What Did Miss Darrington See?: An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson (Editor), Rosemary Jackson (Introduction)

Winner of a 1989 Lambda Literary Award, this collection of twenty-four entertaining and haunting 19th-and 20th-century tales from the US, Britain, and Latin America reclaims a literary tradition that has long been overlooked. Using such techniques as magic realism, allegory, and surrealism, the authors re-imagine the cliches of supernatural fiction, focusing on female characters and treating traditional themes in inventive and provocative ways. Among the authors included are Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Luisa Valenzuela, Leonora Carrington, Barbara Burford, and Joanna Russ.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Feminism, Anthologies, Fantasy, Womens

264 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1989

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contents:

-- Introduction by Rosemary Jackson
-- Proem: The immortal (1908) Ellen Glasgow
-- The long chamber (1914) Olivia Howard Dunbar
-- A ghost story (1858) Ada Trevanion
-- Luella Miller (1902) Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
-- What did Miss Darrington see? (1870) Emma B. Cobb
-- La femme noir (1850) Anna Maria Hall
-- A friend in need (1981) Lisa Tuttle
-- Attachment (1974) Phyllis Eisenstein
-- Dreaming the sky down (1988) Barbara Burford
-- The sixth canvasser (1916) Inez Haynes Irwin
-- An unborn visitant (1932) Vita Sackville-West
-- Tamar (1932) Lady Eleanor Smith
-- There and here (1897) Alice Brown
-- The substitute (1914) Georgia Wood Pangborn
-- The teacher (1976) Luisa Valenzuela
-- The ghost (1978) Anne Sexton
-- Three dreams in a desert (1890) Olive Schreimer
-- The fall (1967) Armonia Somers
-- Pandora Pandaemonia (1988) Jules Faye
-- The Doll (1927) Vernon Lee
-- The debutante (1939) Leonora Carrington
-- The readjustment (1908) Mary Austin
-- Clay-shuttered doors (1926) Helen R. Hull
-- Since I died (1873) Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
-- The little dirty girl (1983) Joanna Russ
-- Envoi: for Emily D.
-- Recommended Reading

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of feminist supernatural fiction published between 1850 and 1988. It’s a challenge not to be ahistorical in thinking about these, in terms of both feminism and where these stories fit in terms of genre. “Supernatural fiction” seems often to be used as a more commercially viable pseudonym for horror with a bit of cultural capital cachet, but here it really does just mean non-mimetic fiction. I had a discussion with Laird Barron recently about whether ghost stories are “by definition” weird fiction or not (I say not). It’s useful here to channel John Clute’s thought that “supernatural fictions with a horror “feel” are better called Weird Fiction,” and argue that these are largely perfect examples of supernatural fictions that do not have “a horror ‘feel.’” Indeed, With these stories, the intrusion of the supernatural doesn’t even signify wrongness all the time - sometimes the ghost (and it’s almost always a ghost) is just a person who happens to be dead, and/or is offstage entirely. Rosemary Jackson intro - “Women writers of the supernatural have overturned many of these assumptions and definitions--not, as with some of their male counterparts, to investigate ‘horror’ for its own sake, but in order to extend our sense of the human, the real, beyond the blinkered limits of male science, language, and rationalism.” Which is all very essentialist, but accurate that these stories are (mostly) not horror-for-the-sake-of-horror.

Instead of horror, we have alienation, discontent, the stifling domestic environment, and women bucking the status quo - feminism, but a very white, very American-middle-and-upper class feminism (for the most part); universal sisterhood rather than intersectionality. It would be ahistorical, though, to deny the importance of these women writing stories featuring female POV characters who possess, or at least seek to possess, agency over their own lives. Many of these were more interesting to me as historical portraits of women’s lives than as supernatural stories in and of themselves - the best, of course, were the ones that fully combined those two strands.

Also worth mentioning: the stories collected here are (again, for the most part) decidedly not “misandrist,” the ridiculous/ironic watchword of the day. Very few focus on women gaining the upper hand over male abusers - they’re more likely, in fact, to not feature male characters at all.


The Long Chamber • (1914) • Olivia Howard Dunbar
A couple are restoring an old house when an old friend of the wife’s comes to visit - her loveless marriage echoes that of the original builders of the house. The fact that she is subsumed entirely into helping her husband’s career (“complete self-immolation”) drives the wife of the host couple to a more modern/feminist viewpoint, while her husband takes a more traditional view ((why not, if she loves him?). When the guest sees the ghost of young lover killed by house founder’s husband, she learns what true love is.

