“I’m not brave. I just wasn’t in the mood to be a disappointment to everybody. I’m a foreigner, you know.”
”The city’s full of us, isn’t it? I’m one myself.”
”Seeking something missing. Missing something left behind.”
”Maybe with good luck, we’ll find what’s eluded us in the places we once called home.”
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.