At Chrighton Abbey and Other Horror Stories


Book Description

Braddon is remembered among fans of weird fiction for her classic horror and ghost stories, the most famous of which are collected here. Stories include "At Chrighton Abbey, " "The Cold Embrace, " and "The Shadow in the Corner."




The Shadow in the Corner


Book Description

The Shadow in the Corner' is a gothic short story, written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and first published in 1879. It tells the story of Michael Bascom, a reclusive scientist, who lives in an old mansion called Wildheath Grange. His man servant informs him that they need a girl to help his wife around the house. An orphan girl takes the role, but informs Bascom that she is very uncomfortable with her lodgings. She says she sees a mysterious shadow in her room at night. The house is rumoured to be haunted, but the scientist doesn't believe her, that is, until he experiences it himself. To compliment the republication of this work, a specially commissioned new introductory biography of the author has been added.




The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories


Book Description

The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories by Marjorie Bowen is a collection of feminist tales about the hardship of women and haunting and dark supernatural happenings. Excerpt: "SHE who had been Florence Flannery noted with a careless eye the stains of wet on the dusty stairs, and with a glance ill-used to the observance of domesticities looked up for damp or dripping ceilings. The dim-walled staircase revealed nothing but more dust, yet this would serve as a peg for ill-humor to hang on, so Florence pouted."




Mary Elizabeth Braddon


Book Description

An important figure in the development of crime fiction, Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) wrote more than 80 novels, numerous plays, poems, essays and short stories, and edited two magazines during her 55-year literary career. Her bestselling Lady Audley's Secret secured her reputation as a leading "sensation novelist." Though critics called her work immoral, Braddon's novels influenced the detective fiction of the late Victorian period. With entries on all her published writing, characters, relationships and influences, and themes and contexts, as well as numerous illustrations, a career chronology, and a chronological and alphabetical listing of all of her works, this companion to Braddon's mystery fiction is the definitive reference on this provocative but overlooked writer.







In Lady Audley's Shadow


Book Description

This book is devoted to Mary Elizabeth Braddon's complex relationship with the three main Victorian literary genres: the Gothic, the Detective and the Realist novel. Using Braddon's bestselling sensation fiction Lady Audley's Secret as a paradigmatic novel and as a 'haunting' textual presence across her literary career, this study provides a fertile critical reading of a wide range of Braddon's novels and short stories. Through an analysis of Braddon's negotiations with Victorian narrative, ideological and cultural issues, this monograph offers readers a refreshing view of gender, female identity and subjectivity, the treatment of insanity, questions related to technology and progress, the impact of evolutionism and Darwinism, the intersemiotic dialogue between pictorial art and novel-writing, the role of the (female) writer in the new literary market and the changing notion of capital in an increasingly fluid social context. Braddon's manipulation of Victorian literary codes and conventions proves that she was something more than a mere sensation writer and that her primary role in the nineteenth-century literary scene has to be reaffirmed. Drawing on a wide range of textual materials and literary sources, the book foregrounds Braddon's constant and sometimes ambivalent dialogue with her times, and with ours as well.




Borders and Border Crossings in the Contemporary British Short Story


Book Description

This book represents a contribution to both border studies and short story studies. In today’s world, there is ample evidence of the return of borders worldwide: as material reality, as a concept, and as a way of thinking. This collection of critical essays focuses on the ways in which the contemporary British short story mirrors, questions and engages with border issues in national and individual life. At the same time, the concept of the border, as well as neighbouring notions of liminality and intersectionality, is used to illuminate the short story’s unique aesthetic potential. The first section, “Geopolitics and Grievable Lives”, includes chapters that address the various ways in which contemporary stories engage with our newly bordered world and borders within contemporary Britain. The second section examines how British short stories engage with “Ethnicity and Liminal Identities”, while the third, “Animal Encounters and Metamorphic Bodies”, focuses on stories concerned with epistemological borders and borderlands of existence and identity. Taken together, the chapters in this volume demonstrate the varied and complex ways in which British short stories in the twenty-first century engage with the concept of the border.




If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe


Book Description

New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin’s hilarious and horrifying John Dies at the End series continues with If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe. "Pargin once again delights with scathing social commentary thinly disguised as an outrageous action novel...This is a feast."—Publishers Weekly "Within the snarky humor is an incisive commentary on social media and the state of our connected world, and a story about trauma and how people lash out when they’re hurt...This isn’t just a funny tale of inept supernatural investigators; it’s a story of people struggling through pain to find a better path. Pargin offers us a welcome note of hope." — Booklist If the broken neon signs, shuttered storefronts, and sub-standard housing didn’t tip you off, you’ve just wandered into the city of “Undisclosed”. You don’t want to be caught dead here, because odds are you just might find yourself rising from the grave. That hasn’t stopped tourists from visiting to check out the unusual phenomena that hangs around our town like radioactive fallout. Interdimensional parasites feeding on human hosts, paranormal cults worshipping demonic entities, vengeful teenage sorcerers, we’ve got it all. Did I mention the possessed toy? It’s a plastic football-sized egg that’s supposed to hatch an adorable, colorful stuffed bird when a child “feeds” it through a synchronized smartphone app. What’s actually inside is an otherworldly monstrosity that’s enticing impressionable wayward youth into murdering folks and depositing their body parts inside the egg as if it’s a hungry piggy bank to trigger the end of the world. That’s where Dave, John, and Amy come in. They face supernatural threats so the rest of us don’t have to—and sometimes even earn a couple of bucks to so do. But between the bloody ritual sacrifices and soul-crushing nightmares, our trio realizes this apocalypse is way above their pay grade.




Vampires Never Get Old


Book Description

Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices fill this bestselling anthology—including V.E. Schwab's First Kill, now a major Netflix adaptation! "Boundary-pushing... Stories that stake a new claim on old tropes." —Publishers Weekly, starred review In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out—and going out for their first kill—and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night. Welcome to the evolution of the vampire—and a revolution on the page. Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by authors both bestselling and acclaimed, including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley. An Imprint Book "Vampire fans, sink your teeth into this satisfying collection." —Kirkus Reviews




The Horse of the Invisible


Book Description

"The Horse of the Invisible" is a short story with a gothic theme and a touch of mystery. It is a mysterious tale involving Thomas Carnacki, the famous Investigator of ghost stories, who shares the details of a peculiarly frightening experience relating a ghost of a horse, who interferes with marriages of several women from one family. But is there a more to it?