A Ghost Story • (1858) • Ada Trevanion
Homoeroticism is, perhaps unsurprisingly, an undercurrent throughout many of these tales, and here we have a student encountering the ghost of a beloved teacher (before she was aware the teacher was dead) and receiving an important bit of information that allows her to help the teacher’s family. The benevolent ghost is another ongoing theme.

Luella Miller • (1902) • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
An odd one, because I think this could easily be read as a misogynist story - a beautiful woman’s “self-destructive passivity” drains away the life of her caretakers (who had been “led away by a pretty face”); vampirism-by-another-name (“There are vampires, and there are vampires,” as Fritz Leiber wrote years later). Of course, it could also be read as an indictment of what the denial of agency can do to people. New England regionalism and dialectic, predating Lovecraft by more than a decade.

Conflicting readings aside, a classic of the American weird story, also present in Straub’s American Fantastic Tales.

What Did Miss Darrington See? • (1870) • Emma B. Cobb
A conversational narrative about a Massachusetts woman of great intelligence and good breeding who, while working as a governess in Kentucky, falls in love with a Cuban visitor (an American updating of the traditional Gothic Mediterranean/Catholic Other/inferior) - or rather, he falls madly in love with her, and while she is tempted to do the same, she instead chooses rationalism and social success. They part ways after a short sojourn, and never meet again until his ghost visits her after he is killed in the Glorious Revolution in Spain, after which she is distraught not to have valued his love more. “She believed that. If you doubt it--if you think it can not be--will you tell me what it was that Miss Darrington saw?”


La Femme Noir • (1850) • Mrs. S. C. Hall [as by Anna Maria Hall]
A young woman being raised by her uncle in an Alsatian castle falls in love and finds herself in a kind of Romeo-and-Juliet situation. She stands up to her uncle, a “dark, stern, violent man,” but he still attempts to ride down and kill the suitor before being stopped by the titular ghost. Remarkably, this gives him a newfound sense of piety, and after much time spent studying “THE BOOK,” he gives the lovers his blessing to marry and lives out the rest of his days a kind, peaceful man. Boilerplate Gothic, but fine enough for what it is. One of the few selections here with a man as a clearcut antagonist.

A Friend in Need • (1981) • Lisa Tuttle
Two women happen to meet in an airport, and slowly realize that each was the imaginary(?) friend of the other’s childhood. Universal sisterhood as support mechanism for child abuse. I liked this one.

Attachment • (1974) • Phyllis Eisenstein
Also tackles the idea of universal sisterhood while using telepathy as a means of examining generational and urban/rural differences (ie religion, pre-marital sex). Our protagonist is a 20-year-old American who has been in mental contact for as long as she can remember with a 50-year-old German, whose imminent death from cancer will leave the American on her own for the first time in her life. Clunky dialogue.

Dreaming the Sky Down • (1987) • Barbara Burford
I think this is the only story here by a woman of color, a Jamaican-born Londoner, and also the only story to include the intersections of race and class with sex. An overweight teen, antagonized by a racist bully of a gym teacher, finds herself with the ability to fly (freedom, autonomy, etc). My favorite new-to-me story here, I need to read a copy of Burford’s only collection in the near future.

The Sixth Canvasser • (1916) • Inez Haynes Gillmore [as by Inez Haynes Irwin ]
Like “Attachment,” concerned with approaching death - emphasized repeatedly with interjections of “The moment of death!” - an old woman sits and waits for death while watching a group of canvassers work her neighborhood to promote suffrage. She also meditates on technological (cars, electric lights) and social change, both in her own family and through the larger issue of suffrage (and remembers hearing Susan B. Anthony speak when she was a young girl). Throughout, she mourns the loss of a son who had vanished years before, and when he appears to gather her up, her terror turns to gentle acceptance. Jackson’s introduction suggests that this ending is “disturbingly open to interpretation,” but it doesn’t read that way to me at all.

An Unborn Visitant • (1932) • Vita Sackville-West
The night after she receives an unexpected marriage proposal, a “hopelessly ordinary” Edwardian lady receives a visit from the ghost of her unborn flapper daughter, and although they butt heads, the love between mother and daughter wins out, and she resolves to get married as soon as possible. Mostly played for laughs regarding generational differences and the things yet to come in the future (“Freud, you know--but no, of course you don’t know”).

