The Outcast and The Rite: Stories of Landscape and Fear, 1925-1938

Helen de Guerry Simpson was an Australian novelist and playwright who published many supernatural short stories. This new edition selects the best of her unsettling writing, adding some little-known stories to her 1925 collection The Baseless Fabric. Featured stories include "An Experiment of the Dead," "Good Company," "Grey Sand and White Sand," "The Outcast," and "The Rite." Simpson was born in Sydney, New South Wales, and studied at Oxford. Her novel Boomerang won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1932. She died from cancer in 1940.

Format: Paperback / softback
Publication date: 20 April 2022
Publisher: Handheld Press

Australian author and playwright Helen de Guerry Simpson (1897-1940) produced numerous supernatural short tales. This new edition includes some lesser-known stories to her 1925 collection The Baseless Fabric, while also selecting the finest of her unsettling writing. Featured stories include:

An Experiment of the Dead, in which a visitor arrives to visit a woman in the condemned cell. Good Company, in which a traveler in Italy becomes temporarily possessed of a hitchhiker in her mind. Grey Sand and White Sand is the horrifying story of a landscape artist who sees and paints a different view. The Outcast, in which a soldier left for dead in the War takes his revenge on his village. The Rite, in which a discontented woman enters a wood and emerges transformed.

Helen de Guerry Simpson was born in Sydney, New South Wales, and attended Oxford. Her novel Boomerang won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1932. She died of cancer in 1940. During the war, her close friend, the novelist Margaret Kennedy, took charge of Simpson's daughter Clemence while Simpson was in her final illness. Clemence and Simpson both feature in Kennedy's wartime memoir, Where Stands A Winged Sentry, also published by Handheld Press. The Introduction is by Melissa Edmundson, the leading scholar of women's Weird fiction and supernatural writing from the early 20th century.

ISBN-13: 9781912766604
Edition number: New ed