Mistress Bridget and Other Tales

I am very pleased to announce that Mistress Bridget and Other Tales by E. Yolland, with an introductory essay by me, will be published on 15 July. It contains the novel Mistress Bridget and all seven of the author's extremely rare short stories. But in all likelihood, you've never heard of E. Yolland or the novel/stories, so I am going to tell you a little bit about this project to encourage you to rush off and buy the book.

First of all, who was E. Yolland? Well, until now nobody knew. When I began looking for information, there wasn't a single bit of it out there. There was no clue to the writer’s full name or sex, let alone anything more substantial. So, I started digging about—I went down the rabbit hole I'm always getting stuck in—and what I found out went into writing the fifteen page introduction to this new book. For obvious reasons, I'm not going to tell you a thing about E. Yolland here, but I can tell that this forgotten Victorian author has been fully identified.

So, what about the stories? Well, the novel Mistress Bridget was originally published in 1898 by F. V. White & Co.; it was the author's second book. It is set in seventeenth century England, a country divided in the aftermath of the English Civil War, where paranoia and superstition are rife throughout the land. In the village of Rithycombe in Somerset, Bridget Conyngham, the squire’s beautiful young daughter, is abandoned to the mercy of lawless soldiers and paranoid villagers. Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, is going about the country torturing anyone he doesn’t like the look of, and the villagers of Rithycombe, suspicious of Bridget’s healing abilities, are determined to save Hopkins the trouble of burning their witch. The supernatural element in the novel comes in the form of the ghosts of 'Madam' and a captain of the Parliamentary Army, who both haunt the manor where most of the action takes place.

E. Yolland's short stories appeared in two illustrated periodicals: Belgravia and Heart and Hand, the latter being a Church of England penny newspaper. The stories are: ‘The Miser’s Secret’, ‘Only a Smudge!’, ‘Impostors?’, ‘The Secret of the Dead’, ‘Autumn Clouds’, ‘On the Spur of the Moment’, and ‘In the Days of the Cagots’.  Of the seven tales, 'The Miser's Secret', ‘Only a Smudge!’ and 'The Secret of the Dead' have supernatural elements; the latter includes an apparition in an old church:

‘The kneeling lady rose swiftly from beside the coffer, and fell almost prostrate at my feet with thin hands raised in piteous prayer, and heavy tears trickling down the saddest face I ever saw. I rubbed my eyes to clear my vision, and with a start jumped up from what I suppose you will call a doze. I think otherwise, but that matters not.’

When I began my research, I had nothing to go on. I was determined but not terribly hopeful; after all, E. Yolland had been dead more than a hundred years, and even contemporary readers didn't know who the author was. As it is, I am extremely excited to have discovered so much, and I'm even more excited to be able to share my findings. 

Finally, here are the details of the book:

Published: Nezu Press, 15 July 2023.
ISBN-13: 978-1-7393921-2-3
.
Hardback with dust jacket, 314 pages.
Price: £25.00

You can order the book directly from Nezu Press (click here to go to the website). Or you can order it from the usual online retailers or from your local bricks-and-mortar bookshop.

Above: The first edition of Mistress Bridget, 1898, and the 1896 volume of Hand and Heart (in which the short story ‘On the Spur of the Moment’ was published).

Above: The full dust jacket for Mistress Bridget and Other Tales.

F. M. Mayor and Batman's Butler

The actor Alan Napier, best remembered for portraying Bruce Wayne's butler in the 1960s Batman series, was a student at Clifton College, Bristol, from 1916 to 1921. ‘What has that got to do with the price of eggs?’ I hear you say. Well, in January 1916, Henry Mayor—brother of Flora Macdonald Mayor, writer of supernatural short stories—was made Housemaster of Watson’s House, Clifton College, and, as he was unmarried (and also hopeless as a hotel-keeper), Flora and her twin sister, Alice, had to take it in turns standing in as Housemaster’s wife. That’s how Flora met Alan Napier.

