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Today’s story is the 1882 tale ‘The New Mother’ by Lucy Clifford (the publication was under the name Mrs. W. K. Clifford). You can read it or listen to it here. ‘The New Mother’ was part of a collection she wrote for her children called The Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise. The collection was illustratedContinue reading “Day 26 of ‘A Scare A Day’ – ‘The New Mother’ by Lucy Clifford”

Today we’re reading one of the most well-known American short stories of the 20th century, Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’. You can read it (or reread it) here. I know a few people who are experts on the work of Shirley Jackson (you can even catch a few of their Shirley Jackson classes with Romancing theContinue reading “Day 25 of ‘A Scare a Day’ – ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson”

Today’s story is one of my favourite examples of ‘women’s weird’ writing. You can read ‘Outside the House’ here (you’ll also find other Bessie Kyffin-Taylor stories if you like this one!) I have often heard that ghost stories went out of fashion with the horrors of the First World War. This was, of course, theContinue reading “Day 24 of ‘A Scare A Day’ – ‘Outside the House’ by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor”

Last year, people told me that they liked the poetry on the challenge list and asked for more so I’ve tried to incorporate a little bit more and not keep it isolated to the early Gothic! This is our last poem on the list ‘A Child’s Nightmare’ by prolific poet and author Robert Graves, whoContinue reading “Day 23 of ‘A Scare A Day’ – ‘A Child’s Nightmare’ by Robert Graves”

M R James is one of the most famous authors of ghost and weird tales and this is one of his best. I’d actually forgotten how chilling ‘Count Magnus’ is and how little it tells us, how much it suggests. You can read it with your eyes here and enjoy a great audio version here.Continue reading “Day 22 of ‘A Scare a Day’ – ‘Count Magnus’ by M R James”

Today’s read is a short story where the horror lies very much in the unknown. You can read ‘The Hall Bedroom’ here. Somewhat ironically, the little rabbit hole I fell into for today’s story was deeply mundane. In writing this blog, I feel a little like the protagonist at the beginning of his story, tellingContinue reading “Day 21 of ‘A Scare A Day’ – ‘The Hall Bedroom’ by Mary Wilkins Freeman”

I first read this story in the Women’s Weird collection from Handheld Press edited by Melissa Edmundson. I heartily recommend it and you can find it here. Of all the excellent stories in that collection, this is the one that stuck with me. There’s something lingeringly horrifying about its depiction of an endless and everContinue reading “Day 20 of ‘A Scare a Day’ – ‘Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched’ by May Sinclair”

Everyone knows Arthur Conan Doyle for his Sherlock Holmes but, of course, he wrote a lot more widely than that! Some of his work is non-fiction defences of spiritualism, short story collections, novels, plays and war poetry. He was incredibly prolific. Among the genres that he dipped into, horror and the Gothic frequently appear. Today’sContinue reading “Day 19 of ‘A Scare a Day’ – ‘The Terror of Blue John Gap’ by Arthur Conan Doyle”

I came to Algernon Blackwood through his weird fiction, tales like ‘The Willows’ and ‘The Man Whom the Trees Loved’. Truth be told, he’s one of my favourite early weird writers. He creates an unseen, invisible or indescribable ‘weird’ without having to tell that’s what he’s doing every five minutes. His weird stories, though, whileContinue reading “Day 18 of ‘A Scare a Day’ – ‘The ‘Kit Bag’ by Algernon Blackwood”

Now, if you know me, you’ll know that I appreciate Edith Nesbit’s ghost, supernatural and horror stories. We read ‘The House of Silence’ last year (read it here) which is a claustrophobic tale of a labyrinthine house, murder and an increasing sense of desperate entrapment. This year’s story ‘The Ebony Frame’ goes in a muchContinue reading “Day 17 of #AScareADay – ‘The Ebony Frame’ by Edith Nesbit”