What Did Miss Darrington See?: An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction - Softcover

3.89

71 ratings by Goodreads

9781558610064: What Did Miss Darrington See?: An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1558610065 ISBN 13: 9781558610064

Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1989

Winner of a 1989 Lambda Literary Award, this collection of twenty-four entertaining and haunting 19th-and 20th-century tales from the US, Britain, and Latin America reclaims a literary tradition that has long been overlooked. Using such techniques as magic realism, allegory, and surrealism, the authors re-imagine the cliches of supernatural fiction, focusing on female characters and treating traditional themes in inventive and provocative ways. Among the authors included are Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Luisa Valenzuela, Leonora Carrington, Barbara Burford, and Joanna Russ.

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From Publishers Weekly:

A woman bumps into her imaginary childhood companion at the airport; telepathy bridges the 5000 miles and a generation gap that separate a rural German housewife and a Chicago college student; an overweight black girl soars to freedom in her dreams; a conservative Edwardian woman is urged to marry by her future daughter, a flapper; the Virgin Mary invites the caresses of a black man; a hyena tries to pass as a debutante; a middle-aged professional meets, and learns to accept and cherish, the needy child within her. Salmonson, a seasoned writer and anthologist of fantasy and the supernatural, gathers 24 stories, written between 1850 and 1988, by U.S., English and Latin American women. While occasionally archaic or conventional in format, the selections are a superb introduction to the vast, often obscured supernatural genre in its varied permutations: Gothic romance, ghost story, allegory, etc. This searching documentation of female alienation and suppression persuasively demonstrates how supernatural fiction intentionally subverts patriarchal notions, and links the literature to the constancy of feminist social and political struggle.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review:

"A superb introduction to the vast, often obscured supernatural genre." Publishers Weekly

"Fans of supernatural fiction will find [a] treat in What Did Miss Darrington See?" Utne Reader

"[An] excellent theme anthology from the leading American publisher of historic women's writing." Booklist

"A superb introduction to the vast, often obscured supernatural genre." ―Publishers Weekly

"Fans of supernatural fiction will find [a] treat in What Did Miss Darrington See?" ―Utne Reader

"[An] excellent theme anthology from the leading American publisher of historic women's writing." ―Booklist

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