Deadly Dolls: Midnight Tales of Uncanny Playthings

by Elizabeth Dearnley (Editor)

As mannequins, automata, effigies and dummies, dolls have haunted our imagination since ancient times, invoked throughout the years in literature and film as quintessential symbols of the uncanny.

In this collection of fourteen tales harking from 1817 to 2022, Elizabeth Dearnley presents a sinister troupe of unsettling playthings from the minds of E. T. A. Hoffmann, Daphne du Maurier, Angela Carter, Agatha Christie, Robert Aickman, Camilla Grudova and many more.

Including possessed puppets, artificial suitors and figures that blur the lines between human and doll, fresh nightmares await when the doors of the dolls’ house swing open and its denizens come out to play.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, Weird Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 2024

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The doll wasn't lying on the floor of the cage, but was standing against the padlocked door. And as the curtains parted it turned its face sharply towards me”
Another collection from the Tales of the Weird series. This time it’s about toys: mainly dolls and dolls houses. There is a broad range of stories ranging date wise from1817 to 2022. There are a couple of very recent stories. This time the tales are grouped in themes: Dancing Dolls, Troublesome Toys, Doll Lovers, Possessing Puppets, Fashion Dolls and Doll Houses. There are two or three stories in each grouping.
The list of writers is also impressive; Jerome K Jerome. Joan Aitken, E T A Hoffmann, Brian Aldiss, Vernon Lee, Dapne Du Maurier, Adele Geras, Angela Carter, Ysabelle Cheung, Agatha Christie, Frederick Smith, M R James, Camilla Grudova and Robert Aickman.
Most of the stories are pretty strong and there are no really weak ones. The Dolls House stories are both effective (One of M R James’s better outings). The dummy coming to life tales also work. There is dystopia, dance, a creepy dolls hospital and much more and they’re all a bit more subtle than Chucky!
The role of dolls as transitional objects is also explored and the introduction references Freud’s “The uncanny”. The editor, Elizabeth Dearnley points out that the invention/development of the porcelain in Victorian times did a good deal to encourage this sort of story. Although corn dolls related to harvest rituals, go back centuries. Actually the introduction is very good and examines the overlap and origins of the words idol and doll and of course clay models to curse or cure go back to Mesopotamia over four thousand years ago.
This is a good collection if you enjoy this sort of story.

[Mizuki]

(1) The Doll by Daphne du Maurier

I like how du Maurier wrote the passion and madness a man had for a mysterious woman called Rebecca!

(2) The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffman

OMG I recognized this story from Angela Carter’s The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman! So Carter's novella is based on this story ne?

(3) The Dancing Partner by Jerome K. Jerome

It is a short, simple but very haunting story.


(4) Crespain and Clairan by Joan Aiken

Interesting and engaging details about a boy’s childhood and the activities kids would love to do during Christmas. The author was well known for her children’s books, and I can see why. However, he story ending feels a bit flat

(5) The Devil Doll by Frederick E. Smith is such a charming story about an ventriloquist, scary dolls and revenge. 5 stars.

(6) The Doll by Vernon Lee

This story is too flat, don't like it, 1.5 stars.

(7) The Love of Lady Purple by Angela Carter:

I supposed I had read this story from Angela Carter’s Fireworks, which was inspired by Ms. Carter's trip to Japan.

The story about the wicked puppet Lady Purple is delightful enough in Ms. Carter's usual over-the-top way, although it really brings hardly anything new to the table and it seems to do nothing to debug the wicked seductresses from the East myth? Although Lady Purple is a bit so over-the-top to the point of unreal sometimes. 4.3 stars.

(8) The Haunted Doll House by M. R. James

The opening part is quite humorous in a subtle way! The married couple just can't wait to get rid of the doll house!

(9) The Inner Room by Robert Aickman

One doll house, and a family of four. The kids started having nightmares. I like the description of the doll house and the not-very-clear explanation to the haunting very much. 4.2 stars.

(10) The Mouse Queen by Camilla Grudova

It's a great story about love loss, poverty and betrayal, I love the idea! However I don't recall it has too many things to do with dolls.

The Patchwork Dolls by Ysabelle Cheung

Interesting ideas about the obsession for young and beauty and poorer women being exploited, a lot of potential here!

