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The Gentlewomen of Evil: An Anthology of Rare Supernatural Stories from the Pens of Victorian Ladies
CONTENTS:
Transformation, by M. Shelley.
The open door, by Mrs. Oliphant.
The Italian's story, by C. Crowe.
The ghost, by Mrs. H. Wood.
The old nurse's story, by Mrs. Gaskell.
The phantom coach, by A. Edwards.
The lifted veil, by M. A. Evans.
Eveline's visitant, by Miss Braddon.
Sandy the tinker, by Mrs. Riddell.
A tale of a gas-light ghost. Anonymous.
Eyes of terror, by Mrs. L. T. Meade.
At the dip of the road, by Mrs. Molesworth.
The Gorgon's head, by G. Bacon.
Transformation, by M. Shelley.
The open door, by Mrs. Oliphant.
The Italian's story, by C. Crowe.
The ghost, by Mrs. H. Wood.
The old nurse's story, by Mrs. Gaskell.
The phantom coach, by A. Edwards.
The lifted veil, by M. A. Evans.
Eveline's visitant, by Miss Braddon.
Sandy the tinker, by Mrs. Riddell.
A tale of a gas-light ghost. Anonymous.
Eyes of terror, by Mrs. L. T. Meade.
At the dip of the road, by Mrs. Molesworth.
The Gorgon's head, by G. Bacon.
254 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1967
About the author
Peter Haining
337 books101 followersPeter Alexander Haining was an English journalist, author and anthologist who lived and worked in Suffolk. Born in Enfield, Middlesex, he began his career as a reporter in Essex and then moved to London where he worked on a trade magazine before joining the publishing house of New English Library.
Haining achieved the position of Editorial Director before becoming a full time writer in the early Seventies. He edited a large number of anthologies, predominantly of horror and fantasy short stories, wrote non-fiction books on a variety of topics from the Channel Tunnel to Sweeney Todd and also used the pen names "Ric Alexander" and "Richard Peyton" on a number of crime story anthologies. In the Seventies he wrote three novels, including The Hero (1973), which was optioned for filming.
In two controversial books, Haining argued that Sweeney Todd was a real historical figure who committed his crimes around 1800, was tried in December 1801, and was hanged in January 1802. However, other researchers who have tried to verify his citations find nothing in these sources to back Haining's claims. A check of the website Old Bailey at for "Associated Records 1674-1834" for an alleged trial in December 1801 and hanging of Sweeney Todd for January 1802 show no reference; in fact the only murder trial for this period is that of a Governor/Lt Col. Joseph Wall who was hanged 28 January 1802 for killing a Benjamin Armstrong 10 July 1782 in "Goree" Africa and the discharge of a Humphrey White in January 1802. Strong reservations have also been expressed regarding the reliability of another of Haining's influential non-fiction works, The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack.
He wrote several reference books on Doctor Who, including the 20th anniversary special Doctor Who: A Celebration Two Decades Through Time and Space (1983), and also wrote the definitive study of Sherlock Holmes on the screen, The Television Sherlock Holmes (1991) and several other television tie-ins featuring famous literary characters, including Maigret, Poirot and James Bond. Peter Haining's most recent project was a series of World War Two stories based on extensive research and personal interviews: The Jail That Went To Sea (2003), The Mystery of Rommel's Gold (2004), Where The Eagle Landed (2004), The Chianti Raiders (2005) and The Banzai Hunters (2007).
He won the British Fantasy Awards Karl Edward Wagner Award in 2001.
Haining achieved the position of Editorial Director before becoming a full time writer in the early Seventies. He edited a large number of anthologies, predominantly of horror and fantasy short stories, wrote non-fiction books on a variety of topics from the Channel Tunnel to Sweeney Todd and also used the pen names "Ric Alexander" and "Richard Peyton" on a number of crime story anthologies. In the Seventies he wrote three novels, including The Hero (1973), which was optioned for filming.
