Bending to Earth

“Bending to Earth is full of tales of women walled-up in rooms, of vengeful or unforgetting dead wives, of mistreated lovers, of cruel and murderous husbands . . . ‘The De Grabrooke Monument’, a previously uncollected story by Charlotte Riddell [ . . . ] is a significant coup for Giakaniki and Showers.” – Darryl Jones, Irish Times

“Showers and Giakaniki have done a splendid job of collecting such a wide range of tales, and anyone who likes weird fiction will find a lot to entertain them . . . Here you will find fairy tales, ghost stories, horror, and much else that is Gothic and, yes, strange.” – Supernatural Tales

“Bending to Earth is a surprising, extraordinary anthology featuring twelve uncanny and supernatural stories from the nineteenth century, the authors of which are all Irish and all female . . . A highly recommended, extremely enjoyable anthology.” – British Fantasy Society

“Bending to Earth is a mix of superb, uncanny tales featuring (among other things) wandering spirits, tortured souls of both the earthly and ethereal sort, dream-like visions, and Irish ghost lore I can imagine listening to while seated beside a fire in an otherwise darkened and quiet room while outside a storm is raging and the wind is howling like the proverbial banshee.” – Oddly Weird Fiction

Bending to Earth: Strange Stories by Irish Women edited by Maria Giakaniki and Brian J. Showers. Cover art by Karen Vaughan; jacket design by Meggan Kehrli; selected and introduced by Maria Giakaniki and Brian J. Showers; copyedited by Jim Rockhill; typeset by Ken Mackenzie; published by Swan River Press.

Hardback: Published on 7 March 2019; limited to 400 copies of which 100 are embossed and hand numbered; xxiv + 185 pages; lithographically printed on 80 gsm paper; dust jacketed; illustrated boards with silver foil stamping; sewn binding; head- and tail-bands; ISBN: 978-1-78380-025-4.

Paperback: Published on 3 October 2021; no limitation; print on demand paperback; ISBN: 978-1-78380-751-2.

“An Extract from the Introduction”

There is a latent urge among literary scholars to define grand traditions in literature that sweep through the centuries. Joining the dots between one author’s influences on the work of another writer a generation thence makes for a tantalising and occasionally illuminating game. For some, these distinguished pedigrees are absolutely vital. Such contexts can give better understanding to the evolution of literary movements, the development of genres, and affinities between various coteries of writers.

Consider how much ink has been expended in an effort to prove whether or not Bram Stoker, author of Dracula (1897), had read or was definitively influenced by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” (1871-2). Sometimes connections can be delightfully subtle, such as recognising the spine of Lord Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegāna (1905) in a photograph of C. S. Lewis posing before a bookshelf in his study. But establishing a conscious tradition—one author knowingly working in the wake of another in an unbroken chain—can be a difficult and frequently tenuous task. This is especially true when genre is concerned, where delineations are often already nebulous.

If a novel or short story displays only scant elements of a particular school of literature, it is granted the prefix “proto”; the author, usually long dead at the time of the pronouncement, may well find herself surprised by such an inclusion. The best one can do in some cases is make an informed speculation—though the peril here is that these assertions can transform over time, without further erudition, into assumed fact.

The present volume is subtitled “Strange Stories by Irish Women”, and its authors populate the better part of the nineteenth century. One might rightfully wonder if such a joined-up tradition can be delineated, and if the tales in this anthology constitute part of a literary continuum. In his essay on Irish literature for Supernatural Literature of the World (2005), Peter Tremayne makes the helpful observation that “Practically every Irish writer has, at some time, explored the genre for the supernatural is part of Irish culture.” Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find an Irish author who did not, at some point, include elements of the fantastic in their work—be it supernatural, folkloric, surrealist, or something else. Naturally, this makes broad declarations a particularly challenging endeavour.

What we are more certain about is that the writers included in Bending to Earth were not considered during their lifetimes to be chiefly writers of fantastical fiction. Yet they each at some point in their careers wandered into more speculative realms—some only briefly, others for lengthier stays. Some of them, like Katharine Tynan, Ethna Carbery, and Dora Sigerson Shorter, were known primarily as poets. Others, such as L. T. Meade, and Clotilde Graves deliberately wrote for more general popular markets; while the likes of Lady Wilde and Lady Gregory—perhaps now the most commonly known—linger in the Irish national psyche for their explorations of legends and folklore.

And then there are writers whose posthumous reputations have been sustained through the years solely on the merits of their supernatural tales, their once mainstream writings now almost entirely abandoned by modern readers. In 1882 Charlotte Riddell published her seminal collection, Weird Stories, and her supernatural novellas are still celebrated for their effectiveness. Meanwhile, Riddell’s realist mainstream novels have faded from memory, outside the cloistered world of scholars and academics. Similarly, the ghostly writings of Rosa Mulholland and B. M. Croker were kept alive, with varying levels of success, by the industrious efforts of twentieth-century anthologists, while the remainder of their works passed into the afterlife of the unfashionable from which they seldom return.

In compiling this anthology of strange tales, we sought stories by Irish women writing in the broader range of the darkly fantastic. We focused on the merits of each writer and their contribution, arranging stories in a sequence that we hope makes for an agreeable read. As one might expect, these selected tales reflect the diverse backgrounds, experiences, and preoccupations of each author. While there might not be a formal pedigree in the supernatural tradition, there is certainly a more ethereal sense of connection that characterises these writers and their offerings to strange literature.

Maria Giakaniki
and Brian J. Showers
February 2019