In the Dark
Description
Published in 2000 by Ash-Tree Press.
Edith Nesbit is today best known for her works for children: her 1906 novel The Railway Children is a classic of the genre. Yet Nesbit had a much darker side, which revealed itself in her tales of terror and the supernatural. Most of these tales were written before the author established herself as a writer of children’s stories, and were soon overshadowed, to be nearly forgotten – with one or two exceptions – for almost one hundred years.
In 1988, Hugh Lamb edited In the Dark for the Equation Chillers series, and has now added a further seven stories for this expanded edition. In Nesbit’s twilight world, the dead return from the grave, scientists pursue knowledge to the gates of death – and beyond; souls are bartered to the Devil in exchange for one last wish; a casual wager leads to madness; and a seemingly harmless maker of models exacts a terrible price for a wrong done years before.
In his introduction, Hugh Lamb examines the colourful life of Edith Nesbit, painting a portrait of a woman whose unconventional life set her apart from her Victorian and Edwardian contemporaries in the ghost story genre. He also looks at some of the events and experiences which may have inspired Nesbit’s supernatural fiction – events which, in the author’s words, gave her ‘nights and nights of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear and dread.’
Contents
Introduction – Hugh Lamb
Man-Size in Marble
Uncle Abraham’s Romance
From the Dead
The Haunted Inheritance
The Three Drugs
The Letter in Brown Ink
The Violet Car
John Charrington’s Wedding
No. 17
The Pavilion
The House of Silence
The Mystery of the Semi-Detached
In the Dark
The Head
The Ebony Frame
Hurst of Hurstcote
The Five Senses
The Haunted House
The Shadow
The Detective
The Power of Darkness
Trivia
This is the second edition of an Edith Nesbit anthology entitled In the Dark by Hugh Lamb. First published in 1989, with almost half the stories, it was then expanded for this edition.
When the original edition of Hugh Lamb’s anthology In the Dark was published in 1989 by Equation, a large print version was also published by Chivers Press.
The cover art for In the Dark was done by Hugh Lamb’s son, Richard.
Other Editions
Published in 2017 by HarperCollins
Published in 1988 by Equation
Hardcover – Large print version published in 1989 by Chivers Press
