Status Updates From What Did Miss Darrington Se...

A fun read so far. I really don’t like how the editor spoils the plot of each story in the introductory portion. Introduce the author, let us read the story…and then afterwards you can talk about its significance and other details.

'[In the 1830s-1920s] women were the dominant presence in British and US magazines[.] [This] closed community [...] meant that these women knew one another's writing, supported one another's careers, and were not individually "reinventing in the dark". A sizeable percentage were consciously feminist[.] Their supernatural stories amounted to a veritable school, yet almost no-one in this century has commented on it.'

'When she first began to write, she papered one whole wall of her house with rejection slips; over time the bare "acceptance wall" also became papered.'

Helen Rose Hull, I like your style.

'Matters long ago forgotten will upon occasion freakishly insist upon remembrance, approaching suddenly, like the surprise of a familiar face in a crowded street. A dream plucks us by the sleeve, and we turn to see a childish countenance which has no more right than our own to inextinguishable youth. [...] Having once returned, these revenants keep us company for a while.'

'"For a long time now I have been searching for you. You are the most wicked woman I know. [...] In all your life your heart has never once been touched; you have never done one kind deed; you have never had one innocent thought."

'"I said, what do you want of me?"

'"Hell," explained the Devil, "is incomplete without your presence and I have come for you. I shall marry you. I have always wanted a wife."'

Ah, my old friend 'Luella Miller'. Once again the introduction flatly describes Luella as a vampire, and once again I'm unconvinced it's anything like that straightforward.

The editor redeems herself by informing me that one of Freeman's other stories was made into a segment of 'The Twilight Zone' - which turns out to be nearly right.

'I was usually invited to tea and supper by Mrs. Sparkes, and was regaled in the front parlour with seed-cake and rolls, likewise with currant wine. I should have enjoyed these entertainments exceedingly, but I had written a poem in four cantos, in which the late Captain Sparkes figured as a pirate, and was shot for a voluminous catalogue of atrocities; and this secret lay like a load of lead on my mind[.]'

Hee!

'"Cheerful? But of course not," Anthony rejoined with energy. "It can’t be that you wanted me to discover simple tales of domestic lethargy. That isn't the sort of thing that leaves its impress on a family - and a house. That wouldn’t be a story."'

Man, Simple Tales of Domestic Lethargy would be a brilliant anthology title.