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Melissa Edmundson

@melissae.bsky.social

2.4K followers 350 following 290 posts

PhD in Victorian lit. Editor/researcher/lecturer. Women’s ghost stories & the supernatural. Lots of posts about books. And ghosts. And Margery Lawrence. Violet Hunt’s The Tiger Skin and Other Tales of the Uneasy out now with The British Library.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · Nov 10

Hello to my new followers! I specialize in ghost stories by women writers, mostly from the Victorian period into the early 20th c. Expect lots of photos of old books and photos of my cat Simone. Here's a pic that combines the two. 💙📚🐈

A black cat looking at a shelf of books by women authors.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 4h

André Morell…the original and the best.

Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 10h

Day 9 of #31days31books is Alice Perrin’s Tales That Are Told (1917).

Dust jacket for Alice Perrin’s Tales That Are Told (1917). The center image is of a woman with a snake wrapped around her.

Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 1d

Day 8 of #31days31books is Dorothy Macardle's EARTH-BOUND (1924), a collection of ghost stories written while she was a prisoner in Mountjoy and Kilmainham Gaols from November 1922 to May 1923 due to her support for the Irish Republican cause.

Front cover of Dorothy Macardle's EARTH-BOUND (1924).

Title page of Dorothy Macardle's EARTH-BOUND (1924).

Reposted by Melissa Edmundson

Daniel Pietersen @pietersender.bsky.social · 1d

After the sad demise of Dead Reckonings the team at @whatsleepsbeneath.com were kind enough to offer some of my older reviews a new home. I’ve just noticed that this one for the excellent Women’s Weird is now up on the site!

www.whatsleepsbeneath.com/archive/wome...

@melissae.bsky.social #weird

[Book Review] ‘Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890–1940’

Think of weird fiction and, probably without even realizing it, you will think of one thing: men. Whether it’s H. P. Lovecraft’s tentacled monstrosities, the decadent necromancies of Clark Ashton Smit...

www.whatsleepsbeneath.com

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 1d

Oh no, I didn’t know Dead Reckonings was no more. That’s a shame. But it’s great that your reviews have a new home!

Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 1d

Clotilde Graves/"Richard Dehan"'s story "The Great Beast of Kafue" (1917) tells of a perilous journey to southern Africa to find the last surviving brontosaurus. #WyrdWednesday

Color illustration by Charles R. Knight of a brontosaurus submerged in water in the foreground. Another lighter-colored brontosaurus is approaching the water in the background.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 1d

Charlotte Riddell now has a blue plaque in Carrickfergus!

Tramp Press @tramppress.bsky.social · 1d

We are delighted to see the wonderful Charlotte Riddell recognised with a blue plaque!

You can pick up our edition of A Struggle for Fame here:

tramppress.com/product/a-st...

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Charlotte Riddell: Queen of Ghost Stories honoured with blue plaque in Carrickfergus

Her more than 50 stories explored moral ambiguity and an obsession with the supernatural in the Victorian age.

www.bbc.com

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Reposted by Melissa Edmundson

Lisa Grimm Grinning Ghosts Come Out to Socialise @lisagrimm.com · 8d

IT’S TIME. We are back with #31DaysOfHalloween - highlighting a #spookybook (or several) every day. Kicking off with a new-to-us copy of a classic of the genre.

This House is Haunted by Guy Lyon Playfair, with two York Ghost Merchants ghosts

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 2d

For day 7 of #31days31books we have Gertrude Atherton’s collection of supernatural stories THE BELL IN THE FOG (1905). That blue cover. 💙

Front cover of Gertrude Atherton’s THE BELL IN THE FOG. The cover is a deep shade of blue.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 3d

Day 6 of #31days31books is Margery Lawrence’s The Terraces of Night, her second collection of supernatural stories, first published in 1932.

Dust jacket for Margery Lawrence’s The Terraces of Night. At the top of the jacket is a pistol, then a skull, then a disembodied hand.

