Marion Fox (1) (1885–1973)

I hate having to DNF a book and so I struggled through this baffling book; I can see why this had not previously been reprinted in over a century.

Some of the writing is beautiful and evocative and other times it’s a muddled mess. It’s dull, pretentious, strung out, and really it is the first miss of this excellent long running series of reprinted works. I have little clue what on Earth this was meant to be about or why things happen. Even the characters are vapid and uninteresting, show more leaving little room to care about their vague plights. In the end, the poetic nature and symbolism of the prose too heavily covers the true nature of the story, if one is even said to exist at all. The book’s redemption (beyond an informative mini biography of the author at the start) lies in isolated descriptions of the town and the landscapes which are often magnificent in execution. There is also a picturesque and haunting scene of the spirit towards the end of the book which one of the very few nods to the weird genre it has been allocated to.

I love finding out about lost or obscure novels from yesteryear, and some I’ve read over the years have been unexpected gems. This is not included within that company. Give this a miss and instead refer yourself to another in the Tales of the Weird collection; Possession by Rosalie and Edward Synton. That is a remarkable supernatural story that is a travesty to have been left unrecognised for so long and one I can actually recommend. show less