Review of Women’s Weird, Volume 2

Last Halloween season, I reviewed a delightful collection called Women’s Weird, which sought to highlight female authors of Weird fiction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This year, the same folks have brought out a second volume, giving us more stories from this under-appreciated area of literature. Women’s Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women, 1891–1937, edited by Melissa Edmundson, comes out tomorrow, October 27.

As I described in last year’s review, Weird fiction is a designation used for a particular subset of supernatural horror and speculative fiction most commonly associated with H. P. Lovecraft and his literary circle. But as with the Gothic, it’s a genre that’s a bit hard to nail down with a particular definition. In her lengthy introduction to volume 1, editor Melissa Edmundson did her best to pin down the genre by examining and critiquing different definitions. In volume 2, rather than rehashing that discussion, Edmundson instead seeks to expand our understanding of the term “Weird fiction.” First, though the Weird is often associated with American authors like Lovecraft and American publications such as Weird Tales magazine, authors all over the English-speaking world were participating in the genre. Volume 2 covers a wider geographical range than volume 1, with writers not only from the U.S. and Great Britain, but also Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. Secondly, the introduction to this volume dives deeper into the overlap between Weird fiction and the ghost story. Weird fiction is often contrasted with the rather straightforward and trope-ridden ghost stories of the Victorian era. However, Edmundson argues that rather than something entirely separate and distinct, Weird fiction is part of a continuous tradition with the Victorian ghost story, though the ghosts change form to reflect the changing society at the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, several of the stories in this collection contain spectral apparitions of the dead, though just as many explore other supernatural elements, such as “weird” spaces and otherworldly creatures. Edmundson’s introduction also lays out some of the major themes addressed in the stories, including trauma, empire, and female power.

Some of my favorite stories in the collection were those that came close to being a traditional ghost story, but with a little twist. The collection opens with the story “Twin-Identity” by Edith Stewart Drewry, which features a female police detective in France attempting to solve a murder. While riding a bus one night, an apparition of a pale woman points the way to the murderer’s location. Was it the ghost of the murder victim? Well, sort of. The murdered woman’s spirit had fused with the consciousness of her twin sister, and on the anniversary of her death was able to astral project them both to the investigator’s side. “The House Party at Smoky Island” by Lucy Maud Montgomery also involves a ghost helping to solve a murder, in a rather meta rendition of the ghost story genre. At a house party one evening, the guests take turns telling ghost stories (a common trope that often serves as the frame story for a particular tale). Instead of describing a supernatural encounter, one of the guests confesses to committing a murder—and then, she vanishes into thin air! The other guests realize that the ghost of a murderess had subtly infiltrated her way into their party. Lastly, “The Blue Room” by Lettice Galbraith sets up what seems to be a typical haunted room in an old family manor. Whenever young women sleep there, they seem to die of fright. Until one modern, educated woman tries to set the rumors to rest by staying there herself. What she finds, however, is that the room isn’t haunted by a ghost, but by a much more dangerous demonic presence.

In the opposite direction, the collection also contains stories that embrace the truly weird and play with supernatural elements that are completely unlike those found in your typical ghost story. “Outside the House” by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor contains ghosts, but they are really secondary to the weird space—the supernaturally eerie environment—that exists outside the house. When a wounded WWI soldier comes to stay at his fiancée’s family home, he grows curious when members of the household rush inside and avoid even glimpses of the outdoors after dark. When he defies their customs and sneaks out at night, the soldier finds the neat lawn transformed into a mist-filled cavernous pit brimming with ghosts of the vengeful dead. “Florence Flannery” by Marjorie Bowen deals with the vengeful dead in a way that avoids ghosts entirely. When Mr. Shute brings his new wife Florence home to his crumbling estate, she slowly realizes that she is the 300-year-old unfaithful wife of his ancestor, cursed to continue living until a grieved lover is able to avenge himself on her. That vengeance comes in the form of a man who can transform himself into an uncanny and bloodthirsty fish, having been blessed by some pagan fish god. But perhaps one of the weirdest tales is “The Black Stone Statue” by Mary Elizabeth Counselman. Framed as a letter written by an artist who wishes to confess his crimes, the story features an otherworldly blob-like being that turns everything it touches into petrified stone. When a pilot brings this creature back from the jungles of Brazil, the artist steals it and uses it to create lifelike “sculptures.”

Whether you’re into ghosts, demons, fish-men, or tentacled mystery beings, the stories in Women’s Weird 2 explore the full range of the Weird, and you’re sure to find new horrors unlike anything you’ve encountered before. Women’s Weird 2 will hit shelves in both British and North American bookstores tomorrow, October 27. You can also preorder the paperback now directly from the Handheld Press website or this Bookshop.org affiliate link. Also keep an eye out for their other new release, British Weird: Selected Short Fiction, 1893–1937, edited by James Machin. If you read either of these, comment below and let me know which stories are your favorites!