Today’s Nonfiction post is on Monster, She Wrote: The Women
Who Pioneered Horror & Speculative Fiction by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R.
Anderson. It is 319 pages long including notes. The cover is dark with
different images from the books within. The intended reader is someone who is
interesting in horror fiction history, women writers, and forgotten fiction.
There is mild foul language, discussion of sex and sexuality, and no violence in
this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.
From the back of the book- Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of
literature’s strangest tales, from Frankenstein to The
Haunting of Hill House and beyond.
Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband’s heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard of Margaret “Mad Madge” Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work of Shirley Jackson, whose novel The Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You’ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today’s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales.
Part biography, part reader’s guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.
Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband’s heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard of Margaret “Mad Madge” Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work of Shirley Jackson, whose novel The Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You’ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today’s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales.
Part biography, part reader’s guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.
Review- So this has become my Thanksgiving tradition to read
a book about other books. I did it two years ago with Paperbacks from Hell, last year with Paperback Crush and now with Monster,
She Wrote. Just like the previous two I loved this book. It is interesting,
it introduced me to new writers that I will have to track down, and it is well
written. We start from the very early days of the 1600’s with Margaret
Cavendish and the creation of Gothic fiction and come to modern day with the
current mistresses of Horror and Weird fiction. The writing is sly,
tongue-in-cheek style but with lots of love towards to authors and their works. Showing
the growth of horror from murderous uncles to eldritch from the great beyond.
If you want to know more about women horror writers or more about the forgotten
roots of horror then you should give this book a look.
I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for
my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.
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