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

Frankensteinwas just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn't 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 husband's 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. You'll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today's vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales.

Part biography, part reader's 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.

Introduction

PART ONE: THE FOUNDING MOTHERS
Margaret Cavendish: Mad Madge
Ann Radcliffe: Terror over Horror
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: The Original Goth Girl
Regina Maria Roche: Scandalizing Jane Austen
Mary Anne Radcliffe: Purveyor of Guts and Gore
Charlotte Dacre: Exhibitor of Murder and Harlotry

PART TWO: HAUNTING TALES
Elizabeth Gaskell: Ghosts Are Real
Charlotte Riddell: Born Storyteller
Amelia Edwards: The Most Learned Woman
Paula E. Hopkins: The Most Productive Writer
Vernon Lee: Ghostwriter à la Garçonne
Margaret Oliphant: Voice for the Dead
Edith Wharton: The Spine-Tingler

PART THREE: CULT OF THE OCCULT
Marjorie Bowen: Scribe of the Supernatural
L. T. Meade: Maker of Female Masterminds
Alice Askew: Casualty of War
Margery Lawrence: Speaker to the Spirits
Dion Fortune: Britian's Psychic Defender

PART FOUR: THE WOMEN WHO WROTE THE PULPS
Margaret St. Clair: Exploring Our Depths
Catherine Lucille Moore: Space Vamp Queen
Mary Elizabeth Counselman: Deep South Storyteller
Gertrude Barrows Bennett: Seer of the Unseen
Everil Worrell: Night Writer
Eli Colter: Keeping the Wild West Weird

PART FIVE: HAUNTING THE HOME
Dorothy Macardle: Chronicler of Pain and Loss
Shirley Jackson: The Queen of Horror
Daphne du Maurier: The Dame of Dread
Toni Morrison: Haunted by History
Elizabeth Engstrom: Monstrosity in the Mundane

PART SIX: PAPERBACK HORROR
Joanne Fischmann: Recipes for Fear
Ruby Jean Jensen: Where Evil Meets Innocence
V. C. Andrews: Nightmares in the Attic
Kathe Koja: Kafka of the Weird
Lisa Tuttle: Adversary for the Devil
Tanith Lee: Rewriting Snow White

PART SEVEN: THE NEW GOTHS
Anne Rice: Queen of the Damned
Helen Oyeyemi: Teller of Feminist Fairy Tales
Susan Hill: Modern Gothic Ghost Maker
Sarah Waters: Welcome to the Dark SОance
Angela Carter: Teller of Bloody Fables
Jewelle Gomez: Afrofuturist Horrorist

PART EIGHT: THE FUTURE OF HORROR AND SPECULATIVE FICTION
The New Weird: Lovecraft Revisited and Revised
The New Vampire: Polishing the Fangs
The New Haunted House: Home, Deadly Home
The New Apocalypse: This Is the End (Again)
The New Serial Killer: Sharper Weapons, Sharper Victims

Glossary
Notes
Suggested Reading
Index
Acknowledgments