Full Description
The witchy women are Medusa's daughters indeed—their gaze kills. But rather than sending heroes to slay them, the writers of this collection celebrate the deadliness of these femmes fatales.
After a period of decline, Gothic literature underwent a revival at the end of the 1800s. As the century turned, women writers such as Vernon Lee, Mary Coleridge, and Rosamund Mariott Watson left an indelible mark on fantasy and horror literature. Like Medusa herself, their poetry and short stories embody the very essence of magic and monstrosity.
Curated and annotated by award-winning fantasy author and Victorianist Theodora Goss, this collection of rare and strange gems serves as a tantalizing sampler of work by fin-de-siècle women writers, whose legacy still echoes in the speculative fiction we know and love today.
Contents
Kate Chopin (1850-1904) "An Egyptian Cigarette"
Lizette Woodworth Reese "The Singer," "All Hallows Night"
Mary Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930) "Luella Miller"
Mary Coleridge "The Witch," "The White Women"
May Kendall "The Mermaid's Chapel"
Vernon Lee (Violet Paget) (1856-1935) "Dionea"
A. Mary F. Robinson "The Dryads"
Olive Custance "The White Witch," "The Changeling"
E. Nesbit (1858-1924) "Man-Size in Marble"
Ethna Carbery (Anna MacManus) "The Love-Talker," "Niamh"
Willa Cather "Princess Baldina,"
Dora Sigerson Shorter "The Watcher in the Wood," "The White Witch"
Elinor Wylie "Atavism"
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) "Bewitched"
Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) "The Farmer's Bride," "The Changeling"
Mary Coleridge "The Other Side of a Mirror"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Rosamund Mariott Watson "Ballad of the Bird-Bride," "The Orchard of the Moon"
Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) "A White Night"
Nora Hopper Chesson "A Dead Girl to Her Lover," "Hertha"
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) "The Hermit and the Wild Woman"
Katherine Tynan "Nymphs," "The Children of Lir"
E. Nesbit (1858-1924) "The Princess and the Hedge-Pig"
Dollie Radford "A Ballad of Victory"
Elinor Wylie "The Fairy Goldsmith," "Madman's Song"
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) "A Haunted House"
