In the Dark

Edith Nesbit’s natural gift for storytelling has brought her worldwide renown as a classic children’s author. But beyond her beloved children’s stories lay a darker side to her imagination, revealed here in her chilling tales of the supernatural.

Haunted by lifelong phobias which provoked, in her own words, ‘nights and nights of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear and dread’, Nesbit was inspired to pen terrifying stories of a twilight world where the dead walked the earth.

All but forgotten for almost a hundred years until In the Dark was first published in 1988, this collection finally restored Nesbit’s reputation as a one of the most accomplished and entertaining ghost-story writers of the Victorian age.

With seven extra newly-discovered stories now appearing for the first time in paperback, this revised edition includes an introduction by Hugh Lamb exploring the life of the woman behind these tales and the events and experiences that contributed to her fascination with the macabre. The opening story, the unforgettable 'Man-Size in Marple', was adapted by Mark Gatiss as the BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas in 2024.

Reviews

‘Deliciously creepy and wide-ranging. And some fascinating illuminations of the social mores of the time. Like almost everyone else, I only knew Edith Nesbit's writing for children. But once you're in the mood to be given the shivers, have a go at these.’ Amazon reviews

About the author

For 46 years, Hugh Lamb collected and edited vintage tales of the supernatural and macabre, carving out for himself a reputation as one of the UK’s foremost authorities on Victorian ghost stories and other vintage tales of terror. He died in 2019 aged 73.