Francis Stevens Unseen Unfeared And Other Stories

A pseudonym of Gertrude Barrows Bennett Gertrude Barrows Bennett was born in Minneapolis on 18th September 1884. She completed school up to the eighth grade, then switched to night school to study illustration, unfortunately she was never able to achieve a career in this. As a fall-back she began working as a stenographer, a career which she would keep to for the rest of her life. But Gertrude had talent, writer's talent. Her first short story was written when she was 17. Not you would think the usual subjects of curious teenage girls with headstrong ambitions but a science fiction story entitled 'The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar'. She mailed the finished story to Argosy, one of the most well known of the pulp magazines. The story was published in the March 1904 issue. Whilst her career was to be short and not at all prolific she is best remembered for her excellent ideas, many of which were way ahead of their time. By the time of her death in 1948 her pseudonym of 'Francis Stevens' could lay claim to being a respected and much admired author of science fiction and dark fantasy short stories and novels.

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1883-1948) was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States, publishing her stories under the pseudonym Francis Stevens. She completed school through the eighth grade then attended night school in hopes of becoming an illustrator, a goal she never achieved. She began working as a stenographer, a job she held on and off for the rest of her life. She began to write a number of short stories and novels, only stopping when her mother died in 1920. Bennett wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies between 1917 and 1923. Her first published story, the novella Nightmare!, appeared in All-Story Weekly in 1917. Among her most famous books are Claimed! (1920) and the lost world novel The Citadel of Fear (1918). Bennett also wrote an early dystopian novel, The Heads of Cerberus (1919). She has been recognized in recent years as a pioneering female fantasy author. Amongst her other works are Unseen - Unfeared (1919), Serapion (1920) and Elf Trap. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

From Lovecraft to Borges to Gaiman, a century of intrepid literary experimentation has created a corpus of dark and strange stories that transcend all known genre boundaries. Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature. Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won't find any elves or wizards here...but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled. The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon. The Weird is the winner of the 2012 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Slithering from these pages are never-before-collected tales of suspense and wonder by the woman who invented modern-day dark fantasy: A man goes quietly to bed aboard the doomed Lusitania and awakens on a magical South Pacific Island just as the passenger liner is torpedoed. In a future where women rule the world, a sentient island becomes murderously jealous of a shipwrecked couple. Dire consequences await a human swept into the dark, magical world of elves. A deadly labyrinth coils around the dark heart of a picturesque landscape garden. Within an Egyptian sarcophagus lies the horrifying price of infidelity. Swirling unseen around us are loathsome creatures giving form to our basest desires and fears. A beautiful, veiled medium may hold the key to preventing unspeakable evil from slipping through the borderlands between life and death. On a lost island a woman pipe player and her monstrous dancing partner bring death and terror to five adventurers. ø The stories in this collection have played an integral role in the development of modern dark fantasy, greatly influencing such writers as H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt.

This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Citadel of Fear is a lost world story and focuses on a forgotten Aztec city, which is "rediscovered" during World War I.Excerpt:"The sun, he thought, had grown monstrous and swallowed all the sky. No blue was anywhere. Brass above, soft, white-hot iron beneath, and all tinged to redness by the film of blood over sand-tormented eyes. Beyond a radius of thirty yards his vision blurred and ceased, but into that radius something flapped down and came tilting awkwardly across the sand, long wings half-spread, yellow head lowered, bold with an avid and loathsome curiosity. "You!" whispered the man hoarsely, and shook one great, red fist at the thing. "You'll not get your dinner off me nor him while my one foot can follow the other!"

Gertrude Barrows Bennett, known by the pseudonym Francis Stevens, was a pioneering author of fantasy and science fiction. In spite of a short career of seven years between 1917 and 1923, which ended suddenly for unknown reasons, Stevens produced original and startling fantasies, leading many to name her the creator of dark fantasy. Her highly imaginative tales went on to inform the works of prominent weird and horror writers, including H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt. For this first time in publishing history, this eBook presents Stevens’ complete works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Stevens’ life and works * Concise introductions to the novels and other texts * All 5 novels, with individual contents tables * Features rare novels appearing for the first time in digital publishing * Images of how the stories were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Includes special bonus texts of the science fiction and fantasy works that inspired Stevens’ tales * Rare short stories available in no other collection * Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres CONTENTS: The Novels The Citadel of Fear (1918) The Labyrinth (1918) The Heads of Cerberus (1919) Avalon (1919) Claimed (1920) The Short Stories The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar (1904) The Nightmare (1917) Friend Island (1918) Behind the Curtain (1918) Unseen — Unfeared (1919) The Elf-Trap (1919) Serapion (1920) Sunfire (1923)

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1883-1948) was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States, publishing her stories under the pseudonym Francis Stevens. She completed school through the eighth grade then attended night school in hopes of becoming an illustrator, a goal she never achieved. She began working as a stenographer, a job she held on and off for the rest of her life. She began to write a number of short stories and novels, only stopping when her mother died in 1920. Bennett wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies between 1917 and 1923. Her first published story, the novella Nightmare!, appeared in All-Story Weekly in 1917. Among her most famous books are Claimed! (1920) and the lost world novel The Citadel of Fear (1918). Bennett also wrote an early dystopian novel, The Heads of Cerberus (1919). She has been recognized in recent years as a pioneering female fantasy author. Amongst her other works are Unseen - Unfeared (1919), Serapion (1920) and Elf Trap.

A ground-breaking collection of the best Weird short stories by women from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.