The Weird Tales of Dorothy K. Haynes

by Lamont, Craig; Mains, Johnny; Haynes, Dorothy K

• ISBN13: 9780712355766
• ISBN10: 0712355766
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-09-09
• Publisher: British Library Publishing

Summary

The fabric of Dorothy K. Haynes' weird fiction is truly the stuff of nightmares, where horrors cruel and mundane are interwoven with threads of dark fairy folklore and twisted witchcraft to deliver heady supernatural thrills. In this new collection, Haynes expert Craig Lamont presents the essential classics of her strange storytelling alongside rarities from obscure anthologies and magazines - and several stories exhumed from the family archive which have never been published before. Featuring illustrations by Mervyn Peake from the Library's collections, this volume knits the irresistible pull of Haynes' unique brand of the uncanny with a rare opportunity to discover new material from one of the great weavers of Scottish horror.

Author Biography

Craig Lamont is a researcher and editor, and an expert on Dorothy K. Haynes' works and archive. He has spearheaded a revival of Haynes' writing, beginning in 2023 with a new edition of the novel Haste Ye Back published by the Association of Scottish Literature. Johnny Mains is an author and award-winning editor renowned for recovering lost stories from the archives. Among the many volumes he has edited are two collections of lost women's ghost stories for Black Shuck Books (A Suggestion of Ghosts and An Obscurity of Ghosts), the collection Bound in Blood for Titan, and three collections of strange fiction for the British Library: Celtic Weird, Scotland the Strange and Halloweird.

Dorothy K. Haynes (1918-1987) was a Scottish novelist, journalist and short story writer who came to specialize in the ghostly and weird tale. Her impressive collection Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch was published in 1949, and she became a regular contributor to the legendary Fontana and Pan horror anthologies in the 1970s.