One New Book, One Forthcoming

In December, I was asked by the British Library "Tales of the Weird" imprint to write an Introduction to The Luck of the Town, by Marion Fox, scheduled for April 2026. The timing was short, but the introduction was finished in January and the book is now out.  The cover went through some variations, but the finished version, embossed, is quite nice. I copy it below, and also the rear cover, which gives a a good blurb for the book (written not by me, but by the editor at the British Library). Click on the images to make them larger. 

 

And another book to which I have contributed has just been announced for publication in January 2027, nicely in hardcover and a more affordable trade paperback. It's available for pre-order at the publisher's webpage. I've requested that they add a table of contents to the page.  My contribution is "A Checklist of the Published Writings of Richard Adams."  It is divided into five sections: Books; Stories; Nonfiction; Juvenilia; and Selected Interviews. I was surprised that no one had ever attempted such an Adams bibliography before. 

 

Lesser-Known Writers of Weird Fiction

I just want to take this opportunity to call some attention to some recent entries at one of my other blogs, on Lesser-Known Writers.  Most of the entries are illustrated with photographs and dust-wrappers. There should be (I would think) a considerable overlap of interest with readers of Wormwoodiana, in that many of the authors covered wrote supernatural fiction and are today fairly forgotten.  Some of the authors wrote for Weird Tales (e.g., Bassett Morgan, and Lyllian Huntley Harris).  Others wrote supernatural novels (Marion Fox, and C. Bryson Taylor).  Interested in cricket fantasies?  Check out the entry for Alan Miller.  The "Labels" function in the right-hand column I use as a kind of index to the blog itself. But here are direct links to some entries of interest to readers of Wormwoodiana:

Vivian Meik (with newly discovered information), author of Devil's Drums (1933)

C. Bryson Taylor, author of the vampire novel In The Dwellings of the Wilderness (1904)

Marion Fox, author of Ape's Face (1914) and The Mystery Keepers (1919)

Blanche Bloor Schleppey, author of The Soul of a Mummy (1908)

Alan Miller, author of Phantoms of a Physician (1934) and Close of Play (1949)

Lyllian Huntley Harris, author of one known short story in Weird Tales, the subject of a later-day fraud

Bassett Morgan, prolific Weird Tales author

And many others, with more to come.