I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I love a good ghost story. Lately, I have especially been enjoying discovering the works of many of the talented female authors who flourished during the golden age of ghost stories but have since gone largely unrecognized. Which is why I was devastated to learn that the small publisher who introduced me to many of these authors will be shutting their doors: Handheld Press, the small UK house who brought us Women’s Weird volumes I and II, The Outcast and the Rite, From the Abyss, The Unknown, Strange Relics, and so much more have announced that they are done publishing as of this summer. But they made sure to go out with a bang. One of their last titles was The House of Silence: Ghost Stories 1887–1920 by E. Nesbit, with an introduction by Melissa Edmundson, which came out in May. Nesbit’s stories were among my favorites that I first encountered in Women’s Weird and in my sporadic reading since, so I was thrilled when Handheld announced they’d be doing an entire collection of her ghost stories. And I was not disappointed! Continue reading Review of The House of Silence—E. Nesbit’s Ghost Stories
Category: Short story
The Hypnotic Tales of Rafael Sabatini Review
I have a deep appreciation for literary scholars who aim to draw once-popular but now obscure authors out of the shadows and back into the light for a new generation of readers to discover! Donald K. Hartman does just this with The Hypnotic Tales of Rafael Sabatini, which came out last year. This is the third installment in Hartman’s series of books that highlight the role of hypnotism in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century horror, mystery, and weird fiction. I have previously reviewed Death by Suggestion and The Hypno-Ripper, and I can now say I fully share Hartman’s fascination (if you’ll excuse the pun) with this intriguing microgenre. In this latest book, Hartman collects two short novelettes by the author Rafael Sabatini along with some notes about the cultural context in which they were written. Continue reading The Hypnotic Tales of Rafael Sabatini Review
Review of Sunless Solstice—Christmas Ghost Stories
As my various posts over the years about Christmas ghost stories might suggest, I’m on a bit of a mission to bring this spooky seasonal activity back into fashion. But I’m not alone in my quest! The British Library has started publishing annual collections of haunting Christmas tales as part of their Tales of the Weird series. Sunless Solstice: Strange Christmas Tales for the Longest Nights, edited by Lucy Evans and Tanya Kirk, is the third such collection, released in December 2022. If you, like me, would like to start spending your Christmases telling scary stories around a fire, I cannot recommend these collections enough! Continue reading Review of Sunless Solstice—Christmas Ghost Stories
Gothic Gambles
Gambling is as pervasive in the world of Gothic literature as it is in the real world. Gothic novels are full of dissolute villains whose dastardly dealings at the card table are just one facet of their poor behavior and hapless heroes who find themselves in dire straits after running up debts. But today I want to highlight a few pieces of short fiction with gambling at their center. These tales warn not just of the ordinary dangers like debt and addiction, but also of potential supernatural consequences for those who gamble excessively or unwisely.
Christmas Ghost Stories, Part 3
’Tis the season … for Christmas ghost stories! In recent years, I’ve been all about bringing back the classic tradition of livening up the winter months by sharing tales of terror. After all, encounters with the spirit world are the perfect way to get into the Christmas spirit! You can see some of the seasonally spooky tales I’ve previously recommended here and here. But if those aren’t enough for you, here’s a third round of Christmas ghost stories:
Review of Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
Jordan Peele is one of my absolute favorite directors and I think his horror films are some of the cleverest and most thoughtful contributions to the horror genre in recent years. So when I saw his name on an anthology of short horror fiction, I knew I needed to pick it up. Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams, came out last month, right on the heels of another great horror anthology centering marginalized voices: Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology. Judging by the quality of tales in these two collections, this diversity of voices is definitely here to stay in the horror genre! Continue reading Review of Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
Review of Never Whistle at Night—Indiginous Horror
From “wendigos” to “Indian burial grounds,” the folklore and tragic history of North America’s indigenous populations has frequently been mined for inspiration and twisted to suit the purposes of horror authors writing outside of their own cultures. In recent years, however, we’ve seen a real rise in the number of indigenous voices within the horror scene telling their own stories. A new collection of short horror stories celebrates this surge of Native American writers: Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. This anthology, which contains twenty-six stories plus a foreword by Stephen Graham Jones, came out just last week, in plenty of time for spooky season. Continue reading Review of Never Whistle at Night—Indiginous Horror
Humorous Ghost Stories
Not every ghost story has to be terrifying! Indeed, horror and humor are surprisingly similar modes of writing—both depend on eliciting certain emotional reactions from the reader through carefully timed revelations and unexpected juxtapositions. Horror can all too easily give way into unintentional humor, as any connoisseur of schlocky B-movies can tell you. But that blurred line can also be courted intentionally. All throughout the Golden Age of the ghost story—from the mid-nineteenth century through the early twentieth—writers poked fun at the popular genre with silly and satirical takes on the ghost story. Here are just a few of my favorite examples of spectral tales more likely to make you split your sides with laughter than scream in fright:
Review of The Unknown—Algernon Blackwood Stories and Essays
Even the most celebrated of classic ghost story writers could use a bit of a boost to their visibility these days. British author Algernon Blackwood was essentially a celebrity in the early twentieth century. Revered for his contributions to the ghost story and weird fiction genres, he became a household name toward the end of his life when he shared his stories through popular radio and early television broadcasts. Today, he is best known for two stories in particular, “The Willows” and “The Wendigo.” But these two tales are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his prolific career of both fiction and nonfiction writing that spans almost half a century. Publisher Handheld Press and editor Henry Bartholomew seek to introduce a wider audience to the breadth of Blackwood’s talents with a new collection, The Unknown: Weird Writings, 1900–1937, which came out last week. Continue reading Review of The Unknown—Algernon Blackwood Stories and Essays
Review of The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror
It’s perhaps one of the earliest forms of horror fiction: the local legends of monsters, dark magic, or cursed places that are told in whispers, passed down from one generation to the next in every society. But, as with most things in the Gothic, everything old is new again. With the success of films like The Witch and Midsommar, folk horror is definitely having a moment, and here to ride that wave is The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror, edited by Tori Bovalino, which came out in September. Continue reading Review of The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror