Weird Fiction Old, New, and In-Between VII: Appendix – Rafe McGregor

The seventh of six blog posts exploring the literary and philosophical significance of the weird tale, the occult detective story, and the ecological weird. The series suggests that the three genres of weird fiction dramatize humanity’s cognitive and evolutionary insignificance by first exploring the limitations of language, then the inaccessibility of the world, and finally the alienation within ourselves. This post provides notes on a new series from the British Library, the cases of Kyle Murchison Booth, and the Southern Reach Quartet.

 

The Weird Tale: The British Library Tales of the Weird

Somewhat to my shame, I only discovered the British Library series while researching this series of posts. I really should have seen it sooner as it has been going since 2018 and published fifty-three titles to date (roughly one a month). The books are all sturdy paperbacks, with colourful, imaginative, and attractive covers and spines and cost £10 or less, depending on where and how one buys them. Each instalment includes a ‘Note from the Publisher’, which serves as a combined trigger warning and ethical rationale and which I reproduce here as exemplary practice:

The original short stories reprinted in the British Library Tales of the Weird series were written and published in a period ranging across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are many elements of these stories which continue to entertain modern readers; however, in some cases there are also uses of language, instances of stereotyping and some attitudes expressed by narrators or characters which may not be endorsed by the publishing standards of today. We acknowledge therefore that some elements in the stories selected for reprinting may continue to make uncomfortable reading for some of our audience. With this series British Library Publishing aims to offer a new readership a chance to read some of the rare material of the British Library’s collections in an affordable paperback format, to enjoy their merits and to look back into the worlds of the past two centuries as portrayed by their writers. It is not possible to separate these stories from the history of their writing and as such the following stories are presented as they were originally published with minor edits only, made for consistency of style and sense.

My only complaint, which prompted me to include this part of the appendix, is that there are no numbers on or in the books, meaning that it isn’t easy to read them in order. I’m sure there is a sound reason for this editorial decision, but all collectors and some readers will want a chronological list. There’s one on Medium compiled by Owen Williams, which is easier to navigate than the British Library’s and which I used as a guide in compiling my own:  

1. From the Depths and Other Strange Tales of the Sea 
2. Haunted Houses: Two Novels by Charlotte Riddell 
3. Glimpses of the Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories
4. Mortal Echoes: Encounters With the End 
5. Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings
6. The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways
7. The Face in the Glass and Other Gothic Tales by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
8. The Weird Tales of William Hope Hodgson
9. Doorway to Dilemma: Bewildering Tales of Dark Fantasy
10. Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic
11. Promethean Horrors: Classic Stories of Mad Science
12. Roarings from Further Out: Four Weird Novellas by Algernon Blackwood
13. Tales of the Tattooed: An Anthology of Ink 
14. The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson
15. A Phantom Lover and Other Dark Tales by Vernon Lee
16. Into the London Fog: Eerie Tales from the Weird City
17. Weird Woods: Tales from the Haunted Forests of Britain
18. Queens of the Abyss: Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird
19. Chill Tidings: Dark Tales of the Christmas Season
20. Dangerous Dimensions: Mind-Bending Tales of the Mathematical Weird 
21. Heavy Weather: Tempestuous Tales of Stranger Climes
22. Minor Hauntings: Chilling Tales of Spectral Youth
23. Crawling Horror: Creeping Tales of the Insect Weird 
24. Cornish Horrors: Tales from the Land’s End 
25. I Am Stone: The Gothic Weird Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist
26. Randalls Round: Nine Nightmares by Eleanor Scott 
27. Sunless Solstice: Strange Christmas Tales for the Longest Nights 
28. The Shadows on the Wall: Dark Tales by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
29. The Ghost Slayers: Thrilling Tales of Occult Detection 
30. The Night Wire and Other Tales of Weird Media 
31. Our Haunted Shores: Tales from the Coasts of the British Isles 
32. The Horned God: Weird Tales of the Great God Pan
33. Spectral Sounds: Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird 
34. Haunters of the Hearth: Eerie Tales for Christmas Nights
35. Polar Horrors: Strange Tales from the World’s Ends
36. The Flaw in the Crystal and Other Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair
37. The Ways of Ghosts and Other Dark Tales by Ambrose Bierce
38. Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny 
39. The Uncanny Gastronomic: Strange Tales of the Edible Weird 
40. The Lure of Atlantis: Strange Tales from the Sunken Continent 
41. Dead Drunk: Tales of Intoxication and Demon Drinks 
42. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
43. Roads of Destiny and Other Stories of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms 
44. Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites
45. Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love 
46. The Undying Monster: A Tale of the Fifth Dimension by Jessie Douglas Kerruish
47. Fear in the Blood: Tales from the Dark Lineages of the Weird 
48. Out of the Past: Tales of Haunting History 
49. The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson
50. Deadly Dolls: Midnight Tales of Uncanny Playthings
51. The Human Chord by Algernon Blackwood
52. Eerie East Anglia: Fearful Tales of Field and Fen
53. The Haunted Trail: Classic Tales of the Rambling Weird