Overall it is a good stories collection 😸

[Theofilos · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Deadly dolls" is one of the better ones from this series! I love what the British library has managed to do with this series, reprints of hard to find classics and hidden gems, wrapped in beautiful thematically arranged books.

The only negative is the unnecessary inclusion of contemporary authors, who simply by existing in the same pages with the masters of the past only makes them look more amateurish and irrelevant than ever, the two weaker stories were of course the modern ones. Bland, and very vaguely in tune with the theme of the anthology.

[p. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The short stories collected in this one were one absolute hit after another; easily a Top 3 entry from the series for me. I am not sure whether it is the seeing of something presumably connected to innonce and childhood presented as something sinister and malevolent or the idea of something created, without autonomy, gaining such autonomy, but the subject matter is excellent ground for successful horror stories and tales of the bizarre.

Favourite entries: "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffmann, "The Dancing Partner" by Jerome K. Jerome, "The Doll Maker" by Adele Geras, "The Doll" by Daphne du Maurier, "The Loves of Lady Purple" by Angela Carter, "The Patchwork Dolls" by Ysabelle Cheung (I feel like I have recently read a couple of similar novels but this was absolutely excellent at getting a similar point across in the form of a short story and I am excited to seek out more of Cheung's work), "The Inner Room" by Robert Aickman

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars!

Deadly Dolls is one of the strongest collections that I've read from the British Library Tales of the Weird so far. I appreciate Dearnley's categorization of the stories into cleverly titled subcategories (ex. Doll Lovers, Possessing Puppets, Troublesome Toys); not only was it helpful but even added to my overall enjoyment. If anything it helped emphasize the range of stories that this subject has inspired. The dolls in this collection are subjects of the paranormal, the psychological, or even both. This not only made the book engrossing reading material but ensured a nice "spice of variety". There were two stories that I didn't care for. Not surprisingly they were the most recent ones. I have discovered that I don't necessarily care much for the modern additions to these collections.
If doll horror is something that intrigues you I most definitely recommend you give this book a read. I dare say it might be necessary.

Favorite Stories:
The Sandman by E.T.A Hoffman
The Doll by Daphne du Maurier
The Loves of Lady Purple by Angela Carter
The Inner Room by Robert Aickman


"She must have been the masterpiece of a long-dead, anonymous artisan and yet she was nothing but a curious structure until the Professor touched her strings-"

[Samantha van Buuren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an excellent collection of horror stories involving dolls and I am happy to say I enjoyed most of them. I couldn't give it five stars as there are a couple included that I didn't enjoy, but on the whole I really enjoyed the read and was creeped out by quite a few of them.

I kept notes for each individual story and will include those here:

The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffman- Incredibly dense and unutterably boring. But it did teach me something about the Sandman myth that I didn't know before.

The Dancing Partner by Jerome K Jerome- Brilliant. It conjured a gruesome image against the setting of a beautiful ballroom filled with elegant guests. Loved it.

Crespian and Clairan by Joan Aiken- Long winded but I enjoyed it. A very selfish child gets exactly what's coming to him.

The Doll Maker by Adele Geras- Loved this one! So creepy and vivid. Told from the POV of children just wanting their toys fixed. But it turns out the 'doll doctor' was using their dolls parts for something sinister.

Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss- Heart breaking but brilliant. Love the sci-fi twist!

The Doll by Vernon Lee- Just a story of a woman buying and burning a doll! It didn't strike me as weird or creepy. Beautiful description but I can't see a point to it.

The Doll by Daphne Du Maurier- A strange, physiological horror story that just ends! Very unsatisfying.

The Devil Doll by Frederick E Smith- loved it! This is exactly what you want from a creepy horror story involving a doll. A possessed puppet and its master. Very creepy and a great ending.

The Loves of Lady Purple by Angela Carter- No. For exactly the same reasons why I disliked her fairy tales. Over-written, laborious and boring.

The Dressmakers Doll by Agatha Christie- I have read this one before. I loved it then and loved it this time too. I find the ending so frightening because, as much as the characters want what happened to be a good thing... It's clear that it's very unlikely to be.

Patchwork Dolls by Isabelle Cheung- Loved it. Sci-fi horror, plastic surgery nightmare. Discussion of feminism and ethics around plastic surgery and beauty trends. Really enjoyed it, despite the lack of speech marks.

