From The Abyss: Weird Fiction, 1907–1945 by D.K. Broster

(Handheld Press, 2022)

Reviewed by Graham Andrews

One of the first historical novels I ever read, back in my dim-and-distant childhood, was The Flight of the Heron (1925), by D.K. (Dorothy Kathleen) Broster (1877-1950). Along with The Gleam in the North (1927) and The Dark Mile (1929), Heron makes up the classic Jacobean Trilogy. The editor, Melissa Edmondson, covers the bio-bibliographic ground in her cogent introductory material. Notes on the eleven stories have been provided by Kate Macdonald. All in all, a neat little package from the enterprising Handheld Press.

We are on firm ground with the ‘1907–1945’ part of the subtitle, but ‘Weird Fiction’ is a misleading misnomer. ‘Unique fiction’ would have been more like it, coincidentally raising the spectre of Weird Tales—once billed as the ‘unique’ magazine. Each-and-every Broster story is different from each and-every other Broster story, so there is really no such thing as a typical Broster story. Apart from ‘The Taste of Pomegranates’ (see below), these selections are from A Fire of Driftwood (1932) and Couching at the Door (1942).

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Review from BSFA Review 19 - Download your copy here.