Our Price: AUD$29.95 (USD$ )* ISBN: 978-1-920764-94-4 Subject: Horror/Short Stories Publication Date: December 2007

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Synopsis
Australia has a long tradition of horror writing, stretching back to colonial times. The stories in this anthology are intended to showcase the richness and variety of Australian weird tales in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from a variety of authors, including Mary Fortune, Lionel Sparrow and Marcus Clarke, to name a few.

James Doig has unearthed a rare and compelling collection of Australian horror classics that have remained largely undisturbed in the pages of old books and periodicals.

With settings that range from the Australian outback to Europe, India and the South Pacific, these unique and imaginative tales feature horrors and hauntings that are sure to appeal to lovers of the macabre everywhere.

About The Editor
James Doig grew up in Fremantle, Western Australia. He was educated at the University of Western Australia, and the University of Wales, Swansea, where he completed a PhD in medieval history.

James has enjoyed ghost stories for as long as he can remember and has published articles on obscure authors of supernatural and horror fiction, such as R. R. Ryan, Keith Fleming and R. Murray Gilchrist. In 2004 he edited a collection of short stories by the Australian-born writer H. B. Marriott Watson for Ash-Tree Press.

James works at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra and is married with two children.

From The Book
The chief aim of this anthology is to illustrate the richness and variety of Australian supernatural fiction in the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries...Australian publishers like George Robertson and The Bulletin Company regularly produced single author collections of short stories gathered from colonial periodicals...Nevertheless, it took some time for the Australian public to develop a taste for sensational literature.

While many of the stories gathered here are set in the colonies, I have also included stories that are set in other places...The stories set in Australia are particularly interesting for the way in which traditional English elements of the supernatural tale appear in new forms or are moulded afresh to a harsh, new environment - the haunted house is no longer a rambling manor, but an abandoned shanty or rundown homestead; the English wood, shadowy lair of ancient evils and creatures from folklore, becomes the oppressively hot, fly-infested bush; and the wind-swept moor is the empty, endless Australian outback with its blood-red sands and emaciated Myall trees.

Writers, no less than explorers, artists and settlers, were challenged by the environment, and this is reflected in many of the stories. Australia, indeed, is a gothic landscape.