Widdershins

by Oliver Onions

Overview

A collection of nine marvellous stories of the supernatural. The Edwardian era was the last great period of the English ghost story, and Oliver Onion's "Widdershins" is one of the classic collections of the age. Although each of the nine stories here is worth reading, the collection is famous because of "The Beckoning Fair One," a novella of ghostly obsession and mental disintegration just as powerful as Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw." "The Beckoning Fair One" is one of the most oft-anthologized horror tales. This ghost story has been called one of the best in the English language by such luminaries as Algernon Blackwood and H. P. Lovecraft. The tale concerns an author who moves into a deserted house and starts to become influenced by its ghostly female occupant? Or...is it just in his mind?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781775457596
Publisher:	The Floating Press
Publication date:	05/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	559,325
File size:	364 KB

About the Author

George Oliver Onions (1873 - 1961), who published under the name Oliver Onions, was a British writer of short stories and over 40 novels. He wrote in a variety of genres but is perhaps best remembered for his ghost stories, notably the highly regarded collection Widdershins and the widely anthologized novella "The Beckoning Fair One". He was married to the novelist Berta Ruck. Originally trained as a commercial artist, he worked as a designer of posters and books and as a magazine illustrator during the Boer War. Encouraged by the American writer Gelett Burgess, Onions began writing fiction. The first editions of his novels were published with dust jackets bearing full-colour illustrations painted by Onions himself.