Shadows on the WallDark Tales by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Introducing an influential American author to the series, offering a view of how weird fiction developed in the US alongside the works of British authors. It includes two stories missed by the ‘complete’ strange story anthologies which have been assembled thanks to Mike Ashley’s expertise.
Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved the furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered.
The disquieting tales of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman explore a world of contrast, where the supernatural erupts out of authentically drawn portraits of New England life. This is a world of witchcraft, secrecy, domestic spaces turned uncanny and ancestral vengeances inflicted upon the unfortunates of the present.
Collecting the best of the author’s strange tales – including ‘The White Shawl’, which was unpublished during her lifetime – this volume casts a light on an underappreciated contributor to weird fiction and the shadowy corners of a dark imagination.
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930) was a prolific New England writer, whose works included children’s tales, historical novels and accounts of the supernatural. Her writing often espoused feminist beliefs and the rejection of traditional domestic roles for women. In 1926, she was awarded the first medal for Distinction in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
British Library Tales of the Weird
The British Library Tales of the Weird series revives and unearths classic strange fiction from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the form of novels, single-author collections and thematic anthologies, complete with new introductions and fascinating notes by expert editors.
British Library Tales of the Weird consists of seventy-two books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