 There are three more titles due for publication, all by the end of this year:

54. The Weird Tales of Dorothy K. Haynes 
55. The Haunted Vintage by Marjorie Bowen 
56. Summoned to the Séance: Spirit tales from Beyond the Veil 

 

The Occult Detective Story: Kyle Murchison Booth

 In parts III and IV of this series, I praised Sarah Monette’s Kyle Murchison Booth occult detective stories and mentioned that some are, unfortunately, difficult to find. The eighteen stories have been published over a period of twenty years (2003-2023), during which two books have been published: The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (2007; second edition, 2011), a collection of ten short stories, and A Theory of Haunting (2023), a novella and the most recent story. This is a chronological list of all eighteen, with the original date of publication in parenthesis and my suggestion for the easiest way to find them… 

1. The Wall of Clouds (2003) – The Bone Key
2. The Venebretti Necklace (2004) – The Bone Key
3. The Inheritance of Barnabas Wilcox (2004) – The Bone Key
4. Bringing Helena Back (2004) – The Bone Key
5. The Green Glass Paperweight (2004) – The Bone Key
6. Wait for Me (2004) – The Bone Key
7. Elegy for a Demon Lover (2005) – The Bone Key
8. Drowning Palmer (2006) – The Bone Key
9. The Bone Key (2007) – The Bone Key
10. Listening to Bone (2007) – The Bone Key
11. The World Without Sleep (2008) – Somewhere Beneath Those Waves
12. The Yellow Dressing Gown (2008) – Apex
13. The Replacement (2008) – Sarah Monette
14. White Charles (2009) – Clarkesworld
15. To Die for Moonlight (2013) – Apex
16. The Testimony of Dragon’s Teeth (2018) – Uncanny
17. The Haunting of Dr. Claudius Winterson (2022) – Uncanny
18. A Theory of Haunting (2023) – A Theory of Haunting 

…I only hope that there are many more to come.

 

The Ecological Weird: Absolution

Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy – consisting of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance, all published in 2014 – becomes a quartet tomorrow, with the UK release of Absolution in hardback, paperback, Kindle, and Audible. My original intention for this appendix was to provide a synopsis or summary of the trilogy for those who might not want to reread all three books before starting the fourth, but nonetheless need a reminder of the sequence of events. (This is what I wanted, in spite of having read the trilogy several times and having no doubt that I would return to it and the quartet in future.) To cut a long story short, I failed dismally, and will poach Mac Rogers’ reason: ‘There’s really no way to give the Southern Reach pitch without sounding high, so I won’t try.’ I do, however, recommend the first part of Adam Roberts’ review of the trilogy, which provides the best summary I could find with limited spoilers. (The second part is also worth reading, although it’s more interpretative than descriptive.) There was chatter some time ago about a prequel to the Southern Reach and it’s not quite clear whether Absolution is a prequel, sequel, paraquel, or some combination of these categories (reminding me of Heat 2, which nearly ruined one of my favourite films). Here is what VanderMeer himself has to say on his website:

Ten years after the publication of Annihilation, the surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s blockbuster Southern Reach Trilogy.
When the Southern Reach Trilogy was first published a decade ago, it was an instant sensation, celebrated in a front-page New York Times story before publication, hailed by Stephen King and many others. Each volume climbed the bestsellers list; awards were won; the books made the rare transition from paperback original to hardcover; the movie adaptation became a cult classic. All told, the trilogy has sold more than a million copies and has secured its place in the pantheon of twenty-first-century literature.
And yet for all this, for Jeff VanderMeer there was never full closure to the story of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved, some key points of view never aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit in creating the conditions for Area X to take hold; the story of the first mission into the Forgotten Coast—before Area X was called Area X—had never been fully told; and what if someone had foreseen the world after Acceptance? How crazy would they seem?
Structured in three parts, each recounting a new expedition, there are some long-awaited answers here, to be sure, but also more questions, and profound new surprises. Absolution is a brilliant, beautiful, and ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile literary territory. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time.

I’m not sure that either more closure or more exposition are required or will enhance the trilogy as it stands, but I am confident that VanderMeer won’t ruin the masterpiece he created a decade ago. So far, there have been surprisingly few advance reviews: Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Scientific American.

 

More Recommended Reading

Fiction

John Hall (ed.), Five Forgotten Stories (2011).

Rafe McGregor, Eight Weird Tales (2024).

Rafe McGregor, Six Strange Cases (2024).

Nonfiction

Stephen Ellcock & Mat Osman, England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion's Psychic Landscape (2022).

Mark Valentine, The Thunder-Storm Collectors (2024).

Timothy Murphy, William Hope Hodgson and the Rise of the Weird: Possibilities of the Dark (2025).