The Haunted Dolls' House by M. R. James- I loved this one. Not much happens but what does is spine chilling... But something I'd love to be honest! It could definitely be longer but I enjoyed it otherwise.

The Inner Room by Robert Aickman- A little flat. There was so much to work with but before anything can happen with the enormous doll house... It disappears! It's written really well but nothing happened and the ending was disappointing.

The Mouse Queen by Camilla Grudova- Weird as hell! Which is not a bad thing. It kept me interested, just to see what strange thing would happen next. But the big question is... What the hell does it have to do with dolls?!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will admit that I am reading these takes of the Weird books from the British Library is no particular order (not that I think there is one to start with) so yes I may say a few things here which may be glaringly obvious if I had read them as they were published.

The fact that you jump around in publication date even as you go through the chapters surprised me (I think I have read too many of the classic crimes which by their very nature are dated). There are stories here from authors who are still publishing.

Now do not get me wrong - they are just as weird, scary and unnerving as the older titles, rather they play to different sensibilities which I guess you would expect - sadly the world has moved on and what may have seemed disturbing then is almost common place now - although you certainly do get to gauge the language. Some of the language is more disturbing than the story. That said a fascinating book and certainly makes for interesting reading.

[Suki J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to British Library Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.75 stars.

A collection of short stories about scary dolls from a collection of authors, ranging from the 19th century to modern day.
Some of these stories worked better than for me others.
I had no idea, for example, that the movie AI: Artificial Intelligence, was based on a short story by Brian Aldiss, which is included in this volume and I really enjoyed it.
The story of Lady Purple was awesome, and utterly unhinged, and another couple were good too.
Some of the stories though were a little uninspiring, or not as weird/ creepy as I might have liked!

[David Paul Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent collection spanning many years (19th - 21st C.) . The imagery in many of the stories is stunning.
All very good, but disturbing.

[Nicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of short stories, some very old and some more recent. I liked the majority of them with only a few being weaker, and I’ve definitely found a few authors to check out.

[sootski · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

4 ☆


Definitely one of the better books from the British Library Tales of the Weird, each story was interesting in its own way! I will say none of them were very scary just interesting, especially with its usage of imagery. The books ranged from high three to low four stars overall.

[Amber Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dreary, dull, and disappointing.

[Silver Screen Videos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy, spooky, or possessed dolls have been a horror staple for over two centuries. Ironically, however, movies and television have provided the most effective and best-known examples of the subgenre. Chucky, Megan, and Annabelle are among the popular examples. Even the best horror fiction of recent years, like Richard Matheson’s “Prey” and William Goldman’s “Magic,” is better remembered for its filmed versions than the literary originals. Elizabeth Dearnley has assembled 14 doll horror stories in her anthology, “Deadly Dolls,” part of the British Library’s “Tales of the Weird” collection. The collection includes some creepy stories from unlikely authors. Unfortunately, it also contains a fair number of duds.

Elizabeth Dearnley is a noted scholar rather than strictly a horror fan or author, and she approached “Deadly Dolls” from that perspective. As its editor, she organized the book in sections of two or three stories each on topics like dollhouses and ventriloquist’s dummies. The anthology includes works by notables such as Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, and Jerome K. Jerome, along with a story by science fiction great Brian Aldiss. Several stories are in the public domain, while one was written as recently as 2022. The editor begins the book with a dense introduction about the history of dolls as horror objects in literature, complete with several footnotes. She then explains why she chose each story in the anthology and later includes a full-page biography of each author. This additional material is quite dry and may be too detailed for readers.

The best stories in “Deadly Dolls” are those whose authors are familiar with the requirements of genre short fiction. Brian Aldiss’s “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” from 1969 was later loosely adapted into Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.” As the movie title implies, the story concerns a little boy’s A.I.-powered teddy bear, the latest in a series of increasingly sophisticated synthetic life forms developed by one company. (I especially liked the genetically altered parasitic tapeworm that gets implanted in obese people’s stomachs to help them lose weight by consuming excess food.) Anyone who has seen Spielberg’s movie will guess the twist ending, but the story is more relevant today than when Aldiss wrote it nearly 60 years ago.