Tamar • (1932) • Lady Eleanor Smith
Tamar, a “gipsy” anti-heroine, is alone one night and up to no good when a handsome stranger arrives and recounts her various misdeeds to her - it’s the Devil, in beautiful-fallen-angel mode, who has decided to marry her due to her evil escapades. She isn’t interested in playing second fiddle to him in Hell, so she poisons him and escapes. This one was fun - you have to wonder if Anton LaVey ever read it (vis a vis solipsistic individualism and Satan). Tamar belongs in the same genealogy as Jamaica Kincaid’s Xuela Claudette Richardson.

There and Here • (1897) • Alice Brown
Essentially the same plot as “Miss Darrington,” but this time with barely-concealed homoeroticism. Two lifelong friends are separated after Rosamund has to go live with her brother, leaving Ruth with “loneliness and heart-hunger.” Eight years later, Rosamund pays Ruth a visit, and the two spend the night in Rosamund’s childhood home, which is mysteriously no longer decrepit and ruined but clean and cheerful. The next day, Ruth’s mother tells her that Rosamund has died, and Ruth returns to the house only to find it as desolate and abandoned as it should have been.

The Substitute • (1914) • Georgia Wood Pangborn
A woman who refused to settle regrets never marrying or having children, when the ghost of an old friend who had had a happy marriage and children (but nothing else - “Envy me, but pity me, too!”) visits her and bequeaths her her two children. The appearance of the ghost is effectively creepy. Strikingly ambiguous statement about motherhood - the protagonist’s regret would seem to have little weight when balanced against the fact that the mother literally worked herself to death, but the end of the story seems to find both women at peace. There’s an odd moment of gender dysmorphia between the two children I haven’t quite puzzled out yet.

The Teacher • (1976) • Luisa Valenzuela
A man pays a visit to an old teacher whom he hopes to impress, is intercepted by her mob of bizarre children, and realizes that she is not how he remembered (she, meanwhile, barely remembers him at all). A reflection on man’s unreasonable and inhumane demands on/perceptions of women. Hallucinatory and odd.

The Ghost • (1978) • Anne Sexton
Well. While reading, this was one of my favorites - told from the point of view of the ghost, for a change, an old maid who haunts her great niece after her ignoble death in a nursing home. The two women share a name, never revealed, and the ghost is driven by an awful combination of self-loathing, jealousy, and antimodernism to torment the younger woman. Reading about Sexton’s life, though, retroactively ruined this for me

Three Dreams in a Desert • (1890) • Olive Schreiner
A prose poem written in epic, Biblical language. I didn’t get enough out of this to have anything to say here.

The Fall • (1967) • Armonia Somers (trans. of El derrumbamiento 1953)
Salmonson’s intros are usually pretty good but making no mention of race at all for this one is rather disappointing. Jackson, meanwhile, says that it “identifies women with blacks as social outsiders,” and if that was all it did it wouldn’t be great, but this is a story predicated on the reader’s disgust with the Virgin Mary (aka “the white Rose”) having sex with “the most naked and filthy of men” (ie a black man, who is usually referred to here by racial epithets). The black man is hiding in a safehouse after killing a white man, and after the house’s idol of Mary comes to life and demands this carnal debasement, she (“the Woman,” no longer “the Virgin”) leaves while the house (society) collapses, killing everyone inside.

Pandora Pandaemonia • (1989) • Jules Faye
Another very short prose poem, this one is a surreal reclamation of mythic images (death, goddesses, sea monsters, temples).

The Doll • (1896) • Vernon Lee
While visiting a local palace to buy antiques, our narrator becomes fixated on a most unusual family heirloom: a lifelike doll, commissioned generations ago by the family patriarch to honor his dead wife. More homoeroticism at play here; the narrator eventually buys and burns the doll in order to release the Doll (as she thinks of the actual woman) from “her sorrows.” The only supernatural element is the narrator’s sudden awareness of the Doll’s life story - and yet this was still one of my favorite stories here.

The Debutante • (1939) • Leonora Carrington
In which said debutante convinces a hyena acquaintance to go to a ball in her place. Short, sweet, and surreal, gives the lie to universal sisterhood when the debutante and hyena murder a maid in order to wear her face as a disguise.

