More Deadly than the Male: Masterpieces from the Queens of Horror (2019)

Edited by Graeme Davis
Introduction

Wharton is not alone. Many of the authors in this collection wrote across a range of genres, and here, perhaps, is the greatest contrast with their male counterparts. Writers like Poe, Lovecraft, and M. R. James tended to stay within their genre, assiduously feeding the audiences who brought them fame and fortune; on the other hand, many of the the ladies whose work graces these pages wrote whatever they pleased, crossing boundaries and blending genres as each story required. If they refused to be confined by social ideas of feminine gentility, they were queally reluctant to embrace the literary restrictions of genre and market. They just wrote damned good stories.

The Unicorn Road (2008)

Martin Davies

But never had he found a language such as this, a language that seemed to exist only to express immeasurable sadness. As he read he found himself in a world that echoed with longing, where the words for love and pain were heard to tell apart, where loss and regret filled the air like sad music on a still morning. And through it all there was dignity and restraint. No ranting, no despair.

At Night All Blood Is Black (2018)

David Diop
Chapter II

And yet I was thinking that I didn’t care about the medal, though no one would ever know this. Like no one would ever know that Mademba had begged me three times to finish him, that I had remained deaf to his three supplications, that I had been inhuman by obeying duty’s voice. But I was now free to listen no longer, to no longer obey the voices that command us not to be human when we must.