In two controversial books, Haining argued that Sweeney Todd was a real historical figure who committed his crimes around 1800, was tried in December 1801, and was hanged in January 1802. However, other researchers who have tried to verify his citations find nothing in these sources to back Haining's claims. A check of the website Old Bailey at for "Associated Records 1674-1834" for an alleged trial in December 1801 and hanging of Sweeney Todd for January 1802 show no reference; in fact the only murder trial for this period is that of a Governor/Lt Col. Joseph Wall who was hanged 28 January 1802 for killing a Benjamin Armstrong 10 July 1782 in "Goree" Africa and the discharge of a Humphrey White in January 1802. Strong reservations have also been expressed regarding the reliability of another of Haining's influential non-fiction works, The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack.
He wrote several reference books on Doctor Who, including the 20th anniversary special Doctor Who: A Celebration Two Decades Through Time and Space (1983), and also wrote the definitive study of Sherlock Holmes on the screen, The Television Sherlock Holmes (1991) and several other television tie-ins featuring famous literary characters, including Maigret, Poirot and James Bond. Peter Haining's most recent project was a series of World War Two stories based on extensive research and personal interviews: The Jail That Went To Sea (2003), The Mystery of Rommel's Gold (2004), Where The Eagle Landed (2004), The Chianti Raiders (2005) and The Banzai Hunters (2007).
He won the British Fantasy Awards Karl Edward Wagner Award in 2001.
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April 11, 2010
As I plunged ahead in my Victorian Horror binge, I reached this nice little tome (great color combo on that cover!). A number of years ago a themed anthology of female writers of a particular genre would have been the provenance of a University Press so this may have been one of the first (1967) for general consumption - probably helped by the public domain status of the stories.
I'd read, as usual, about half the pieces here before but I reread everything for the review and, honestly, while nothing here blew me away, there were only three weak stories as a balance. As usual, start at the bottom and work my way up.
"The Italian's Story" by Catherine Crowe had previously underwhelmed and did so again - basically, it's your standard "ghost leads to buried treasure story" with a bit of murder plot thrown into the start and really only made me reflect on the fact that here the ghost was taking a role that previously, in folklore, had usually been the provenance of the faerie folk. But still - won't be reading it again.
Mrs Henry Wood's "The Ghost" is another staple - the "college prank gone wrong" - unremarkable and notable only for a familiar, clipped style to the writing and the occasional humorous aside.
Now, there's nothing wrong with "Eyes Of Terror" by L.T. Meade, it's just that it's not technically a "supernatural" story and truthfully falls into a genre which I have little-to-no interest in - early examples of mystery writing. Follow me here - young woman, inheritor of fortune (along with her two ne'er-do-well layabout cousins) from father just killed in the Boer War, is plagued by visions of two glowing eyes in the dark of the night which peer at her. Oh, there may be a change to dad's will arriving in the mail, in which she gets everything and the cousins get nothing - and the cousins have an interest in radium. You do the math. Fine for what it is, but what it is in not what I want...
Moving on to the good but slightly problematic...
Mary Ann Evans (aka George Eliot - had to write under a male pseudonym for reasons explicable to the times) has a novella length piece here - "The Lifted Veil" - which probably suffered a bit from my reading it piecemeal as well as its structure - told to you by a man about to die as he flashes back on his life. He was born with an artistic temperament, you see, but no skill and so moons through his life until a near-fatal illness seems to open up an added layer to that artistic sensitivity. Now, as to what that is, it's hard to say. Sometimes it seems to be a visionary power, sometimes a precognitive power and sometimes a "soul sensitivity" which could be classed as something like empathy or emotional telepathy (he can't help but know, despite the pain to his delicate nature, the truth of what people around him are feeling - cue that old stand-by about how our outward appearances of kindness and charity mask our petty and hateful interiors). In truth , I struggled with this - there were aspects I liked (the circular ending, the vision of an empty, sweltering Prague) and while our weak, poetic emo non-poet rails against the falsity and dullness of those around him, I couldn't help but feel that the author was expecting us to be just as annoyed with him as I was - which is also a good thing. But it's also very long-winded and frustrating, what with his pining after his dullard (he claims) brother's wife, only to find her - *gasp* - not his ideal!
