In a vibrant follow-up to his edition of Marjorie Bowen's The Grey Chamber (2021), John C. Tibbetts has assembled a second volume this unjustly forgotten British writer's work. Here we find selections from half-a-dozen of her most vivid and provocative novels, including such vivid historical works as The Viper of Milan (1906) and The Poisoners (1936). Presented in full is The Devil Snar'd (1932), a novel of supernatural horror that, in the words of Virginia Woolf, "comes from the force with which it makes us realize the power that our minds possess for such excursions into the darkness."
There follow an expansive series of recollections of Bowen and critical analyses of her work, from such distinguished writers as Graham Greene, Rebecca West, Michael Sadleir (who writes on "Marjorie Bowen's Tales of Terror"), and Jessica Amanda Salmonson. In an appendix to this volume, Tibbetts transcribes the letters between Bowen and the American literary critic Edward Wagenknecht, covering the period 1945-48 and discussing the grim postwar period in England as well as the possibility of Arkham House publishing some of Bowen's work. Tibbetts concludes the volume with an exhaustive bibliography of her work.
Along with The Grey Chamber, this volume provides some of the most illuminating documents relating to the life and work of Marjorie Bowen, one of the most distinctive writers of her generation.
John C. Tibbetts is a professor at the University of Kansas and the author of The Furies of Marjorie Bowen (2019), the first full-length critical study of her work. He has also written The Gothic Imagination (2011) as well as books on music and film.