In the Dark

While Edith Nesbit's mainstream fiction—author of such classic books for children as The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899) and The Railway Children (1906) —has often been revived, her tales of terror—apart from one or two anthologized pieces—have fallen into unwarranted neglect. This collection now makes ample amends by bringing together fourteen excellent stories culled from Grim Tales and Something Went Wrong (1893) and from Fear (1910), including such forgotten gems as 'From the Dead', 'The Ebony Frame', 'The Head', and 'Hurst of Hurstcote'.

In the context of Edith Nesbit's life and marriage to the priapic Hubert Bland, these powerfully told tales, with their frequent sexual overtones, reflect deep-seated fears and anxieties—in particular, childhood memories of seeing mummified corpses in a Bordeaux church ("skeletons with the flesh hardened on their bones, with their long dry hair hanging on each side of the or brown faces') and a lifelong dread of being buried alive.

But these are more than attempts at personal exorcism. Edith Nesbit was a natural storyteller and her gifts are shown to the full in this collection, which will do much to reestablish her as one of the most accomplished and entertaining ghost story writers of the past hundred years.