In the Dark

Edith Nesbit is today best known for her works for children: her 1906 novel THE RAILWAY CHILDREN is a classic of the genre. Yet Nesbit had a much darker side, which revealed itself in her tales of terror and the supernatural. Most of these tales were written before the author established herself as a writer of children's stories, and were soon overshadowed, to be nearly forgotten - with one or two exceptions - for almost one hundred years. In 1988, Hugh Lamb edited IN THE DARK for the Equation Chillers series, and has now added a further seven stories for this expanded edition. In Nesbit's twilight world, the dead return from the grave, scientists pursue knowledge to the gates of death - and beyond; souls are bartered to the Devil in exchange for one last wish; a casual wager leads to madness; and a seemingly harmless maker of models exacts a terrible price for a wrong done years before.

In his introduction, Hugh Lamb examines the colourful life of Edith Nesbit, painting a portrait of a woman whose unconventional life set her apart from her Victorian and Edwardian contemporaries in the ghost story genre. He also looks at some of the events and experiences which may have inspired Nesbit's supernatural fiction - events which, in the author's words, gave her 'nights and nights of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear and dread.'