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.

Book News: Through the Night ~ Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks

I am extremely pleased to announce that Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows by Mrs G. Linnæus Banks, originally published in 1882, is now available in a lovely new edition. And this edition includes a long (18 page) introductory essay by me entitled 'Mrs G. Linnæus Banks: The Lancashire Antiquarian'. 

I particularly enjoyed putting this one together. In particular, translating a large amount of old Scots dialogue into English was fascinating and fun. Isabella Banks was an antiquarian—she loved history—and she was so interested in the details of everything. She was also, from the sound of her obituaries and various other things written about her during her lifetime, an extremely nice person.

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

First published in 1882, Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows contains fourteen traditional Victorian supernatural stories. There are tales of vengeful ghosts, wraiths, premonitions, voodoo, curses, folklore and fairies. Isabella Banks, best remembered for her novel The Manchester Man, was known for her historical accuracy and meticulous attention to detail, and the appendix from the first edition, which outlines the historical background for the stories, is included in this current edition. Also included in this edition is an introductory essay by Gina R. Collia, 'Mrs G. Linnæus Banks: The Lancashire Antiquarian'. (Nezu Press page: click here)

Nezu Press, 28 August 2023. 

ISBN-13: 978-1-7393921-3-0.  

Hardback with dust jacket, 464 pages.

Amazon UK | Waterstones UK | Amazon CA | Amazon US | Amazon FR

Book News! 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

Pre-order links will be posted here as they become available:

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

Top: The full dust jacket to the new Nezu Press book.

Bottom: 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).