited by gruesome red ghosts around Allerdale. One of the spirits tricks her into opening a closet, where she discovers wax phonograph cylinders, before chasing her into the cellars, where she finds a locked trunk engraved with the name "Enola". Thomas takes Edith on a trip to the local post office, where she receives a letter addressed to E. Sharpe. Snowed in for the night, they finally make love, which Lucille is infuriated to learn.
Edith steals a key from Lucille bearing the inscription "Enola" and unlocks the trunk to find a gramophone and secret documents. Using the gramophone to listen to the audio recordings on the wax cylinders, and while reading the paper documents, Edith learns that Thomas previously married three other wealthy women — including Enola Sciotti, the letter’s intended recipient — and that Lucille has been poisoning Edith with tea as part of the siblings' "marriage and murder" scheme to finance Thomas' inventions. Edith confronts her husband and sister-in-law, catching them in an incestuous embrace, and Lucille pushes her from a balcony.
Alan has learned what Mr. Cushing uncovered about the Sharpes: Thomas's multiple marriages and Lucille's time in a mental institution. He travels to Allerdale Hall to rescue Edith, arriving just after she has been pushed. Tending to her injuries, Alan prepares to leave with Edith, but Lucille stabs him and demands that Thomas finish the job. Thomas, instead, inflicts a nonfatal stab wound to Alan before hiding him in the cellar.
Lucille forces Edith to sign a transfer deed granting the Sharpes ownership of her estate, and confesses to having murdered Thomas’ previous wives and having borne a child with Thomas that soon died — these are the ghosts who have appeared to Edith. Lucille admits to murdering Edith's father, as well as her own mother when she discovered Lucille and Thomas' sexual relationship. Edith stabs Lucille with her pen and flees, but is confronted by Thomas, who has truly fallen in love with her. He burns the deed and begs his sister to join him and Edith in a new life together, but an enraged Lucille stabs him to death. She pursues Edith with the cleaver she used to kill her mother, but is halted by Thomas' ghost, allowing Edith to kill her with a shovel. Edith silently bids Thomas farewell before he vanishes.
Edith and Alan are rescued by the villagers, and Lucille becomes the ghost of Allerdale Hall, playing her piano for eternity. The end credits imply that Edith has written a novel based on her experiences, titled Crimson Peak.