A collection of supernatural, horror and fantasy stories from women writers, taken from magazines such as Weird Tales and mostly dating from the 1940s-50s.

This is one of the best in the British Library Tales of the Weird series that I’ve read. I enjoyed the main introduction and the mini introductions were interesting, detailing the publication histories of the quite often mysterious authors. Although the writing is described as the ‘pulp era’ the standard is high quality. I liked most of the stories and have put asterisks against my favourites:

‘The Rat Master’ by Greye La Spina – escaping from an evil sorcerer into a nightmare of rats

‘The Withered Heart’ by G G Pendarves * – a story of greed, inheritance and the occult

‘Leonora’ by Everil Worrell * – why a teenage girl is afraid of moonlight

‘Ode to Pegasus’ by Maria Moravsky – a pilot who fulfils his dreams

‘Mommy’ by Elizabeth Counselman * – adopting an orphaned child and the ghost of her mother

‘Daemon’ by C L Moore – a man who can see people’s souls, I appreciated the concept but wasn’t keen on the story

‘More Than Shadow’ by Dorothy Quick – a cute but spooky little dog has an agenda

‘The House Party on Smoky Island’ by L M Montgomery – somewhat simple and underwhelming ghost story

‘Forbidden Cupboard’ by Frances Garfield * – a writer can’t resist opening a cupboard the priest has warned her not to

‘The Underbody’ by Allison V Harding * – very unsettling story of an apparently dead man who lives underground

‘Brenda’ by Margaret St Clair – coming of age story of a girl whose encounter with a weird creature helps her become a rebel

‘They That Have Wings’ by Evangeline Walton – story of birds and transformation which I wasn’t keen on

‘Foxy’s Hollow’ by Leah Bodine Drake – I didn’t like the fox hunting theme but the message was effective

‘The Crying Child’ by Dorothea Gibbons – there’s a theory the author is Stella Gibbons but if so it’s not a good example of her work

‘Mirror, Mirror’ by Tanith Lee* – a girl tries to stop her mother falling prey to a vampire

Published in 2025 by the British Library.