Marjorie Bowen

"I hear from Mrs Barlow, who is a good gossip, that your mother and your sister are both ill. You must, then, have very little company." "Very little human company," she replied.On a moonlit night, a man dressed as the Devil arrives at the door of the ill-omened Holcot Grange the hereditary owner of the manor which has been uninhabited for two generations, he has come to escape his past and proceeds to reclaim his seat. But the tenants are not passive to his new tenure. As he is enthralled by the aura of one of the current denizens, the otherworldly Julia Roseingrave, a sultry romance begins to bubble, overlooked always by the shadow of conflict and the spectre of death.A deliciously atmospheric novella blending witchcraft and superstition with the Gothic trappings of a cursed love, this edition will also be complete with a number of companion short stories by Marjorie Bowen.

"She said once she heard some people told to get an airing in a closed carriage and that her life had been like that, trying to get fresh air, but always closed up, in a box." As warm sunshine bathes the streets of Paris in the late 1800s, the lively young debutante May meets the cotton-broker John Tyler. Far from a picturesque romance, life with the boorish broker turns sour as they move to Manchester and May finds herself trapped in a world of hostile servants and neglect. When Tyler meets his end from an overdose of arsenic the drug which he was so fond of prescribing himself as a kind of panacea May is dragged into a trial coloured by the public's hunger to paint her as a beguiling murderess. Based on the real-life murder trial of Florence Maybrick in 1899, this novel spins the gripping tale of a case clouded by sensation, its unsolved mysteries, and the untold story of the human being at its heart. First published in 1943, it was filmed as The Mark of Cain in 1947.

A poor scholar living in medieval Flanders sells his soul for the promise of wealth, power, and forbidden knowledge. Rising from obscurity through dark sorcery and cunning manipulation, he schemes his way through the corrupt courts and cloisters of Europe, ultimately ascending to the highest seat in Christendom-the throne of St. Peter itself. Yet every Faustian bargain extracts its price. As the master of black arts sits crowned in Rome, the forces he once commanded begin to turn against him. The demons he has long controlled grow restless, and the inevitable reckoning draws near. In a tale of towering ambition and supernatural terror, this classic novel explores the corruption of absolute power and the inescapable doom that awaits those who traffic with darkness.

A rediscovered gothic classic with a groundbreaking, gender-nonconforming protagonist at its heart.‘I do not sin,’ he smiled. ‘I am Sin’In a quiet medieval city, alone in his shadowy chambers, Dirk Renswoude worships the devil.Then the wind brings the young scholar Thierry to his door. Could this beautiful man share his dark obsession? Under a hushed midnight sky, the pair swear themselves to the black arts, and to one another.Yet Dirk shies away at the slightest touch. He will not discuss his past. As the duo hex their way across moonlit woodlands and learned cities, it becomes clear that Dirk will stop at nothing to live the life he desires, while concealing one precious secret.First published in 1909, Black Magic is the remarkable rediscovered tale of a gender-nonconforming rebel.'A subtle and complex thriller…Just don’t give away its secret' Washington PostThe Vintage Classics WEIRD GIRLS series ventures into the dark heart of the uncanny with disturbing, and disturbed, protagonists who dare to defy the norm. Bold, disruptive, chilling and enchanting, these tales of the weird are strange enough to get lost in.