"At The Dip Of The Road" by Mrs Molesworth is a slight piece - really just another of those classic "that odd person you say you saw? Why, that was the local g-g-g-ghost!" - but enjoyable for brisk writing and the fussing over class details - the narrator has to share her trip back by train with the drunken merchant class, which she finds "somewhat horrid", and then has to lower herself to letting an obviously drunk yeoman (he falls asleep at the reigns!) drive her back to her country manor (because, you know, knowing how to drive a carriage herself is completely out of the question and besides, she'd miss the chance to be indignant!).
A bluff old sailor spins a yarn of a remote Greek island and a cursed valley which contains many odd lumps of rock and a strange hanging object in Gertrude Bacon's "The Gorgon's Head". No surprises (given the title), not earthshaking, but entertaining all the same.
I'll repurpose two reviews from previous volumes here:
When originally reading Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Old Nurse's Story" I was probably turned off by its "Woman's Gothic" stiffness and predictability, but I'm a bit more forgiving about such things nowadays (I'd still say it's a bit too long-winded for it's own good and the thuddingly obvious moral conclusion is just not my cuppa) and found I could appreciate it more. So you get such stolid standbys as wealthy gentry and servants, dark family secrets, an illegitimate child, a family curse, a ghostly organ that plays on stormy nights and a sealed wing of an isolated mansion - no doubt, someone walked down a corridor while holding a candle somewhere within there as well! Probably the best thing about this story is the ghost (or ghosts, to be exact) - a wailing woman and ghostly child who haunt the snowy evening wastes around the mansion, attempting to lure a living child to her death. A bit like the Hispanic-American La Llorona folklore ghost, to my eye.
"The North Mail" by Amelia B. Edwards is another story I had previously liked and re-read to find I still like it quite a bit. A hunter gets caught in a snowstorm, lodges for a short time with a a reclusive and grumpy gentleman (a philosopher who has hidden himself away from the modern world after being mocked for his belief in the supernatural) who expounds on the mysteries of life and death and the afterlife, and then reenters the night to catch transport home - but winds up catching the wrong coach. While very basic in structure (essentially, it's almost a classic bit of folklore without the professor) there's also some very nice creepy descriptions of the coach's inhabitants. Must have froze the blood, back in the day.
A dissolute young wastrel of a wealthy family loses everything, including his heart's love, and then receives an offer to switch bodies with a hideous, Satanic dwarf in Mary Shelley's "Transformation" - a well-done moral fable (even with a slightly predictable end) that features a great sequence where our despondent, Byronic hero roams a lonely beach, only to see (and more importantly hear) a shipwreck nearby about which he can do nothing. Good stuff.
Margaret Oliphant's "The Open Door", while long, was a very strong story, even with it's moralistically heavy-handed and sentimental ending. A man returns to his country manor to find his son dangerously ill, the result of having experienced an encounter with the local ghost that haunts the ruins on the grounds (essentially, just part of a stone wall with a doorway, open on both sides). The son's chance of recovery seems tied to the father resolving the emotional distress the boy experienced at hearing - never seeing - a wailing voice begging to be let in through the ruined doorway. The solution to this mystery/problem may have been a biiiit too coincidental (still, one must forgive these things if one is to enjoy life, right?) but it must be said that the two scenes in which the father and assistants go at night to experience the haunting themselves (fully convinced that such things just do not happen - despite the scared locals attesting to the opposite) are expertly done. They capture the uncanny sense that an encounter in the pitch dark with an eerie, impossible sound should elicit (the fact that it's just a voice, and not even a visible specter, makes it even more impressive). It's good writing and a textbook example of how to generate fear through attention to detail, mood and character.
