Book News ~ The Master of Hullingham Manor ~ New Edition

I am very pleased to announce that on 29 November Nezu Press will release a new hardback edition of the 'shilling shocker' The Master of Hullingham Manor by Bernard Wentworth, with an 18-page introductory essay by me. I'm always excited about working on a new book, but this one has been particularly exciting for me.

When I first started researching 'Bernard Wentworth', I had only one very small piece of information to work with (and it was a seemingly unreliable one at that)... a mention of her in the gossip column of a Welsh newspaper. But, well, I like a challenge, and I love to research, so I ran with it. What did I find out?... That Bernard Wentworth's history (albeit lacking any murdering), was as shocking and tragic as that of the characters in her book. 

We could call her Mrs Bernard Wentworth... That was one of her aliases... But let's call her by her actual Christian name, Eleanor. Eleanor led an extremely troubled life. She wrote very little, but she put everything she had into what she did write... literally; The Master of Hullingham Manor was born from Eleanor's own experiences of marrying a wrong 'un. She was called 'devious' in court... She was laughed at and persecuted. If you want to know more, you'll have to buy the book!

So, what's the book about? Well, here's the blurb:

Carlos Hullingham is a handsome devil: physically perfect but morally bankrupt. He is society’s darling, ‘but behind the sensuous charm of exterior there lurks the spirit of a fiend, ruthless in its cruelty and malice.’ His first wife, Adelaide Hullingham, is dead… done to death… and now his second wife is proving troublesome.  Originally published in 1897, The Master of Hullingham Manor is a tale of wickedness, murder and revenge. With a cruel aristocrat, an imprisoned wife, a devious asylum owner, a fair bit of adultery, a vaulted room and a ‘Phantom Recital’ to boot. In the introductory essay to this new edition, Gina R. Collia reveals the true identity of Bernard Wentworth and paints a full and vivid picture of the authoress's extremely troubled life. (Publisher shop: Click here)

Nezu Press
978-1-7393921-6-1
Case laminate hardcover, 140 pages.

Book News: A New Edition of 'The Shadowy Third'

I am very pleased to announce that The Shadowy Third: And Other Stories by Ellen Glasgow, originally published one hundred years ago, in October 1923, is now available in a lovely new centenary edition, and it includes a seventeen-page biographical essay by me entitled 'Ellen Glasgow: The Lone Spirit’.

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

You can pre-order it directly from Nezu Press by clicking here. Or you can order it from the usual online retailers (order buttons will begin to appear on sites a few days from now) or from your local bricks-and-mortar bookshop.

Anyway, here's the publisher blurb and all that: 

Ellen Glasgow wrote only thirteen short stories during her long career, seven of which appeared in The Shadowy Third. Published in 1923 by Doubleday, Page & Company, it was the only collection of short stories published during her lifetime. Of the seven tales it contains, only four are supernatural, but all have an eerie quality to them; in fact, ‘Jordan’s End’, a non-ghost story, is the most ghostly story that the author ever wrote. This new edition contains the seven stories included in the first edition and adds to those tales a seventeen-page biographical essay by Gina R. Collia, ‘Ellen Glasgow: The Solitary Spirit’. (Publisher website: Click here)

Nezu Press, 19 October 2023. 

ISBN-13: 978-1-7393921-5-4.  

Hardback with dust jacket, 230 pages.

Book News: A New Edition of 'A Seventh Child'

I am very pleased to announce that A Seventh Child: A Novel by John Strange Winter (aka Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard), originally published in 1894, is now available in a lovely new edition, and it includes a long biographical essay by me entitled 'John Strange Winter: Author, Wife, Mother & Purveyor of Toilet Preparations’. 

It seemed very fitting that this should be the book I worked on after Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows by Isabella Banks; Henrietta and Isabella were good friends. 

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

You can pre-order it directly from Nezu Press by clicking here. Or you can pre-order it from the usual online retailers or from your local bricks-and-mortar bookshop.

Anyway, here's the publisher blurb and all that: 

Nancy Reynard is the youngest of seven children. She is the seventh child of a seventh child. In fact, as both of her parents are seventh children, she is a seventh child twice over. She is the daughter of Colonel Septimus Reynard and his wife Blanche, and she lives very happily with her family at the Warren in Minchester until she reaches the age of ten, when she discovers that she has the gift of second sight; unfortunately, it is more of a nuisance and inconvenience for poor Nancy. She starts ‘seeing’ things, in particular things about her sister Blanche's new fiancé, and blurting them out for all and sundry to hear, much to his annoyance. And so begins Nancy’s career as a reluctant psychic detective. And now, no liar, thief or murderer is safe when she is near… or thousands of miles away.

Nancy is one of the earliest fictional psychic detectives, and she is unusual in being female and, when her gift makes its first appearance at least, just a child. A Seventh Child was first published in 1894. John Strange Winter was the pen name of the Victorian writer Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard. This new edition includes an introductory essay by Gina R. Collia: 'John Strange Winter: Author, Wife, Mother & Purveyor of Toilet Preparations’.. (Publisher website: Click here)

Nezu Press, 29 September 2023. 

ISBN-13: 978-1-7393921-4-7.  

Hardback with dust jacket, 246 pages.