Eyes of Terror

“Meade, quite understandably, turned out sadistic, Grand Guignol thrillers as a respite from writing sentimental claptrap such as A Sweet Girl Graduate and The Rebel of the School. Her scariest, and hitherto scattered, short horror fiction is finally reassembled in Swan River Press’s Eyes of Terror and Other Dark Adventures, superbly edited by Janis Dawson. Highly recommended.” – Michael Dirda, Washington Post

“Meade is a terrific storyteller, able to entice any reader with her simple but perfect prose.” – Gumshoe Review

“Undeniably replete with Gothic tropes. Contested wills, strange powers, odd nocturnal doings, and sinister servants abound, as Meade blends the paraphernalia of the 19th century with the innovations and social upheavals that would define the 20th.” – Supernatural Tales

Eyes of Terror and Other Dark Adventures by L. T. Meade; cover art by Brian Coldrick; cover design by Meggan Kehrli; selected and introduced by Janis Dawson; edited by Brian J. Showers and Jim Rockhill; copyedited by Timothy J. Jarvis; typeset by Steve J. Shaw; published by Swan River Press.

Hardback: Published on 1 September 2021; limited to 350 copies of which 100 were embossed and hand numbered; xix + 235 pages; lithographically printed on 80 gsm paper; dust jacketed; illustrated Geltex boards; sewn binding; head- and tail-bands; issued with three postcards; ISBN: 978-1-78380-039-1.

Paperback: Published on 30 September 2021; no limitation; print on demand paperback; xix + 235 pages; ISBN: 978-1-78380-750-5.

“How I Write My Books”
An Interview with Mrs. L. T. Meade (January 1893)

Mrs. L. T. Meade has probably written a greater number of stories than any other living author. A healthy tone pervades all her works, and her pictures of English home life in particular are among the best of their kind. Calling on the novelist (writes our Special Commissioner) at her City office, I found her at her desk hard at work. Her personality is like her writings—bright, fresh, vivacious; and to say that she is of a well-favoured countenance is to understate the fact. She retains much of her girlish appearance, though a rather worn look about the eyes suggests midnight oil and an ever-active brain. Knowing how Mrs. Meade values her time, I plunged at once into the subject of my visit by remarking that nowadays people take a very friendly interest in those who delight and instruct them by their writings, they like to know how their favourite books are written; and asked whether she was willing to satisfy this natural curiosity.

“I shall be happy to tell you anything you want to know,” she replied in a soft, musical voice. “As to how my books are written, well, I simply get a thought and work it out. I have no particular method of writing. My stories grow a good deal as I write them. I don’t think the plot out very carefully in advance. My children’s stories, for instance, before they are written, are, as a rule, first told to my own children to amuse them—at least, I have tried that plan since the children have become old enough to be interested in them, and I have found it very successful; as a rule, what one child likes, another child will like. I write my stories a good deal because the publisher wants the book; I simply write it to order, and, of course, if he asks for a girl’s story he gets it, and if he asks for a novel or children’s story he gets that. I may say that I am a very quick writer; I produce four or five books in a season. I have written in less than three months a rather important three-volume novel.”

“Do you ever take your characters from real life?”

“Yes, but not intentionally. I don’t deliberately say I will put such a character here or there; I take traits rather than a whole character. I find that deliberately setting my mind to delineate a certain character produces considerable stiffness, and the character is not so fresh. Authors are a good deal governed by their characters in writing fiction. If your book is to be successful, your characters guide you rather than you guide your characters; they are so very living and real that you have not complete control over them.”

“Your experience, then, is similar to that of Charles Dickens and some living writers, who have stated that their characters become their masters, and, as it were, take their destiny into their own hands?”

“Exactly. I find it a good plan, when a novel is in process, after a certain stage, to cut out every character that is not intensely alive. I am now speaking, of course, of my larger stories; in a short story there is not room for development of character.”

“May I ask how many stories you have written?”

“I am afraid to tell you—between fifty and sixty volumes, besides a great many short stories. I have been writing now constantly for fifteen years. An enormous quantity to have produced?—so it is; I don’t know any other author who has done so much work as I have done in that time. I will give you an example. I have recently brought out four volumes (none cheaper than 3s. 6d., which gives you some idea of the size) and a three-volume novel, not to mention a complete Christmas number of the Sunday Magazine, of nearly sixty thousand words. They have certainly all been written under two years. I write on an average every day in the year a little over two thousand words; on some occasions I wrote a great deal more.”

“Do you write everything with your own hand?”

“I write nothing with my own hand—I almost forget how to write. I employ a short-hand writer, and I revise the type-written transcript.”

“Do you write at regular hours or at uncertain intervals; in other words, do you wait for an inspiration, or do you sit down and write whether you feel inclined for it or not?”

“I never wait for an inspiration.” Mrs. Meade added, with a laugh, “I might never write at all if I did. I write every day at a certain hour, and it would be impossible for me to write in the way you suggest. I have a great many books promised against a certain time. I always write against time.”

“And you find that your work does not suffer from that somewhat mechanical method?”

“I don’t think it does. I believe that to write against time puts your work into a frame, and is improved by it. To have to write a certain length, and for a certain publisher, who requires a certain kind of work, is splendid practice; it makes your brain very supple, so that you can turn to anything. It is a matter of habit with me now, and I rather like it.”

“Are you never at a loss for ideas when working under such pressure? Don’t you ever feel impoverished?”

“Sometimes, perhaps; but not as a rule. I often sit down, my secretary has a blank sheet of paper, I say, ‘Chapter I’ and that is all I know when I begin. I suppose my ideas do flow very rapidly, for some writers who are very much beyond me in power can’t write quickly. They have to think out their subjects a great deal. I could not write if I gave much labour to my work.”

“But surely you must sometimes stop and think when you are dictating?”

“No; as a rule, I dictate straight ahead continuously, and never pause for an instant. I see the whole scene, and I talk on as I see it.”

I could not help feeling that, if Mrs. Meade dictates as rapidly as she was speaking to me, her stenographer must be exceptionally expert. Her readiness and fluency were such, that of all the people I have interviewed, not one covered so much ground in so short a time. To this hard-working novelist our conversation was but a momentary interruption.

Continue reading “How I Write My Books” in Eyes of Terror and Other Dark Adventures.

Janis Dawson received her doctorate in English literature from the University of Victoria (Canada). She has published articles on L. T. Meade, nineteenth-century women writers, Victorian girls’ books and magazines, and children’s literature. Her recent work includes a study of Irish girls in Meade’s school fiction. She is the editor of a critical edition of Meade’s popular crime series The Sorceress of the Strand published by Broadview Press (2016).