Melissa Edmundson
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melissae.bsky.social
Melissa Edmundson
@melissae.bsky.social
PhD in Victorian lit. Editor/researcher/lecturer. Women’s ghost stories & the supernatural. Lots of posts about books. And ghosts. And Margery Lawrence.

Violet Hunt’s The Tiger Skin and Other Tales of the Uneasy out now with The British Library.
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Hello to my new followers! I specialize in ghost stories by women writers, mostly from the Victorian period into the early 20th c. Expect lots of photos of old books and photos of my cat Simone. Here's a pic that combines the two. 💙📚🐈
Saturday Simone #caturday (sign by @hiddenbritain.bsky.social)
November 1, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Wrapping up #31days31books with Margery Lawrence's MASTER OF SHADOWS (1959). One of the best djs out there, designed by Val Biro.

Happy Halloween! 🎃 👻
October 31, 2025 at 12:01 PM
For day 30 of #31days31books, here is Rosemary Timperley’s Child in the Dark (1956). Jacket design by Biro.
October 30, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Melissa Edmundson
#WritingCommunity!
Submissions invited to NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 44! We want poetry & prose in English, #Gaelic, & #Scots from writers who are Scottish by residence, birth, or inclination. All successful contributors are paid – deadline 31 Oct!

Submit free via Submittable 👇
nws.submittable.com/submit
New Writing Scotland Submission Manager
New Writing Scotland publishes works by writers resident in Scotland or Scots by birth, upbringing, or inclination. Prose (fiction and nonfiction); poetry; drama; screenplays; and graphic artwork (mon...
nws.submittable.com
October 29, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Reposted by Melissa Edmundson
(1/2) 🦇 A group of bats can be called a colony, a cauldron, a cloud or even a camp but with 1,500 bat species worldwide (and 18 right here in the UK!), we think it’s time to get a little more imaginative.

Surely our brilliant bat species deserve some names as unique as they are?

#NameThatBat
October 29, 2025 at 1:07 PM
My students always find this story interesting when we discuss the painting at the beginning of my Polar Gothic course. 🐻‍❄️
Edwin Landseer's allegedly haunted painting Man Proposes, God Disposes hangs in the exam hall at the University of London. According to myth, a student once committed suicide during exams by stabbing a pencil into their eye, writing "The polar bears made me do it" on their exam paper.
#WyrdWednesday
October 29, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Melissa Edmundson
Coming very, very soon…
Eleanor Dobson and I have co-edited a special issue of @edinburghup.bsky.social Victoriographies - titled Marie Corelli Reconsidered. There are clues to its contents in the beautiful cover image, below… we can’t wait for the work of our contributors to be out in the world!
October 29, 2025 at 12:31 PM
For #WyrdWednesday here's a thread of demon lovers! Elizabeth Bowen’s “The Demon Lover,” from The Demon Lover and Other Stories (1945). During WWII, a woman is haunted by a former love from WWI who keeps his promise to come back for her...
October 29, 2025 at 12:11 PM
Day 29 of #31days31books brings Louisa Baldwin's THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND (1895).
October 29, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Reposted by Melissa Edmundson
Wyrdlings! With Halloween looming large over us this week, it's time for our annual #WyrdWednesday Spooky Spectacular!

Bring us ghosts, goblins, and ghouls; witches, werewolves, and will-o'-the-wisps!👻🧙‍♀️🧟‍♂️👿
October 27, 2025 at 7:57 PM
For days 26, 27, and 28 of #31days31books here’s a trio of Margaret Irwin.

📘 Madame Fears the Dark (1935)
📙 Still She Wished for Company (1924)
📕 Bloodstock (1953)
October 27, 2025 at 7:34 PM
It’s #caturday and less than a week until Halloween, so here’s Simone perusing some shelves of supernatural fiction. 👻🐈‍⬛🎃
October 25, 2025 at 1:51 PM
For day 25 of #31days31books we have Cynthia Asquith’s THIS MORTAL COIL (1947).
October 25, 2025 at 1:24 PM
For this spectral #BookWormSat here’s a thread of ghostly revenge stories! Cynthia Asquith's "The Playfellow" first appeared in SHUDDERS (1929). A family inherits an ancestral house, and the malevolent ghostly child who comes with it.
October 25, 2025 at 1:17 PM
A pair of Margery Lawrence books for days 23 and 24 of #31days31books. To the left is Ferry Over Jordan, published by Robert Hale in 1944. To the right is the two volume paper edition published by the Psychic Book Club (1944).
October 24, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Treadwell’s is here!
Treadwell's is happy to be here at last. Bookshop at midnight. Haunted? Maybe, or maybe the books are alive and just waiting for the door to lock so they can be alone to come to life.
October 24, 2025 at 12:05 PM
For days 20, 21, and 22 of #31days31books here’s a trio of books by Helen Simpson.

The Baseless Fabric (1925)
The Woman on the Beast (1933)
Cups, Wands and Swords (1927)
October 22, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Reposted by Melissa Edmundson
This week in #WyrdWednesday we invite you to our Wyrd Masquerade ball. Let's explore lore and history behind masks, costumes and disguises!
a person wearing a mask with horns on their head .
ALT: a person wearing a mask with horns on their head .
media.tenor.com
October 21, 2025 at 7:55 PM
For day 19 of #31days31books we have Margery Lawrence's THE MADONNA OF SEVEN MOONS, published in 1931. Here’s her presentation copy to Norah C. James and Margaret L. Goldsmith. This book shows how inscribed copies can take you down some wonderful literary and cultural rabbit holes. Thread/
October 19, 2025 at 3:09 PM
For day 18 of #31days31books we have Mary E. Wilkins’s The Wind in the Rose-Bush (1903). The book is extra special because it includes illustrations for the supernatural stories.
October 18, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Day 17 of #31days31books is L. Adams Beck’s collection of occult stories, The Openers of the Gate (1930).
October 17, 2025 at 3:17 PM
So glad to see these reviews find a new home.
October 16, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Days 15 and 16 of #31days31books brings two collections by D. K. Broster.
October 16, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Melissa Edmundson
We are delighted to announce the first seminar in our 25/26 series: the wonderful @drreznicek.bsky.social will be presenting on ‘Too Bodily: Disability, Care, & Belonging in Romantic Novels’ on Wednesday 29th October at 6pm.

Free! Online! All welcome!

Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
October 10, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Icelandic books on witchcraft and magic at The National Museum of Iceland and The Culture House, Reykjavík. #WyrdWednesday
October 15, 2025 at 3:20 PM