320 pages |Hardcover

Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literatures strangest tales, fromFrankensteintoThe Haunting of Hill Houseand beyond.

Frankensteinwas just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldnt exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows aboutMary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husbands heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard ofMargaret Mad Madge Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work ofShirley Jackson, whose novelThe Haunting of Hill Housewas reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings ofViolet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. Youll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and todays vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales.

Part biography, part readers guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.