A man is cursed after killing a fellow in an impetuous duel and retires to his country manor with his new wife in tow, only to have his beloved report to him that she keeps seeing a very singular individual in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Eveline's Visitant". This story pulls a trick I'd previously seen in Mario Bava's film HATCHET FOR A HONEYMOON (originally Il rosso segno della follia) from 1970 - the "haunted" individual cannot actually see the specter that plagues him, instead it is perceived by those about him - which is used to chilling effect. Solid stuff!
"A Tale Of A Gas-Light Ghost" by that prolific author Anonymous (father of Anon. and brother of Divers Hans) sets up an interesting scenario where a taciturn and anti-social young landholder (prone to cataleptic fits) begrudgingly agrees to meet with the rest of his village as they devise a way to stop the railroad being run through town. Unfortunately, he is accompanied by a strange, pale individual who makes portentous pronouncements to all present. What I liked about this story is that it chooses not to explain anything or make much logical sense (even presumed genre plot sense) and just be symbolically ambiguous. I dug it and, in a way, it's the most "modern" story in this collection while still being very old school (it comes off like a regional legend).
Finally, there's "Sandy The Tinker" by Charlotte Riddell - another moral fable, but also an enjoyable read - in which a country minister experiences a profound dream of meeting the Devil and entering Hell through a large stone near a local waterfall, where the Devil demands that the minister suffer the torments of the damned OR suggest someone else to take his place (ah, that crafty Devil!). Horrified by what he sees, in a moment of moral cowardice the fearful pastor suggests the titular character, a local reprobate of ill repute. Things turn out as expected - or maybe not - what can I say, I liked it (it has a strange structure - a framing story in which someone relates a story about being told a dream!).
And that's it for this one - two more books of Victorian horror to go, but I have to take a few weeks to read submissions and peruse an Inter-Library Loan first!
I'd read, as usual, about half the pieces here before but I reread everything for the review and, honestly, while nothing here blew me away, there were only three weak stories as a balance. As usual, start at the bottom and work my way up.
"The Italian's Story" by Catherine Crowe had previously underwhelmed and did so again - basically, it's your standard "ghost leads to buried treasure story" with a bit of murder plot thrown into the start and really only made me reflect on the fact that here the ghost was taking a role that previously, in folklore, had usually been the provenance of the faerie folk. But still - won't be reading it again.
Mrs Henry Wood's "The Ghost" is another staple - the "college prank gone wrong" - unremarkable and notable only for a familiar, clipped style to the writing and the occasional humorous aside.
Now, there's nothing wrong with "Eyes Of Terror" by L.T. Meade, it's just that it's not technically a "supernatural" story and truthfully falls into a genre which I have little-to-no interest in - early examples of mystery writing. Follow me here - young woman, inheritor of fortune (along with her two ne'er-do-well layabout cousins) from father just killed in the Boer War, is plagued by visions of two glowing eyes in the dark of the night which peer at her. Oh, there may be a change to dad's will arriving in the mail, in which she gets everything and the cousins get nothing - and the cousins have an interest in radium. You do the math. Fine for what it is, but what it is in not what I want...
Moving on to the good but slightly problematic...
Mary Ann Evans (aka George Eliot - had to write under a male pseudonym for reasons explicable to the times) has a novella length piece here - "The Lifted Veil" - which probably suffered a bit from my reading it piecemeal as well as its structure - told to you by a man about to die as he flashes back on his life. He was born with an artistic temperament, you see, but no skill and so moons through his life until a near-fatal illness seems to open up an added layer to that artistic sensitivity. Now, as to what that is, it's hard to say. Sometimes it seems to be a visionary power, sometimes a precognitive power and sometimes a "soul sensitivity" which could be classed as something like empathy or emotional telepathy (he can't help but know, despite the pain to his delicate nature, the truth of what people around him are feeling - cue that old stand-by about how our outward appearances of kindness and charity mask our petty and hateful interiors). In truth , I struggled with this - there were aspects I liked (the circular ending, the vision of an empty, sweltering Prague) and while our weak, poetic emo non-poet rails against the falsity and dullness of those around him, I couldn't help but feel that the author was expecting us to be just as annoyed with him as I was - which is also a good thing. But it's also very long-winded and frustrating, what with his pining after his dullard (he claims) brother's wife, only to find her - *gasp* - not his ideal!
