Unholy Depths ~ Gertrude Dunn

We're bringing out two new titles for Hallowe'en, both by Gertrude Dunn, and the first is Unholy Depths, a good old haunted house tale.

If you have heard of Gertrude, it's most likely as the author of The Mark of the Bat. Gertrude published only three novels during her short career, and we did intend to bring out all of them this year. But another small press is putting out her vampire novel in the not too distant future, so we have put The Mark of the Bat on the back burner for the time being. But we will be bringing out our own edition (which is all ready to go), most likely towards the end of next year.

Anyway, back to Unholy Depths...

Verona Wood, a twenty-four-year-old London girl who works in an office to make ends meet, responds to a newspaper advertisement offering holiday accommodation to ‘an unmarried lady’ and goes to spend her three-week vacation with Miss Rose Bullivant at ‘The Nest’ in Wensley, Kent. While out walking in the neighbouring countryside, she comes across ‘Virginia’, the house built by Colonel Belasco, a plantation owner from Virginia who moved to England with his wife in 1866, about a year after the American Civil War ended, bringing with him three former slaves. After encountering the spirit of Quentin Belasco, the colonel’s son, who committed suicide at the property fifty years earlier, Verona makes up her mind to live in the long-empty house. But there is something terribly wrong with ‘Virginia’, and Verona soon finds herself isolated and afraid in her new home, alone save for an ‘obsessed’ housekeeper, and at the mercy of the malevolent force that haunts the very land the Belasco house sits on.

First published in 1926, this new edition of Unholy Depths includes a 14-page biographical essay by yours truly: ‘Gertrude Dunn: Creating a Strong Belief in the Incredible’.

‘Wraiths and materialisations and demoniac possessions are thick as autumn leaves.’ The Sketch, November 1926.

ISBN-13: 978-1-917113-18-2

Hardback with dust jacket, 22.86cm x 15.24cm (6" x 9"), 248 pages

Published: 31 October 2026

The book is available to pre-order from the Nezu Press store (please click here); global shipping is available (with no tariffs for US customers). Alternatively, it will be available from the usual online retailers soon, and you can order it from bricks-and-mortar stores.