The Outcast and The Rite : Stories of Landscape and Fear, 1925-1938 / by Helen de Guerry Simpson ; edited by Melissa Edmundson.

Title :

The Outcast and The Rite : Stories of Landscape and Fear, 1925-1938

Author:

Simpson, Helen, 1897-1940,

Format:

Books

Summary:

The Australian novelist and playwright Helen de Guerry Simpson (1897-1940) published many supernatural short stories. This new edition selects the best of her unsettling writing, adding some little-known stories to her 1925 collection The Baseless Fabric (1925). Featured stories include: 'An Experiment of the Dead,' in which a visitor comes to visit a woman in the condemned cell; 'Good Company,' in which a traveller in Italy becomes temporarily possessed of a hitchhiker in her mind; 'Grey Sand and White Sand' is the horrifying story of a landscape artist who sees and paints a different view; 'The Outcast,' in which a soldier left for dead in the War takes his revenge on his village; 'The Rite,' in which a discontented woman enters a wood, and emerges transformed. The introduction is by Melissa Edmundson, the leading scholar of women's Weird fiction and supernatural writing from the early 20th century. -- Publisher's description.

Language:

English

ISBN - ISSN:

9781912766604

1912766604

Physical Description:

xxx, 222 pages ; 22 cm

Subject:

Short stories, Australian.

Paranormal fiction.

Short stories.

First Title value, for Searching:

The Outcast and The Rite : Stories of Landscape and Fear, 1925-1938 / by Helen de Guerry Simpson ; edited by Melissa Edmundson.

Holds: Copies:

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Library	Audience	Home Location	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Kendall	Adult	Fiction	Book	SIMPS	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

The Australian novelist and playwright Helen de Guerry Simpson (1897-1940) published many supernatural short stories. This new edition selects the best of her unsettling writing, adding some little-known stories to her 1925 collection The Baseless Fabric (1925). Featured stories include: 'An Experiment of the Dead', in which a visitor comes to visit a woman in the condemned cell. 'Good Company', in which a traveller in Italy becomes temporarily possessed of a hitchhiker in her mind. 'Grey Sand and White Sand' is the horrifying story of a landscape artist who sees and paints a different view. 'The Outcast', in which a soldier left for dead in the War takes his revenge on his village. 'The Rite', in which a discontented woman enters a wood, and emerges transformed. The Introduction is by Melissa Edmundson, the leading scholar of women's Weird fiction and supernatural writing from the early 20th century.

Author Notes

Helen de Guerry Simpson (1897-1940) was born in Sydney, New South Wales. In 1914, she travelled to France and then the UK to continue her studies. She read French and music at the University of Oxford. Her studies ended in 1921 when she broke university regulations which prohibited male and female students from acting together. In 1927, she married the surgeon Sir Denis John Browne. Her first novel, Acquittal , was published in 1925. One of her most successful works, Boomerang , was published in 1932 and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Another novel, Under Capricorn (1937) was adapted into a 1949 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She died in 1940 from cancer, leaving a daughter.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

The only volume of short fiction from Australian novelist Simpson (1897--1940), originally published in 1925, contains 13 supernatural stories that showcase Simpson's lush, painterly descriptions of the natural world and her subtle, deeply intuitive sense of human relationships. "Grey Sand and White Sand" centers on painter Hilary Monk who, while enthralled with capturing a majestic landscape, contends with his strange, shifting relationship with his lover. A woman named Len traverses the forest of Parvus Holt and encounters an unexpected terror in "The Rite." Miss Alquist, the ocean-loving protagonist of "The Pledge," moves to a strange town once abutted by the sea but long since abandoned by both the waters and the outside world. Simpson wonderfully contrasts the wild and the domestic, and her greatest strength lies in her ability to build a sense of rustic normalcy before letting a slice of the unusual disturb the course of life. Fans of Daphne du Maurier and early 20th-century supernatural fiction will love this forgotten treasure. (May)