Search Worlds Without End

Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature's strangest tales, from Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House and beyond.

Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn't exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband's heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard of Margaret "Mad Madge" Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work of Shirley Jackson, whose novel The Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You'll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today's vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales.

Part biography, part reader's guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.

This collection of short tales, a novelette and a short novel takes the reader inside the dark imagination of Elizabeth Engstrom, author of acclaimed horror classics like When Darkness Loves Us.

In these stories, you will read about a woman asked to be complicit in her own mother's death, a grandmother with a macabre hobby, a bizarre, phallic-shaped flower that portends evil for a married couple, a father whose son is caught up in a sinister government experiment. These are weird and unsettling tales that will linger with the reader.

Contents:

• 1 - The Old Woman Upstairs - (1987) - short story
• 10 - Nightwind - (1986) - short fiction
• 13 - Rivering - (1991) - short story
• 23 - Fifty-five Days of Silence - (1992) - short story
• 28 - Will Lunch Be Ready on Time? - (1992) - short story
• 36 - Rain - (1992) - short fiction
• 39 - Grandma's Hobby - (1992) - short story
• 45 - The Final Tale - (1986) - short story
• 51 - Quiet Meditation - (1992) - short story
• 62 - The Night of a Hawaiian Sky - (1986) - short fiction
• 65 - The Pan Man - (1991) - short story
• 77 - Seasoned Enthusiast - (1990) - short story
• 89 - Spice - (1992) - short story
• 95 - Music Ascending - (1988) - short story
• 104 - A Living Legacy - (1992) - short fiction
• 108 - The Jeweler's Thumb Is Turning Green - (1992) - short story
• 121 - Genetically Predisposed - (1992) - short story
• 134 - Nightmare Flower - (1988) - short story
• 146 - Fogarty & Fogarty - (1988) - novelette
• 192 - Project Stone - (1992) - short story

Stories by Everil Worrell, Eli Colter, Mary Elizabeth Counselman and Greye La Spina

Introduction by Melanie Anderson

Launched in 1923, the pulp magazine Weird Tales quickly became one of the most important outlets for horror and fantasy fiction and is often associated with writers like H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert Bloch, all of whose work appeared in the magazine. But often overlooked is the fact that much of Weird Tales' content was by women writers, some of whom numbered among the magazine's most popular contributors.

This volume includes thirteen fantastic tales originally published between 1925 and 1949, written by four of Weird Tales' most prolific female contributors: Greye La Spina, Everil Worrell, Mary Elizabeth Counselman and Eli Colter. Ranging from science fiction to fantasy to horror, these classic tales of mad scientists, deadly curses, ghosts, vampires, and the risen dead remain as thrilling and sensational as when first published.

Contents:

• The Remorse of Professor Panebianco by Greye La Spina (January 1925)
• Leonora by Everil Worrell (January 1927)
• The Dead Wagon by Greye La Spina (September 1927)
• The Canal by Everil Worrell (December 1927)
• The Curse of a Song by Eli Colter (March 1928)
• Vulture Crag by Everil Worrell (August 1928)
• The Rays of the Moon by Everil Worrell (September 1928)
• The Gray Killer by Everil Worrell (November 1929)
• The Black Stone Statue by Mary Elizabeth Counselman (December 1937)
• Web of Silence by Mary Elizabeth Counselman (November 1939)
• The Deadly Theory by Greye La Spina (May 1942)
• Great Pan is Here by Greye La Spina (November 1943)
• The Antimacassar by Greye La Spina (May 1949)

In a career spanning almost 50 years, Lisa Tuttle has proven herself a master of the weird tale, and now this new collection of twelve unsettling stories - some never previously collected - offers readers a chance to discover some of her finest work.

In 'Replacements', a woman adopts a monstrous pet, with unforeseen consequences. In 'Born Dead', a stillborn child mysteriously continues to grow just like a living one. 'My Pathology' (whose ending Thomas Tessier has cited as one of the best in the history of horror) explores the sinister results of a couple's alchemical experiments. And a book lover in 'The Book That Finds You' has her life changed in strange ways by the discovery of a rare horror book at a second-hand bookshop. In these weird and chilling tales, Tuttle is at her diabolical best.

This edition features an introduction by Lisa Kröger, and each story is specially introduced by the author.

Contents:

• 'Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear' (2011)
• 'Closet Dreams' (2007)
• 'Born Dead' (2013)
• 'Replacements' (1992)
• 'A Birthday' (1993)
• 'My Pathology' (1998)
• 'Food Man' (1994)
• 'Mr Elphinstone's Hands' (1990)
• 'The Dream Detective' (2013)
• 'Where the Stones Grow' (1980)
• 'Vegetable Love' (2017)
• 'The Book That Finds You' (2015)

Marjorie Bowen (1885-1952) spent the early part of her working life providing for a demanding and ungrateful family. We are lucky that she did so, since among the results were these short stories of rare quality. In their use of dreams, ancient anecdote, and ruined or dilapidated buildings ('Florence Flannery', 'The Fair Hair of Ambrosine') they are at times in the finest tradition of The Castle of Otranto and the Gothic revival which had chilled the blood of the British public a hundred and fifty years earlier. But her stories are more subtle in their construction, and often use simple materials ('The Crown Derby Plate', 'Elsie's Lonely Afternoon'), interweaving their terror and mystery with the commonplace of everyday life. Their mastery of detail, sureness of expression and acute reading of human nature give them a sinister force, which is realistic and unnerving, yet at the same time tinged with pity and compassion.

Manfroné; or, The One-Handed Monk (1809) opens with an unforgettable Gothic scene: a lascivious monk enters the lovely Rosalina's bedroom at midnight through a secret panel, planning to rape her--but suffers the gruesome loss of his hand when he is caught in the act!

But the one-handed monk is not the only danger facing Rosalina. Her father, the haughty Duca di Rodolpho, is determined to marry her to the cruel Prince di Manfroné and has imprisoned her true love, Montalto, in the castle dungeon. And then there is the mysterious Grimaldi. What are his inscrutable plans, and is he trying to help Rosalina or destroy her?