D K Broster’s Weird fiction has long been forgotten, but she wrote some of the most impressive British supernatural short stories published between the wars.
Melissa Edmundson, editor of Women’s Weird, Women’s Weird 2, and Helen Simpson’s The Outcast and The Rite, all published by Handheld, has curated a selection of Broster’s best and most terrifying work. From the Abyss contains twelve stories, including:
‘The Window’, in which a soldier wanders into a deserted chateau, which does not approve.
‘The Pavement’, in which the protectress of a Roman mosaic cannot bear to let her burden go.
‘The Taste of Pomegranates’ draws two women into the very, very far-off past.
‘From the Abyss’, in which two lost women may be the same person.
‘Clairvoyance’, in which the ornamental weaponry in Strode Manor is more than merely decoration.