The Readjustment • (1908) • Mary Hunter Austin
A woman who had always bucked the status quo dies and continues to haunt her home in order to try to bridge the unbridgeable disconnect between repression/husband and emotion/wife. A neighbor woman understands the dilemma, and convinces the ghost to leave after the husband tells “the Presence” all the things he should have said while she was alive. Sentimental, but not too much so. I loved the following exchange:

“Did you see her?”
“No.”
“How do you know, then?”
“Don’t you know?”
The neighbor felt there was nothing to say to that.

Clay-Shuttered Doors • (1926) • Helen R. Hull
Narrated by an unmarried woman journalist whose friend married a tyrant of a successful businessman. Reminiscent of Poe’s "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845), the wife is killed when the husband crashes their car one evening, but returns to life for a while (“It is hard to get back in”) to support him during one last business deal - this much is obvious to modern readers, but clues are dribbled out quite effectively, leading up to a penultimate scene where she makes herself up for one last dinner party, “as if she drew another face for herself.” This is the sort of story I expected from this book.

Since I Died • (1873) • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
The incredibly florid story of a thinly-veiled Boston marriage, narrated post-death by the ghost of one addressing her surviving partner. Unconvincingly interpretable as sisters rather than partners. Concerned, again, with the moment of death, and the running down of time.

The Little Dirty Girl • (1982) • Joanna Russ
If I had the money/time/energy/understanding of permissions and rights, I’d start a press just to publish Russ’s collected weird fiction (or collected short fiction, even). This, a letter to an unknown recipient, is about a Seattle-based author with chronic health problems who encounters the titular ghost. One of the all-time great American ghost stories. One of these days I’ll read it back-to-back with Truman Capote’s “Miriam” (1945). This story deserves a full review of its own, which I’ll get around to writing some day (ha ha).

[Jaksen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this anthology, and if read with the brain firmly fixed in the late 19th and early 20th century, the stories are enlightening, modern, crisp, endearing, and so on ...

When I read these stories I always check the date of publication first, and the magazine or collection/anthology in which they first appeared. I'm not a historian, but I try to imagine myself in that year, in some house, or drawing room (parlor?) or perhaps a quiet library with long, wooden floorboards that creak a bit when you walk over them. (Sorry, I'm describing many a library which still exists, aren't I?)

In other words, I like to place myself in their time, for otherwise some of the events described or dialogue rings a bit untrue to my 21st century ears. I don't want to do that. I want to enjoy the story as the original readers might have ...

But to the stories, they are ghost stories for the most part, and when I first read the collection (when it came out), I found the twists and turns of each story to be surprising. Of course the second time around, the surprise is gone - or I wonder, how did I not see that coming the first time I read this? All the same, the writing is delightful, well-structured, precise and this has come to be one of my favorite anthologies.

[Sean]

This was fun, all in all. I'd have been at least as happy if it had all been just American and British writers from the 19th and early 20th centuries. It feels like horror reprints are a little easier to find from this period, but these were gentler ghost stories. My most memorable: The Readjustment," Mary Austin and "Clay-Shuttered Doors," Helen R. Hull.

[Jeannie Sloan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly, I can not say enough about how good this book was.If you are a woman or even know a woman and are interested to know what her experiences are like to be a woman you can't gp wrong with this book.
The stories were scary-some of them-but more important they really portrayed what it was like to be a woman 100 years ago to the present day.
This book reminded me of the experience of sitting down with your best female friend and sharing wine with her and talking through the night about what your life has been like since you two parted.
If you have ever sat down with a woman and had a long and very deep conversation with her them this is what the book will remind you of.
I loved this book and think it's one of the best collections of stories out there for woman or men who are sympathetic towards women and their issues.
One thing is not to read the whole introduction before you read the stories.I would not do this because it gives some of the specialness away.Read it after the stories.
Also, read them in order.There is a certain beauty in the way they are told in order.
I won't go into all the individual stories because I want them to be a surprise for you but some points to make a on the following:The title work is wonderful.Talk about a strong successful woman.She was someone who was NOT a victim spinsterhoo'.She chose her independence over love and marriage.Talk about a woman who created her own destiny that was not dependent on any man like so many woman were at the time.I fell in love with her.I am also sure that there were quite a few woman in 1870 who were like her but we don't hear about them.We hear about the 'uselessness' of a woman if she was not a wife and mother.That is something that I have seen over and over again in the male as well as the female writers of the period.A woman at the time only had worth if she was beautiful.She was an ornament to a man and that's all.
A Friend in Need is a story about a woman meeting her childhood invisible friend at the airport.Or is she?
Attachment was a terrifying story of the attachment between two women in different parts of the world and what happens when one is sick.
The Sixth Canvessar I found chilling.I still have a great fear of death and dying so watching this woman go through the horror of life right before death I found almost unreadable.
Tamar was wonderful.If you have ever rooted for the bag guy/gal then this is a story that you will love.I found my self rooting her on into the most vile things.But I could also see her as a victim of her times and station so I had great sympathy for her.
The Teacher is a horrifying tale built on the male view of woman as virtue and what happens when she is a normal,flesh woman and not this ideal that this poor, stupid man thought.

