The Fetch by Joseph Shearing (Marjorie Bowen)

The second Marjorie Bowen title coming out in October is The Fetch, published under her psudonym Joseph Shearing. It was issued in the US as The Spectral Bride.

I really enjoyed working on this book because of the link to a real-life legal case. After reading the essay by William Roughead that inspired the novel, I did some digging about of my own to find out what happened to the young woman Adelaide Fenton is based on, and she was quite the character! The real-life earl who the character James Daintry is based on did indeed have an uncle who was hanged for murder. There doesn't appear to have been anything ordinary or normal about anyone involved!

Here's the official description: 

Adelaide Fenton is obsessed with the idea of marrying James Daintry, the sole heir of an old, aristocratic, and rather eccentric family, the members of which have all met tragic ends. James’s great-uncle, Lord Seagrove, was hanged at Tyburn for the murder of a village girl, Harriet Bond, whose ‘fetch’ is said to haunt the folly at Charters, one of the family’s estates. While Adelaide is busy planning for her marriage, her younger sister is busy dabbling in blackmail, and her mother is busy consulting her solicitor in the hope of gaining financially from the whole business, James, convinced that he is being haunted by Harriet’s ghost, is slowly descending into madness. 

Though inspired by the famous 1846 breach of promise court case of Mary Elizabeth Smith versus the Right Hon. Washington Sewallis Shirley, Earl Ferrers, The Fetch is no mere retelling of events leading up to the trial. It is a dark and sinister tale of murder, conspiracy, obsession, and insanity… and the dangers of reading too many romances obtained from the circulating library.

The Fetch was first published in the UK by Hutchinson & Co. in 1942; it was published in the US under the title The Spectral Bride. This new edition of the novel includes the essay that inspired it: ‘The Ambiguities of Miss Smith’ by William Roughead. It also includes a 19-page biographical essay, ‘Margaret Campbell: The Lady with the Hundred Names’, and ‘Whatever Became of Miss Smith?’, a follow-up to Roughead’s essay, both by Gina R. Collia.

ISBN-13: 978-1-917113-13-7

Hardback with dust jacket, 22.86cm x 15.24cm (6” x 9”), 392 pages.

Published: 29 October 2025

The book is available to pre-order from the Nezu Press store (please click here); global shipping is available. Alternatively, it will be available from the usual online retailers soon, and you can order it from bricks-and-mortar stores.

Sheep's-Head and Babylon by Marjorie Bowen

I am very excited to announce that on 29 October Nezu Press will publish two titles by Marjorie Bowen. The first is the rare collection of short stories Sheep’s-Head and Babylon: And Other Stories of Yesterday and To-Day.

It contains eighteen tales, one half set in the past and the other set in the present (well, the 'present' that Marjorie Bowen was writing in). Some of the tales are supernatural, such as the title story, but for me the most shocking and horrific one of the collection is 'The Pond' which has no supernatural element at all. The reviewer for Time & Tide (8 November 1929) said it was 'unbearable to read and must have been almost intolerable to write'!

Anyway, here's the official description: 

Sheep’s-Head and Babylon: And Other Stories of Yesterday and To-Day, first published in 1929 by John Lane, The Bodley Head, is a collection of eighteen short stories, ranging in period from the seventeenth century to the 1920s and set in various locations, including England, Scotland, France, and Italy. The themes vary as much as the periods and settings; there are tales of the occult, of murder and tragedy, along with cynical studies of modern life. Some are cruel, others are fantastic, and all are ‘uncommonly good’ (Illustrated London News, 16 November 1929). This new edition of the collection includes a 19-page biographical essay by Gina R. Collia: ‘Margaret Campbell: The Lady with the Hundred Names’. 

ISBN-13: 978-1-917113-12-0

Hardback with dust jacket, 22.86cm x 15.24cm (6” x 9”), 350 pages

Published: 29 October 2025

The book is available to pre-order from the Nezu Press store (please click here); global shipping is available. Alternatively, it will be available from the usual online retailers soon, and you can order it from bricks-and-mortar stores.