In the dark

In 1988, Hugh Lamb edited In the Dark for the Equation Chillers series, and has now added a further seven stories for this expanded edition. Included are such famous tales as ‘Man-Size in Marble’ and ‘John Charrington’s Wedding’, along with less well known—but equally chilling—stories of the supernatural and the macabre. In Nesbit’s twilight world, the dead return from the grave; scientists pursue knowledge to the gates of death—and beyond; souls are bartered to the Devil in exchange for one last wish; a casual wager leads to madness; and a seemingly harmless maker of models exacts a terrible price for a wrong done years before.

In his introduction, Hugh Lamb examines the colourful life of Edith Nesbit, painting a portrait of a woman whose unconventional life set her apart from her Victorian and Edwardian contemporaries in the ghost story genre. He also looks at some of the events and experiences which may have inspired Nesbit’s supernatural fiction—events which, in the author’s words, gave her ‘nights and nights of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear and dread.