There were entertainments at Watson’s House every Saturday evening, and at the end of one term someone suggested that the boys should celebrate with a theatrical performance. Flora directed the resulting play and cast Napier, who was a tall, thin sixteen-year-old at the time, as a lovesick housemaid. Flora recognised Napier’s potential, she coached him and gave him the encouragement he needed to perform well, and on the night he stole the show. It was in acting that Alan Napier found himself. And who knows, if it hadn’t been for Flora’s encouragement, we may never have had the pleasure of seeing him play Alfred Pennyworth.

You can read more about F. M. Mayor's life in my introduction to The Room Opposite: And Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

Nezu Press, 1 April 2023. ISBN-13: 978-1739392109. Hardback with dust jacket, 406 pages. Available at:

Amazon UK | Waterstones UK | Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon FR | Barnes & Noble US

The Devil Snar'd ~ George R. Preedy ~ New Edition Available

I'm very pleased to announce that The Devil Snar'd by George R. Preedy, the author best known as Marjorie Bowen, is available in a new edition, and it includes a long introduction written by me. It was originally published as a small paperback ‘ninepenny novel’ by Ernest Benn Ltd. in June 1932. It appeared again a year later, this time published by Cassell, in Dr. Chaos and The Devil Snar’d. But it's been out of print and largely forgotten since then, which is a terrible shame as it's a superbly unsettling story.

Nezu Press, 1 April 2023. 

ISBN-13: 978-1-7393921-1-6. 

Case laminate hardback, 164 pp.

You can order the hardback directly from Nezu Press (click here to go to the website). Or you can order it from the usual online retailers or from your local bricks-and-mortar bookshop.

Here's the publisher blurb:

George R. Preedy is one of the pen names of Margaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell, the writer best known as Marjorie Bowen. First published in 1932, The Devil Snar’d is an eerie tale of supernatural influence; it was described by the Daily Herald as a ‘ghost story fit to stand beside The Turn of the Screw.’ Grace Fielding and her unfaithful husband, Philip, have taken Medlar's Farm, in a remote spot in Northumberland, to get away from London and repair their broken marriage. Philip, a well-known author, intends to use the dark history of Medlar’s Farm—a tale of adultery, jealousy and murder—to write his next book, but Grace, already unwell due to the strain caused by her husband's affair, begins to see parallels between her own story and that of the murdered woman, who she believes is guiding her actions. As Philip works on his manuscript, his behaviour becomes more and more suspicious, and as Grace’s mental state deteriorates, a tale of adultery and marital discord soon becomes one of jealousy, obsession and murderous revenge. This edition includes an introduction by Gina R. Collia: 'The Many Masks of Margaret Campbell'. (Publisher website: click here)

Above: the new edition alongside the 1932 first edition.

The Room Opposite ~ F. M. Mayor ~ New Edition Available

I am very pleased to announce that The Room Opposite: And Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Flora Macdonald Mayor, originally published in 1935, never republished and out of print for numerous decades, is now available in a new edition. And this edition has a long essay about the author, written by me. It also includes a long article that Flora wrote in 1905 about life with a touring theatre company. I'm biased, but I think the book turned out really well. I do hope that Flora would be pleased!

Nezu Press, 1 April 2023. 

ISBN-13: 978-1739392109.  

Hardback with dust jacket, 406 pages. 

I wrote a post about the stories in this collection back in 2016, and you can read it by clicking here.

You can order the book directly from Nezu Press (click here to go to the website). Or you can order it from the usual online retailers or from your local bricks-and-mortar bookshop.

Here's the publisher blurb:

In 1935, Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd. published The Room Opposite: And Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination by F. M. Mayor, a collection of sixteen tales that had been left unpublished at the author's death. It was issued with a recommendation from no less eminent a critic of ghost stories than M. R. James, who wrote, 'The stories in this volume which introduce the supernatural commend themselves to me very strongly.' Secondhand copies of the first edition are incredibly hard to come by, and the book has never been republished... until now. This new edition contains all sixteen stories, along with a long article which originally appeared in The Queen newspaper in 1905 entitled 'Life in a Touring Company'. This edition also includes an introduction by Gina R. Collia: 'F. M. Mayor: Author, Actress & Champion of the Superfluous Woman'. (Publisher website: click here)

Above: the new edition alongside the 1935 first edition.