The Villa and The Vortex
Supernatural Stories, 1916-1924
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Melissa Edmundson, editor of Women's Weird and Women's Weird 2, has curated this selection of the best of Elinor Mordaunt's supernatural short fiction. Elinor Mordaunt was the pen name of Evelyn May Clowes (1872-1942), a prolific and popular novelist and short story writer, working in Australia and Britain in the first thirty-five years of the twentieth century.
Edmundson's stories blend the technologies and social attitudes of modernity with the classic supernatural tropes of the ghost, the haunted house, possession, conjuration from the dead and witchcraft. Each story is an original and compelling contribution to supernatural fiction, making this selection a marvelous new showcase for women's writing in the genres.
The Villa and The Vortex includes the following short stories:
- The Weakening Point
- The Country-side
- The Vortex
- Hodge
- The Fountain
- Luz
- The Landlady
- Four Wallpapers
- The Villa
"The Villa and the Vortex is a must-read for those who find themselves drawn to older weird fiction, and for those with a fondness for older supernatural and ghost stories." - What Sleeps Beneath
"An attractive, enjoyable collection of supernatural tales, including some real gems." - British Fantasy Society
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Reviews
"An attractive, enjoyable collection of supernatural tales, including some real gems." - British Fantasy Society
"What a treat this book is: nine exquisitely written stories from a criminally unsung queen of early twentieth-century weird fiction, gorgeously packaged by Handheld Press, and with a typically sterling introduction by Melissa Edmundson. These are tales to live and lose yourself in - haunting, horrifying, and poignant by turns." - Horrified
"Beautifully continues the Press's mission to bring forgotten weird fiction back to life, and makes for a wonderfully spooky read just in time for the Halloween season ... The Villa and the Vortex is a must-read for those who find themselves drawn to older weird fiction, and for those with a fondness for older supernatural and ghost stories." - What Sleeps Beneath
" ... a period atmosphere and a distinctive, suspenseful power to haunt. "The Villa" could be taken as a lost precursor to Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House." - Michael Caines in the Brixton Review of Books
"Mordaunt appears to have believed in the supernatural, having experienced an apparition in Papua New Guinea, she also had personal experience of premonitions during her life and as a child was raised on a diet of folk legends and ghost stories. The influence of these are sometimes seen in the inspiration for the stories." - A Ghostly Company, autumn 2021
"The tales themselves ooze atmosphere throughout a range of familiar set pieces to period supernatural yarns; echoing mansions, remote villages, rolling moors. If you're here for quintessential haunted worlds to get lost in you won't be disappointed." - Bookmunch
" . . . thoughtful rather than terrifying, with enough atmosphere to give the occasional chill and lots to chew over. Highly recommended." - Desperate Reader
"The Villa and The Vortex gave me hours of pleasure ... I'm always amazed at the depth and breadth of Edmundson's research and knowledge." - Oddly Weird Fiction
"Witchcraft here marks out the freedom of women's ways and rebellion against the theological forces that would seek to constrain them within a straitjacket of conventional morality." - Dead Reckonings
"The Villa and The Vortex is another excellent edition from Handheld with Edmundson's always-engaging and enthusiastic editorial work beautifully presented in the press's striking and elegant style. The cover art, 'Klingsor's Castle' by Hermann Hendrich, absolutely drips with the sense of stifling despair that often pervades Mordaunt's writing and Kate Macdonald's glossary usefully explains some of Mordaunt's period idiom." - Daniel Pietersen in HorrorHomeroom
"In her well-researched and erudite introduction, Melissa Edmundson examines each story in detail and makes a compelling case for including Mordaunt in the canon of great supernatural writers of the 20th century." - To The Ends of the World
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