Agatha Christie’s “The Dressmaker’s Doll” will come as a surprise to those who only associate Christie with complicated whodunits. However, Christie’s stories worked because she understood her characters and made them and their settings feel real. Here, a woman has set up part of her house as a dressmaking shop where she and her assistant work. One day, a doll somehow appears in the shop, although neither they nor their servants know the doll’s origin. Subsequently, the doll moves around the room when it’s unoccupied, freaking out the women. This story is a great mood piece with a creepy ending.

The theme of a dummy or marionette coming to life and battling its puppet master is a familiar one in doll horror, and two of the best stories in “Deadly Dolls” explore it. Frederick E. Smith’s 1955 story, “The Devil Doll,” follows this theme’s best-known storyline. A man invites a ventriloquist to perform at his fiancée’s birthday party despite rumors that the ventriloquist’s dummy possesses the soul of the ventriloquist’s late partner. It’s not what happens (which is pretty predictable), but how it happens that makes this story creepy. In Angela Carter’s 1974 story, “The Loves of Lady Purple,” the titular character is a marionette in a carnival show. The puppet master performs a full-length drama featuring Lady Purple as a femme fatale who seduces and discards men. The description of Lady Purple’s act is more fascinating than what happens after the final curtain goes down. Let’s say I would have paid good money to see that act.

Although the best stories in “Deadly Dolls” are quite good, others dissipate good storylines by going on too long. The authors’ sidelines and digressions are well written and somewhat entertaining, but they detract from what is supposed to be a horror story. An example is Daphne du Maurier’s 1937 story, “The Doll.” (Many of the stories in this collection have virtually identical titles.) The author tells this story as a lengthy entry in a personal journal found after the writer mysteriously disappeared. In the journal, he tells of his romance with a woman that gets rudely interrupted by the presence of an evil-looking doll. Unfortunately, the author takes 20 pages to describe about five pages worth of actual story.

The worst stories in “Deadly Dolls” are the oldest and most recent. The title of “The Patchwork Dolls,” written in 2022 by Ysabelle Cheung, refers to the narrator and some of her friends, who are poor yet attractive women who sell various parts of their faces for the corresponding features of wealthy, vain individuals. (This concept is like the storyline of the Nicolas Cage/John Travolta movie “Face Off.”) The idea is interesting, even though the story has no actual dolls, but the author does almost nothing with it. The oldest story in the collection is E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman,” written in 1817. A disturbed young man is smitten with a woman he meets at a dance. She’s an excellent dancer, but her appearance seems mechanical. The story has about 30 pages of confusing padding (some of it told in letters from various individuals to each other) before the protagonist ever meets his dancing partner. “The Sandman” is the basis of the ballet “Coppelia.” It is much more effective as a comic ballet than as a humorless melodrama.

“Deadly Dolls” has five excellent stories, three good stories, three average stories, and three duds. Considering the wealth of material the editor had to work with (several of the stories are in the public domain), that’s a disappointing percentage of quality content. The introductory material is also more scholarly and less entertaining than I like. I realize many readers will be more enamored of either the authors’ pedigrees or the general subject matter than I was. Viewed as a whole, however, I will give the anthology a three-star rating and marginal recommendation. The book isn’t deadly, but it’s no beautiful doll of a collection either.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly, the title is certainly misleading. Dolls have been a particular fear of mine since hearing a terrifying story as a child, so I had expected to find these tales unsettling; however, since almost none of them actually involved dolls being particularly deadly, I was neither scared or unsettled. Luckily, there are some solid tales included here, especially Hoffman’s The Sandman, and Aitken’s ‘the inner room’ which started slow but built to a satisfying creepy ending, and Angela Carter’s ‘the loves of lady purple’ which at least lived up to the anthology’s title. Not the best of the British library books I’ve read, with some stories seeming more at home in a science-fiction collection (admittedly weird fiction ranges to sci-fi, but they did feel a bit out of place).

[David Garrett jr · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this collection of fourteen tales harking from 1817 to 2022, Elizabeth Dearnley presents a sinister troupe of unsettling playthings from the minds of E. T. A. Hoffmann, Daphne du Maurier, Angela Carter, Agatha Christie, Robert Aickman, Camilla Grudova and more.