Three Dreams in the Desert just has to be read to be appreciated.
The Fall is a welcome sacrilegious story of the Virgin Mary and her escape of her role.I loved it even though it turned my stomach a little and I am not Christian.I thought that it was a brave and noble story.
The Doll is another chilling story about the ornamentation of a very young wife and the subsequent freeing of her from entrapment from a man.
I have to say that I found The Debutant a scream.I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.
Clay-shuttered Doors is again about a woman not allowed to die peacefully but kept alive by a man's selfishness.
And finally Since I Died is a beautiful story of love and loss.The tenderness that the one woman feels for the other made me cry.I deeply felt her loss of her loved one.
One of the other very good things about this but aside from the stories is the reading list in the back and also the little blurb about the author's before the start of their stories.
I think this is the longest review that I have ever wrote but thought that this book was worth the time and effort.I will be doing a lot of further reading by these author's in the future and I hope that when you read this book you will find it just as special as I did.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read this collection of feminist supernatural stories for many decades, and was delighted to find that stories that didn't resonate with me then hit me really hard now. Anne Sexton's "The Ghost" had shifted from a jumble of images to a terrifying metaphor for mental illness. Olive Schreiner's "Three Dreams in a Desert" went from a sort of abstract fable to a reflection that moved me to tears. (You can find both of those online, they're worth a read). There were lots of others I enjoyed, it's a very eclectic mix.

(Note that one story features an African American protagonist who refers to himself and others refer to with harsh racial slurs)

[GracieKat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been wanting What Did Miss Darrington See? for quite awhile. Ever since a Goodreads friend recommended it to me. I had read the titular story - What Did Miss Darrington See? in other anthologies before but I was very curious to see what other stories and authors were represented. I will admit that I did find the introduction a bit dry but it was interesting to see the different interpretations of the stories and other works. So, what about the stories? Well, let's take a look.

The Long Chamber by Olivia Howard Dunbar - I have read this one in anthologies before and have always liked it. At least like it enough to read it when I come across it instead of skipping it. 3 Stars

A Ghost Story by Ada Trevanion - An interesting classic of the spectre appearing for a specific purpose. Decently readable. 3 Stars

Luella Miller by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - I love this story. It's creepy and has a great tone to it. There's a very good reading of it on Youtube, as well. The narrator probably isn't as great as a professional narrator would be but it fits the speech and tone of the story. 4 Stars

What Did Miss Darrington See? by Emma B. Cobb - The titular story. I've read it in other anthologies and I can't say that it's one of my favorites. I used to like it quite a lot but when I got older...not so much. Read into that what you will. The story has some very racist undertones to it (in regards to Raphael) and I don't feel like it's as 'feminist' as the compilers think, though. Miss Darrington is somewhat presented in the introduction as an independent female who dictates her relationship with Raphael on her terms. Which, in part, is true. However, it also insinuates that she's in love with either a former lover or deceased lover and it may only be that keeping her from loving Raphael. she also doesn't feel fully fleshed. It seems like a mix of 'not like other girls' and the perfect woman. She's smart, handsome, charismatic, a little chilly but always a lady. Raphael doesn't fare much better. He is described like this: "His terrible temper and reckless daring", "He was said to be as irresistible with women as he was dangerous with men", "She (Miss Darrington) mentally decided the romantic Cuban was probably a very ordinary young savage". Not convinced? Most of his descriptors involve some kind of animal and Miss Darrington thinks to herself "What jungle can have reared a wild animal like this?" So, yeah, fair to say...not my favorite. 1 Star

La Femme Noir by Anna Maria Hall - An overbearing uncle, a forbidden love. When you think you know where it's going to go - it doesn't. I really liked this one. 4 Stars