"At The Dip Of The Road" by Mrs Molesworth is a slight piece - really just another of those classic "that odd person you say you saw? Why, that was the local g-g-g-ghost!" - but enjoyable for brisk writing and the fussing over class details - the narrator has to share her trip back by train with the drunken merchant class, which she finds "somewhat horrid", and then has to lower herself to letting an obviously drunk yeoman (he falls asleep at the reigns!) drive her back to her country manor (because, you know, knowing how to drive a carriage herself is completely out of the question and besides, she'd miss the chance to be indignant!).
A bluff old sailor spins a yarn of a remote Greek island and a cursed valley which contains many odd lumps of rock and a strange hanging object in Gertrude Bacon's "The Gorgon's Head". No surprises (given the title), not earthshaking, but entertaining all the same.
I'll repurpose two reviews from previous volumes here:
When originally reading Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Old Nurse's Story" I was probably turned off by its "Woman's Gothic" stiffness and predictability, but I'm a bit more forgiving about such things nowadays (I'd still say it's a bit too long-winded for it's own good and the thuddingly obvious moral conclusion is just not my cuppa) and found I could appreciate it more. So you get such stolid standbys as wealthy gentry and servants, dark family secrets, an illegitimate child, a family curse, a ghostly organ that plays on stormy nights and a sealed wing of an isolated mansion - no doubt, someone walked down a corridor while holding a candle somewhere within there as well! Probably the best thing about this story is the ghost (or ghosts, to be exact) - a wailing woman and ghostly child who haunt the snowy evening wastes around the mansion, attempting to lure a living child to her death. A bit like the Hispanic-American La Llorona folklore ghost, to my eye.
"The North Mail" by Amelia B. Edwards is another story I had previously liked and re-read to find I still like it quite a bit. A hunter gets caught in a snowstorm, lodges for a short time with a a reclusive and grumpy gentleman (a philosopher who has hidden himself away from the modern world after being mocked for his belief in the supernatural) who expounds on the mysteries of life and death and the afterlife, and then reenters the night to catch transport home - but winds up catching the wrong coach. While very basic in structure (essentially, it's almost a classic bit of folklore without the professor) there's also some very nice creepy descriptions of the coach's inhabitants. Must have froze the blood, back in the day.
A dissolute young wastrel of a wealthy family loses everything, including his heart's love, and then receives an offer to switch bodies with a hideous, Satanic dwarf in Mary Shelley's "Transformation" - a well-done moral fable (even with a slightly predictable end) that features a great sequence where our despondent, Byronic hero roams a lonely beach, only to see (and more importantly hear) a shipwreck nearby about which he can do nothing. Good stuff.
Margaret Oliphant's "The Open Door", while long, was a very strong story, even with it's moralistically heavy-handed and sentimental ending. A man returns to his country manor to find his son dangerously ill, the result of having experienced an encounter with the local ghost that haunts the ruins on the grounds (essentially, just part of a stone wall with a doorway, open on both sides). The son's chance of recovery seems tied to the father resolving the emotional distress the boy experienced at hearing - never seeing - a wailing voice begging to be let in through the ruined doorway. The solution to this mystery/problem may have been a biiiit too coincidental (still, one must forgive these things if one is to enjoy life, right?) but it must be said that the two scenes in which the father and assistants go at night to experience the haunting themselves (fully convinced that such things just do not happen - despite the scared locals attesting to the opposite) are expertly done. They capture the uncanny sense that an encounter in the pitch dark with an eerie, impossible sound should elicit (the fact that it's just a voice, and not even a visible specter, makes it even more impressive). It's good writing and a textbook example of how to generate fear through attention to detail, mood and character.