This includes tales of possessed puppets, artificial suitors and figures that blur the lines between human and doll, fresh nightmares await when the doors of the dolls’ house swing open and its denizens come out to play.

Since we are dealing with so many stories, I’ll just do a general overview of my thoughts. There were tales here that just sucked me in to see where it would take me. It is broken into six sections. Those are Dancing Dolls, Troublesome Toys, Doll Lovers, Possessing Puppets, Fashion Dolls and Dolls’ Houses. It is impressive to not only compile these many stories ranging over these years, but then to be able to separate them into groupings like this is something I wanted to give credit to Dearnley for doing. I can’t even imagine the number of stories that didn’t make this anthology.

It is also great to be able to read from writers I’ve known about over the years like du Maurier and Christie, having seen movies that are adapted from their work. Something else that stood out to me was The Doll by Vernon Lee. This does seem to be a loose concept used for the puppet film, Magic, if that one leaned more into the supernatural. That was a stand out for sure.

That’s not to say that all worked as well for me. Writing style can be an issue for me to get into it, especially if my attention is wandering in the slightest. That’s not something I want to hold against authors though as that isn’t their fault. There were ones here that like I’ve seen, I got lost in and had to see where things would end. Regardless, not one story doesn’t fit in here. I also like that there are couples that are using ideas in different ways than I would expect. Credit there.

This is an anthology that I would recommend checking out, especially if the subject matter is something that needs under your skin. I’m seeing that this is slated to be published on June 10th, 2025, if you are interested in seeking this out.



My Rating: 7 out of 10



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[Jayce Torben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This British collection features many outstanding authors and a variety of dolls: automata, ventriloquism, marionettes, dollhouse residents, and flesh. Most of the authors are well-known, including Angela Carter, Daphne DuMaurier, and Algernon Blackwood. There's a sliver of diversity; notably, Patchwork Dolls includes financially struggling women of color and queer identity.

Most of the stories are quiet and subtle, and some of them strike me as being weird fiction rather than horror.

Strengths:
^Excellent, detailed introduction by Elizabeth Dearnley
^Biographical notes for the author at the head of each story that often give context and fun things to explore, such as music, paintings, other writings, and Freud.
^ Strong on women authors.
^Interesting references to gender. I was inspired to explore included author Vernon Lee, designated female at birth who lived as a man. I looked up his portraits by Sargent.

I enjoyed the exploration of doll creepiness-- and the history and social commentary in some of the stories. I'm still thinking about the tales by Hoffman and Carter.

Deadly Dolls is worth reading and adding to your collection, especially if you're interested in the history of horror and weird fiction. Highly recommended if you enjoy classic supernatural stories. This collection is a good choice for readers new to horror or leery of extreme fiction. Gore is limited and brief, although Patchwork Dolls includes significant surgical body horror.

Overall, the collection's horror impact was mild for me, yet it was stimulating in other ways. Deadly Dolls fascinated me largely due to Dearnley’s excellent work in providing author and story context–and tasty tidbits for exploration.

My thanks to British Library Publishing for the eARC for consideration. These opinions are solely my own.

[ᴄᴏᴜʀᴛ ☠︎︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the purpose of this collection of terrifying tales involving dolls, puppets & other toys is to keep you awake at night, it has absolutely succeeded in doing so 😱 Thank you to Independent Publisher Group & NetGalley for this experience!

I loved how Elizabeth has curated this book with stylized sections and personalized introductions into each story that tie the works together (along with their horrific subject matter 👀)

With so many stories by such notable writers to read in this book, you really will be kept up all night. Don't say you haven't been warned 😅🫣

[Samuel (Still Reading Sam) M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a 3 overall. HOWEVER there a good number of 4⭐ in here which balances out.

[Carolina Búho · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an entertaining read. The collection of tales are so chilling and unique in their eeriness. A great way to discover compelling works of horror and their talented writers

[Tabea · Rating 2 out of 5]

two stars for the two stories i enjoyed

[Tiffannie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lush, eerie, unforgettable Deadly Dolls creeped me Love a good book with folklore, atmosphere, and quiet dread done right. A must-read and highly recommend! thank you for the early copy!

[Matthew Picardat · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ever find any of the collections in this series, grab them. They do not disappoint.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

last book of teenagehood would you believe it