Bri Fidelity’s Reviews > What Did Miss Darrington See?: An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction > Status Update

'[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!