A Friend in Need by Lisa Tuttle - A very interesting and rather sweet tale of imaginary (maybe, maybe not) friends. 3 Stars

Attachment by Phyllis Eisenstein - A young woman and an elderly woman are connected spiritually from around the world. I really loved this story. It was sad and sweet and I loved the interactions between Ellie and Johanna. 4 Stars

Dreaming the Sky Down by Barbara Burford - I felt so badly for Donna. Every adult in her life seems horrible. But I loved the rest of the story. 4 Stars

The Sixth Canvasser by Inez Haynes Irwin - I could guess the ending but I didn't care. This was a great story. I loved the main character, Mrs. Blaisdell. Her inner monologues were interesting and I loved the way the family was. They were genuinely upset that she was passing away (not a spoiler, it tells you pretty quick). Reading horror, mysteries and drama you tend to see the horrible side of families a bit more than the good sides. 5 Stars

An Unborn Visitant by Vita Sackville West - A very prim and proper Edwardian woman named Elsa receives a marriage proposal. On the same night that she's considering it she gets a visit from her future daughter, a flapper and very modern woman. I thought it was very interesting. Elsa's reactions to her daughter make her reflect on hr marriage proposal. At first she really doesn't like her. As they talk, however, her feelings start to shift and they influence each other. It's a great story.. It's amusing and touching. 5 Stars

Tamar by Lady Eleanor Smith - Even if this character were male I would still hate it. The preface insinuates the male anti-hero as something people love. But even putting a male character in place of the female Tamar they would still be a loathsome character with the crimes laid at her feet by the Devil. However, you can't cheat the Devil forever. 2 Stars

There and Here by Alice Brown - A very touching and somewhat sad tale of the reunion of two lovers. Albeit with a bittersweet ending for Ruth and Rosamund. Also, I had never heard the terms "New England Marriage" or "Boston Marriage" used in the preface to describe lesbian relationships at the time this story was written. I found it very interesting. I would give it more than three but it drags a bit and could have been much better if some filler had been cut out. 3 Stars

The Substitute by Georgia Wood Pangborn - A woman knows her friend's daughter might need a substitute and she obliges. An excellent story. 5 Stars

The Teacher by Luisa Valenzuela - Mendizabal goes to see his old teacher that inspired him when he is younger. When he gets there he is confronted with her monstrous children and the teacher is not what he expected. I can't say that I liked this one very much. I didn't like Mendizabal at all and I wasn't quite sure what was going on, exactly. Even with the interpretation from the foreword. 2 Stars

The Ghost by Ann Sexton - An elderly relative passes away but sticks around as a ghost to encourage a niece who is like her. Well, terrify and control , anyway. I found this story to be very creepy and unsettling. 3 Stars

Three Dreams in a Desert: Under a Mimosa Tree by Olive Schreiner - I somewhat liked this story but it seemed to be in the fantasy genre rather than supernatural, I guess. 3 Stars

The Fall by Armonia Somers - I really liked this one. It subverts the Pure Virgin trope nicely. 4 Stars

Pandora Pandaemonia by Jules Faye - Another that seems more fantastically inclined. 2 Stars

The Doll by Vernon Lee - A fascination with a doll leads to redemption and release. 4 Stars

The Debutante by Leonora Carrington - A debutante is not all she appears in this tale. 3 Stars

The Readjustment by Mary Austin - A very insightful look at the different ways men and women grieve wrapped up in a sweetly sad ghost story. 4 Stars

Clay-Shuttered Doors by Helen R. Hull - A man's selfishness calls back his bride. But whether or not she wanted to is up for debate. 4 Stars

Since I Died by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps - A very touching story of parted lovers. 4 Stars

The Little Dirty Girl by Joanna Russ - I loved this story. It was great. That's all I can say. 5 Stars

So it was a collection with some good stories, some great stories and a few excellent ones. It's a good solid collection. Highly recommended.

Find this and other genre reviews at https://www.scifiandscary.com/

[Matthew Gatheringwater · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a collection of stories that could be loosely deemed “feminist horror” one might reasonably expect all the monsters to be men, but that is not the case in this anthology. Indeed, the most chilling characters in the collection are female. Luella Miller, first published in 1902, is the most original vampire story (no garlic, crosses, or even blood) and yet also a warning against the vacuity of passive female roles as ornament and dependent. The down-to-earth narrator of the tale is among those fictional characters I most regret not having a chance to meet in real life.

