Into the London Fog: Eerie Tales from the Weird City (British Library Tales of the Weird): 16 - Softcover

Elizabeth Dearnley; Claude McKay; Sam Selvon; Violet Hunt; Edith Nesbit; Arthur Machen; Marie Belloc Lowndes; Charlotte Riddell; Rhoda Broughton; Virginia Woolf

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0712353763 ISBN 13: 9780712353762

Publisher: British Library Publishing, 2020

Synopsis

'Outside, where the air was foggy, the square was noiseless, save for an occasional hoot of a motor passing into the streets. By degrees I found the light growing rather dim, as if the fog had penetrated into the room...'

As the smoky dark sweeps across the capital, strange stories emerge from the night. A séance reveals a ghastly secret in the murk of Regent's Canal. From south of the Thames come chilling reports of a spring-heeled spectre, and in Stoke Newington rumours abound of an opening to another world among the quiet alleys.

Join Elizabeth Dearnley on this atmospheric tour through a shadowy London, a city which has long inspired writers of the weird and uncanny. Waiting in the hazy streets are eerie tales from Charlotte Riddell, Lettice Galbraith and Violet Hunt, along with haunting pieces by Virginia Woolf, Arthur Machen, Sam Selvon and many more.

About this title

About the Author

Elizabeth Dearnley is a folklorist, artist and Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies within the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her work explores eerie landscapes, fairy tales and folk horror, and she has curated several projects delving into these fields including the immersive 1940s Red Riding Hood retelling Big Teeth and the Freud Museum London's uncanny restaging of E.T.A. Hoffmann's 'The Sandman'.

From the Back Cover

As the fog thickens and the smoky dark sweeps across the capital, strange stories emerge from all over the city. A jilted lover returns as a demon to fulfil his revenge in Kensington, and a seance becomes a life and death struggle off Regents Canal. In the borough of Lambeth, stay clear of the Old House in Vauxhall Walk and be careful up in Temple - there's something not right about the doleful, droning hum of the telegram wires overhead...

Join Elizabeth Dearnley on this atmospheric tour through the Big Smoke, a city which has long fuelled the imagination of writers of the weird and supernormal. Waiting in the shadowy streets are tales from writers such as Charlotte Riddell, Lettie Galbraith and Violet Hunt, who delight in twisting the urban myths and folk stories of the city into pieces of masterful suspense and intrigue. This collection will feature a map motif and notes before each story, giving readers the real-world context for these hauntings and encounters, and allowing the modern reader to seek out the sites themselves - should they dare...

Edition details

• Publisher: British Library Publishing
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712353763
• ISBN 13: 9780712353762
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Elizabeth Dearnley