Fear in the Blood Tales from the Dark Lineages of the Weird

*Timothy followed, in his dream, and saw the ungainly, yet agile creature clamber in through the cat-flap… He could hear the flip-flop as it went up the stairs, and he woke himself, screaming, in a tangle of sheet and blanket. On Sunday night the dream was even worse.*

Through eighteen dark tales bubbling with the ghostly and the occult, Mike Ashley traces the phenomenon of families in which a talent for channeling the Weird passes down the generations, showcasing six lineages whose names echo through the halls of speculative fiction: Dickens, Hawthorne, Le Fanu, Pangborn, Marryat and Aiken.

With a story each from selected members of these families along with introductions on the history of their bloodlines, this collection explores unexpected connections and the strange influences that define us while offering a rare selection of chilling Weird fiction.

MIKE ASHLEY is an author, Edgar award-winning editor and expert on genre fiction. Since 2018, he has drawn on his experience researching rare periodicals and lost anthologies to create thrilling volumes of rediscovered strange tales for the Tales of the Weird series.

CONTENTS
Introduction: Bloodlines 7
A Note from the Publisher 11

The Marryat Family
Krantz’s Narrative Frederick Marryat 15
The Haunted Nursery Florence Marryat 43

The Sheridan and Le Fanu Families
The Watcher Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
What It Meant Rhoda Broughton115
Fran’s Nan’s Story Sarah LeFanu 135

The Hawthorne Family
Young Goodman Brown Nathaniel Hawthorne 149
The Mysterious Case of My Friend Browne
Julian Hawthorne 167
Unawares Hildegarde Hawthorne 189

The Dickens Family
A Child’s Dream of a Star Charles Dickens 199
My Fellow Travellers Mary Angela Dickens 205
To Reach the Sea Monica Dickens 221
The Secret Ones Mary Danby 227

The Pangborn Family
The Substitute Georgia Wood Pangborn
Wogglebeast Edgar Pangborn 253
My Name Is Samantha Mary C. Pangborn 265

The Aiken Family
Silent Snow, Secret Snow Conrad Aiken283
The Pipe-Smoker Martin Armstrong 307
Old Fillikin Joan Aiken319

Story Sources