A man is cursed after killing a fellow in an impetuous duel and retires to his country manor with his new wife in tow, only to have his beloved report to him that she keeps seeing a very singular individual in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Eveline's Visitant". This story pulls a trick I'd previously seen in Mario Bava's film HATCHET FOR A HONEYMOON (originally Il rosso segno della follia) from 1970 - the "haunted" individual cannot actually see the specter that plagues him, instead it is perceived by those about him - which is used to chilling effect. Solid stuff!
"A Tale Of A Gas-Light Ghost" by that prolific author Anonymous (father of Anon. and brother of Divers Hans) sets up an interesting scenario where a taciturn and anti-social young landholder (prone to cataleptic fits) begrudgingly agrees to meet with the rest of his village as they devise a way to stop the railroad being run through town. Unfortunately, he is accompanied by a strange, pale individual who makes portentous pronouncements to all present. What I liked about this story is that it chooses not to explain anything or make much logical sense (even presumed genre plot sense) and just be symbolically ambiguous. I dug it and, in a way, it's the most "modern" story in this collection while still being very old school (it comes off like a regional legend).
Finally, there's "Sandy The Tinker" by Charlotte Riddell - another moral fable, but also an enjoyable read - in which a country minister experiences a profound dream of meeting the Devil and entering Hell through a large stone near a local waterfall, where the Devil demands that the minister suffer the torments of the damned OR suggest someone else to take his place (ah, that crafty Devil!). Horrified by what he sees, in a moment of moral cowardice the fearful pastor suggests the titular character, a local reprobate of ill repute. Things turn out as expected - or maybe not - what can I say, I liked it (it has a strange structure - a framing story in which someone relates a story about being told a dream!).
And that's it for this one - two more books of Victorian horror to go, but I have to take a few weeks to read submissions and peruse an Inter-Library Loan first!
May 14, 2025
3.92⭐
Introduction • Peter Haining ✔
Transformation • M. Shelley 4⭐
The Open Door • Mrs. Oliphant 3.25⭐
The Italian's Story • C. Crowe 3.25⭐
The Ghost • Mrs. H. Wood (Chapter XXXIX of The Channings) 3.25⭐
The Old Nurse's Story • Mrs. Gaskell 4.25⭐
The Phantom Coach • A. Edwards 5⭐
The Lifted Veil • M. A. Evans [George Eliot] 3.25⭐
Eveline's Visitant • Miss Braddon 4⭐
Sandy the Tinker • Mrs. Riddell 4.25⭐
A Tale of a Gas-light Ghost • Anonymous 5⭐
Eyes of Terror • Mrs. L. T. Meade 4.25⭐
At the Dip of the Road • Mrs. Molesworth 3⭐
The Gorgon's Head • Gertrude Bacon 4.25⭐
Captain Brander's reputation as a teller of tall tales precedes him, but is the strange account he relates to his passenger, Miss Baker, of what befell him and a shipmate on the island of Zante mere fabrication...or the unvarnished truth?
Introduction • Peter Haining ✔
Transformation • M. Shelley 4⭐
The Open Door • Mrs. Oliphant 3.25⭐
The Italian's Story • C. Crowe 3.25⭐
The Ghost • Mrs. H. Wood (Chapter XXXIX of The Channings) 3.25⭐
The Old Nurse's Story • Mrs. Gaskell 4.25⭐
The Phantom Coach • A. Edwards 5⭐
The Lifted Veil • M. A. Evans [George Eliot] 3.25⭐
Eveline's Visitant • Miss Braddon 4⭐
Sandy the Tinker • Mrs. Riddell 4.25⭐
A Tale of a Gas-light Ghost • Anonymous 5⭐
Eyes of Terror • Mrs. L. T. Meade 4.25⭐
At the Dip of the Road • Mrs. Molesworth 3⭐
The Gorgon's Head • Gertrude Bacon 4.25⭐
Captain Brander's reputation as a teller of tall tales precedes him, but is the strange account he relates to his passenger, Miss Baker, of what befell him and a shipmate on the island of Zante mere fabrication...or the unvarnished truth?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews