The Uncanny House & The Forsaken House at Misty Vale ~ Mary L. Pendered

Nezu Press is bringing out two books in August, both by Mary L. Pendered. A well-known author during her lifetime, she has been almost forgotten since her death, and her books are extremely difficult to get hold of. One of our new titles, The Forsaken House at Misty Vale, is so rare that you're unlikely to ever see a copy of the first edition in the wild.

The Uncanny House was first published in 1927, and The Forsaken House at Misty Vale came out in 1932. Neither of these novels has been republished since its first publication. Please note that both of the new Nezu Press editions contain the same 20-page biographical essay by me: ‘Mary L. Pendered: Author, Suffragist, Pacifist, and Thoroughly Good Woman’.

The Uncanny House

Old Mr Barker was a curmudgeon who underfed his dogs to make them vicious and kept his low-paid staff loyal with promises of legacies that never materialised. Following his death, his home is sold at auction for an absurdly cheap price to Peggy and Percy Dacre. But when the young couple move into their new home with their four children, Peggy soon discovers that The Beeches—commonly referred to as ‘Hell Corner’ by the locals—is already occupied.

Published: 20 August 2024.
978-1-917113-01-4.
Hardback with dust jacket, 228 pages.
Click here to buy from Nezu Press.

The Forsaken House at Misty Vale

Celia Grey, a fifty-year-old, unmarried writer who has longed for a home of her own for decades, thinks all her prayers have been answered when she inherits her uncle’s house. But Clew Lodge is a property with an uncanny reputation. It is a grim and daunting place, desolate and derelict, having been left to the forces of corruption since Uncle Jerrold abandoned it a decade prior to his death—because he ‘could not stand the whispering’.

Published: 20 August 2024.
978-1-917113-02-1.
Hardback with dust jacket, 306 pages.
Click here to buy from Nezu Press.

Both books will be available from the usual online retailers soon. They are available to pre-order from the Nezu Press website right now (see links above).

Over the Cliffs ~ Charlotte Chanter

As promised, here is the third of today's announcements (you can read the first one by clicking here and the second one by clicking here).

On 4 May, to accompany the release of two works by Gratiana Chanter, Nezu Press will publish a hardback edition of Over the Cliffs by Gratiana's mother, Charlotte Chanter, with a biographical essay by me. 

Here are the details:

Charlotte Chanter is best known as the author of Ferny Combes, a guide to collecting and identifying the ferns of Devonshire. Her only fiction novel, Over the Cliffs, was first published in two volumes by Smith, Elder and Co. in the autumn of 1860. The story is set on the coast of Devon at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is a tale of murder, a stolen inheritance, smuggling, shipwrecks, blackmail, treachery, greed, plotting, counter-plotting… and love. There is even a hint of the supernatural in the form of a sighing ghost. Its fearless heroine is Gratiana Dawson, the daughter of a brutal bully who hates his children and is prone to violent paroxysms of passion. Motherless, forced to live under the roof of a tyrant, and the victim of one indignity after another, Gratiana refuses to surrender to the abusive men around her. Edward Mountjoy, the hero of the story, says of her, when speaking to Captain Douglas of the Royal Navy, ‘She has done things in her day that required from her more nerve than would be required of you in attacking an enemy.’ This edition includes a detailed biographical essay by Gina R. Collia, ‘Charlotte Chanter: Fearless Fern-Hunter of Devonshire’.

As with her daughter Gratiana, I'm going to be posting much more about this Devonshire writer in the days and weeks to come.

You can pre-order it directly from Nezu Press (Publisher shop: Click here). Or you can do so from the usual online retailers; the book will be showing up in all the usual places soon.

Nezu Press, 4 May 2024.
978-1-917113-00-7.
Hardback with dust jacket, 460 pages.

Trebetherick ~ Gratiana Chanter

As promised, here is the second of today's announcements (you can read the first one by clicking here).

On 4 May, to accompany the release of The Witch of Withyford, Nezu Press will publish a hardback edition of Trebetherick, also by Gratiana Chanter, with a long biographical essay by me. 

As I said before, I'm definitely going to be posting much more about this Devonshire writer, and her mother (whose book is the subject of my next announcement), in the days and weeks to come.

Here are the details:

Gratiana Chanter’s novel Trebetherick, a tale of shipwrecks, wreckers, hidden treasure, abducted maidens, murder and other evil doings, was first published in 1913 by Francesco Giannini & Figli of Naples. The story is told from the perspective of David Rounsevall of Trebetherick in the Parish of St. Enodoc, Cornwall, and begins the night he first hears ghostly Tregeagle howl during a ferocious storm. This edition includes a detailed biographical essay by Gina R. Collia, ‘Gratiana Chanter: A Typical Daughter of Devon’.

You can pre-order it directly from Nezu Press (Publisher shop: Click here). Or you can do so from the usual online retailers; the book will be showing up in all the usual places soon.

Nezu Press, 4 May 2024.
978-1-7393921-9-2.
Hardback with dust jacket, 210 pages.