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Showing posts with the label fiction set in Victorian England

The Phantom Coach (1864)

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                                                             A ghost story by  Amelia B Edwards (1831- 1892)   Born in London in  1831,Amelia B (Blandford) Edwards was a novelist, musician,journalist,poet, travel writer and a leading Egyptologist.  Her contribution in the latter field was particularly noteworthy, being a founder of The Egypt Exploration Society in 1882. Miss Edwards travelled in to Upper Egypt, and her book of  observations and illustrations were first  published as A Thousand Miles Up The Nile in 1877- and republished in 1982 and 1986. Her account of travels in The Dolomites - Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys (1872)    is not quite so highly regarded, but still highlighted a region that her readership was unlikely to have visited. Miss Edwards was also a member of...

'The Beetle' by Richard Marsh 1897

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                                                         A Lost Occult Horror Classic                       John Atkinson Grimshaw 'Nightfall on the Thames' 1880 in the public domain courtesy of Wikipedia Richard Marsh was born Richard Bernard Heldman in London  on 12th October 1857. The son of a lace merchant who married a lacemaker. The Heldman family were Jewish converts to Christianity. His father went bankrupt not long after Richard's birth, and became a school master. From 1880 up to 1883, Richard Heldman had short stories published in boy's fiction and adventure magazines, but appears to have stopped writing in June 1883. For the rest of the year, Heldman drifted through Britain and France, living from the proceeds of forged cheques. In February 1884, he was arrested and th...

Review of 'The Parlour Game' by Jennifer Renshaw

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          The Parlour Game is book one in The Corvidae Hauntings                                                                                                  Quite a gripping novel. Probably belongs more to the category of horror than more standard historical fiction. A young lady from a good home in the countryside, with a love of plants and nature, sensitive to voices and visions, embarks on a quest to find a friend of her recently deceased mother,who has vanished after conducting a seance in London. A harrowing experience at times which builds up to quite a staggering ending. Bleak,brutal and unromantic. Dealing with addiction, suicide, and loss.  Probably not for readers who want a sentimental read. But ...