Ghosts, murderers, doppelgangers, and cave bears! What more could you want in a collection of weird fiction? From the Abyss: Weird Fiction, 1907–1945, edited by Melissa Edmundson, has all these things and more! This collection of strange and supernatural stories by early twentieth-century writer D. K. Broster came out earlier this month from Handheld Press. It follows after The Outcast and The Rite in being yet another illuminating spotlight on an overlooked author of weird fiction. Continue reading Review of From the Abyss—Overlooked Weird Fiction
Tag: supernatural horror
Review of The Outcast and The Rite—Interwar Supernatural Stories
I love discovering new-to-me authors from centuries gone by, whose works could sit comfortably alongside those of Poe and Lovecraft but haven’t received quite the same attention. And no one provides better opportunities for such discoveries than Melissa Edmundson and the folks at Handheld Press. Over the last few years, this team brought us two volumes of Women’s Weird collections. Now, they are focusing in on one such weird fiction writer: Helen de Guerry Simpson. The Outcast and The Rite: Stories of Landscape and Fear, 1925-1938 contains thirteen tales of weird, supernatural horror published during the period between the two World Wars by this underappreciated Australian writer. The collection came out from Handheld Press earlier this month. Continue reading Review of The Outcast and The Rite—Interwar Supernatural Stories
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. Continue reading Review of Women’s Weird, Volume 2
Review of Women’s Weird–Bringing Female Authors Back into the Spotlight
As Halloween approaches, it’s time to get weird! Last month, I read Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, which brought my attention to the many gaps in our understanding of the history of these genres, caused by the tendency of past (and some present) critics to value male authors over their equally inventive and influential female contemporaries. Well, a small press in the UK is looking to fill one of those gaps with the collection Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890–1940, edited by Melissa Edmundson. Appropriately, the book is being released on Halloween day. Continue reading Review of Women’s Weird–Bringing Female Authors Back into the Spotlight