The anthology does suffer a bit from being a thematic collection, as the stories are uneven in quality. Some are fragmentary. Others seem to be mere curiosities, such as Vita Sackville-West's time-travelling flapper. There are still plenty of excellent stories, however. Some highlights for me:

Two very different takes on the imaginary friends of childhood:
A Friend in Need by Lisa Tuttle and Attachment by Phyllis Esenstein

A story about rising above it all:
Dreaming the Sky Down by Barbara Burford

A Boston Marriage with a ghost and Spiritualism:
There and Here by Alice Brown

The most ghastly of the first-person ghost stories:
The Ghost by Anne Sexton

The collection is edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, who provides illuminating introductions to each story and refers readers to sources if they would like to read more from each author.

[H. Givens · Rating 3 out of 5]

What Did Miss Darrington See? An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, is an interesting collection. It seems to genuinely present a subgenre of magazine stories that hasn’t gotten much modern attention. It’s particularly compelling because they’re mostly ghost stories, but not really horror stories — they all use the supernatural in different, perhaps more emotionally- or thematically-evocative ways. A few of the stories are really brilliant, but I’m sure everyone would pick different titles for that honor.

What really bothers me, though, is the introductory material. The introduction by Rosemary Jackson, and to a lesser extent the editor’s preface, imply that supernatural fiction is somehow inherently feminist because it’s irrational, and thus combats the rational patriarchy. Which, to me, is ridiculous and borderline offensive.

Full review: https://hannahgivens.wordpress.com/20...

[Niniane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another anthology I enjoyed very much! I had a pleasant discovery of many authors with feminist sensibilities. The stories were (as usual with that sort of book) of unequal quality. But there were some excellent discoveries, such as the titular story.

The stories are feminist in their themes, so don't expect long explicit tirades. But they challenge common tropes and put the emphasis on bonds between women, wether as mothers and daughters, friends and lovers. Which is also feminist in itself.

My favorites were:

-The Long Chamber
-A Ghost Story
-What did Miss Darrington see
-La femme noir
-Dreaming the sky down
-An unborn visitant
-Tamar
-Three dreams in a desert
-Pandora Pandaemonia
-Since I died
-The little dirty girl

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good collection of supernatural tales written by women... don't expect 'horror' as you now know it; this would fall under 'literary horror'. Worthy of note since most of the stories are obscure.

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 stars for the concept, 3 for my enjoyment of the stories

[Raven L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the stories were so sad and beautiful....

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great collection of ghostly literature! Many of the stories are from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and Salmonson has done a nice job of pulling some great stories out of obscurity. It definitely gave me a list of authors I'd never encountered before to check out! While this won a Lambda award for lesbian science fiction in 1990, it's worth mentioning that the majority of the stories have few lesbian elements, and those that do tend to handle the subject in a veiled manner. This isn't to suggest that the book did not deserve the award -- it's an amazing collection, and the short biographical notes on the authors reveal that many of them had romantic relationships with women -- but one should go in expecting a woman-centric book more than an explicitly lesbian one. Although, it is fun to play "count the Boston marriages." :)

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an anthology of feminist supernatural short stories written between 1850 and 1989. Almost all the stories have a ghost, but none are truly horror stories. At least not like how we consider horror today. They are just mostly ghost stories with the most common theme of women trying to be authentic. None of the stories are man-hating, although one of the stories has a man who is rather a cad. They are almost all simply about fulfillment in a woman’s life, or the lack thereof, and that issue brought forth by the appearance of a ghost.

Come visit my blog for the full review…
http://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspot...

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not going to say I desperately loved every story in this, but as an anthology, it does really well. It traces more than a hundred years of women writing ghost stories and speculative fiction, giving context to each story in the introductory note, and a great list of recommended reading in the back. I have a lot of follow-up reading based on this, though I'm in no more hurry to burn through it than I was to read this volume (see that it took most of a year for me to meander through.)

[Chloe H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an eye opener! I'm grateful to the editor for putting together some truly excellent (and sometimes very scary!) ghost fiction written by women that would otherwise have been suppressed or lost to history.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't let the cheesy cover fool you, this book was way better than expected! A must read for the feminist ghost-story lover.

[Debra B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed nearly all the stories in this book. An interesting anthology, with helpful information about each author before each story.