Reposted by Melissa Edmundson

John Reppion @johnreppion.bsky.social · 7d

I have a lot of books about ghosts and hauntings on my shelves. So, as we countdown to Halloween 2025, I'm going to pick a book and a ghost/haunting from that book and post a little bluesky sized summary of that on here.
#DailyGhost

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Reposted by Melissa Edmundson

Theo Paijmans @memizon.bsky.social · 4d

Added to my library: 16 parts (seven in this photo) of the spiritualist series ‘On the Borders of Two Worlds’ by feminist and paranormal spiritist Elise van Calcar (1822-1904). I have an almost complete set, but I couldn’t resist these bindings. It was published in 29 volumes, from 1877 to 1905.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 4d

An excellent collection. Some of the best Weird stories ever written, imo. Very reminiscent of MR James.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 4d

Yes indeed. She is such a versatile and innovative writer. Also Gothic romance.

Reposted by Melissa Edmundson

Theo Paijmans @memizon.bsky.social · 4d

A shelfie of the 19th century female occult powerhouse: Anna Bonus Kingsford, Lady Caithness, Nizida, Emma Hardinge Britten and Florence Marryat. This time by daylight. Marryat also wrote the classic novel ‘The Blood of the Vampire’, published in the same year as ‘Dracula’.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 4d

Day 5 of #31days31books is Harriet Prescott Spofford’s THE AMBER GODS AND OTHER STORIES (1863). Her horror story "Circumstance" gave Emily Dickinson nightmares!

Title page to Harriet Prescott Spofford’s THE AMBER GODS AND OTHER STORIES (1863). A little white ghost holds the book open.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 5d

Day 4 of #31days31books is Alice Brown’s The Flying Teuton (1918) in its rare dust jacket. The title story reimagines the tale of the Flying Dutchman in a WWI setting.

Dust jacket of Alice Brown’s The Flying Teuton (1918) with a shadowy image of a boat on waves.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 5d

Saturday Simone #caturday

From left to right: a ghost shaped white pillow, a black bat shaped pillow, and a non-pillow black cat. All on a fluffy white blanket.

Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 6d

Day 3 of #31days31books is Violet Tweedale’s Phantoms of the Dawn, originally published in 1924.

Front cover to Phantoms of the Dawn by Violet Tweedale.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 7d

It’s such a good ghost story!

Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 7d

For day 2, here’s a look inside Ellen Glasgow’s The Shadowy Third and Other Stories (1923). The lovely frontispiece depicts a scene from the title story.

🎃 #31days31books 👻

The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasgow. The book is open and to the left shows a frontispiece image of a woman and a small child. To the right is the title page.

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Reposted by Melissa Edmundson

Daniel Pietersen @pietersender.bsky.social · 8d

*unearthly shrieking intensifies*

TALES OF THE WEIRD MERCH IS GO

@blpublishing.bsky.social @britishlibrary.bsky.social #TalesOfTheWeird

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 8d

E. Nesbit’s “From the Dead” features a reanimated body that is both terrifying and incredibly tragic. The story appears in her collection Grim Tales (1893). #wyrdwednesday

www.gutenberg.org/files/40321/...

Cover to E. Nesbit’s Grim Tales. It features a disembodied hand over the title. Both the title and hand are red against a tan background.

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Melissa Edmundson @melissae.bsky.social · 8d

Thought I’d do something a bit different for my annual month-long celebration of women’s ghost stories. So instead of doing individual stories, I’ll share the books themselves. (All books are from my collection.)

🎃 Here we go! 👻

First up is Marjorie Bowen’s The Bishop of Hell (1949)

Dust jacket for Marjorie Bowen’s The Bishop of Hell with a bishop’s head surrounded by orange flames set against a black background.

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Reposted by Melissa Edmundson

Dr Amara Thornton @amalexathorn.bsky.social · 8d

Will be checking this out, with great interest

Brooke Newman @brookenewman.bsky.social · 8d

The stories of enslaved African people and more than 1,000 British plantation owners who were compensated after abolition have been brought together in a searchable archive for the first time.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

‘This is strength’: stories of enslaved Africans in Grenada made into searchable archive

Depths of Paradise project backed by British family and created by Stephen Lewis, a descendant of survivors

www.theguardian.com

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