Daisy Butcher (ed.) – Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic

Daisy Butcher (ed.) – Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic (British Library, 2019)

Enrique Bernardou

Cover design by Maurico Villamayor

Daisy Butcher – Introduction

Nathaniel Hawthorne – Rappaccini’s Daughter
Arthur Conan Doyle – The American’s Tale
Lucy H. Hooper – Carnivorine
Charlotte Perkins Gilman – The Giant Wistaria
H.G. Wells – The Flowering of the Strange Orchid
Edmond Nolcini – The Guardian of Mystery Island
M.R. James – The Ash Tree
Ambrose Bierce – A Vine on a House
Howard R. Garis – Professor Jonkin’s Cannibal Plant
William Hope Hodgson – The Voice in the Night
Edith Nesbit – The Pavilion
H.C. McNeile – The Green Death
Abraham Merritt – The Woman of the Wood
Emma Vane – The Moaning Lily

Blurb:
Strangling vines and meat-hungry flora fill this unruly garden of strange stories, selected for their significance as the seeds of the villainous (or perhaps just misunderstood) “killer plant” in fiction, film, and video games.
Step within to marvel at Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s giant wistaria and H. G. Wells’ hungry orchid; hear the calls of the ethereal women of the wood, and the frightful drone of the moaning lily; and do tread carefully around E. Nesbit’s wandering creepers…
Every strain of vegetable threat (and one deadly fungus) can be found within this new collection, representing the very best tales from the undergrowth of Gothic fiction.

Mike Ashley [ed.] – The Platform Edge

Mike Ashley [ed.] – The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways (British Library, 2019)

Enrique Bernardou

Mike Ashley – Introduction

Departures in the Light:

Victor L. Whitechurch – The Strange Story of Engine Number 651
Zoe Dana Underhill – The Conductor’s Story
Anonymous – A Desperate Run
W. G. Kelly – A Smoking Ghost
L. G. Moberby – A Strange Night
Huan Mee – The Tragedy in the Train
Mary Louisa Molesworth – The Man with the Cough
Perceval Landon – Tailhead
Edgar Wallace – The Barford Snake
Dinah Castle – A Ghost on the Train

Approaches in the Dark:

Rosemary Timperley – The Underground People
T. G. Jackson – A Romance of the Piccadilly Tube
E. F. Benson – In The Tube
A. J. Deutsch – A Subway Named Möbius
Michael Vincent – The Last Train
R. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Underground

Return to the Light?

F. Scott Fitzgerald – A Short Trip Home
Ramsey Campbell – The Companion

Blurb:
The Platform Edge is a collection of the greatest stories of strange happenings on the tracks.
In this express service into the unknown, passengers join the jostling of the daily commute, a subway car disappears into another dimension without a trace, while a tragic derailment on a lonely hillside in the Alps torments the locals with its nightly repetition.
From the open railways of Europe and America to the pressing dark of the London Underground, The Platform Edge is the perfect travelling companion for unforgettable journeys into the supernatural.