“My Aunt Margaret’s Adventure” is reminiscent of the great terror tales of mounting alarm such as Wilkie Collins’s “A Terribly Strange Bed”; the hotel scene, to a lesser extent, in Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”; James Whale’s The Old Dark House; and the more recent film The Last Great Wilderness (2002) directed by David Mackenzie. […]| Swan River Press
We find ourselves with a second issue this year focusing on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. I had a handful of items that I couldn’t fit into the previous issue, so I hope you’ll allow me the indulgence of a few more pages. There’s some interesting stuff between these covers. The first piece is the subject […]| Swan River Press
Editor’s Note #26 We find ourselves with a second issue this year focusing on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. I had a handful of items that I couldn’t fit into the previous issue, so I hope you’ll allow me the indulgence of a few more pages. There’s some interesting stuff between these covers. The first piece […]| Swan River Press
“Perhaps other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and clothed in human flesh.” – Uncle Silas With Henry James, Elizabeth Bowen, and James Joyce among his admirers, the ghost stories and novels of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) cast a long shadow on the literary landscape. Dreams of Shadow and Smoke features […]| Swan River Press
“He stands absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories.” – M. R. James A major influence on M. R. James, considered by Henry James “ideal reading for the hours after midnight”, and thought to be one of the inspirations for Bram Stoker’s Dracula through his classic vampire tale “Carmilla”—Joseph Sheridan Le […]| Swan River Press
A Talk with Jim Rockhill| Swan River Press
A Talk with Jim Rockhill Conducted by John Kenny, June 2025 Jim Rockhill has edited collections of fiction by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Bob Leman, and E.T.A. Hoffmann; he is also the co-editor of Jane Dixon Rice’s collected fiction, the essay collection Reflections in a Glass Darkly, and the anthology Dreams of Shadow and Smoke; […]| Swan River Press
“I’ll show you what horror means!” – Frederic March as Mr. Hyde Suggested listening: “The Monster Mash” by Bobby Pickett Although I was fortunate enough to meet and get to know David J. Skal many years later at a post-seminar reception at the Stag’s Head in central Dublin, my first introduction to him was through […]| Swan River Press
“There hadn’t been monks at the abbey since 1600. Not living ones, that is.” When the puckish spirit of a monk begins haunting the storied village of Pulborough, known for its ancient abbey, Maud Garner, manager of the Coach and Horses Inn, arranges for the famous ghost hunter, Walter Prince, to come investigate. And from […]| Swan River Press
“The death itself was not a bodily thing.” A ghost is an absence defined by its presence, or else a presence defined by its absence. The work of Brian Catling is filled with such visions, intrusions on the threshold of our world and the next. The stories collected within are fragments of a singular imagination, […]| Swan River Press
A Talk with Victor Rees| Swan River Press
A Talk with Victor Rees Conducted by John Kenny, July 2025 Victor Rees is a writer, performer, and academic based in London. His PhD focuses on the work of Brian Catling, exploring his oeuvre through the prism of the Weird, the Visionary, the mystic and the grotesque. His short stories and scholarly articles have been […]| Swan River Press
As a whole, I like to think that The Green Book serves as a sort of portrait of Irish Gothic literature in its myriad guises, incomplete though it may be, but ever adding detail to the canvas. Looking over this issue, I feel that most of what has been assembled here are portraits of the […]| Swan River Press
It’s no secret that I enjoy a good tradition. Our Haunted Year is one such tradition with which I like to engage as winter closes in, a short reflection on everything we’ve accomplished with Swan River Press this year. When publishing becomes difficult—and there are usually numerous irksome moments every twelve month period—it’s good to […] The post Our Haunted Year 2024 appeared first on Swan River Press.| Swan River Press
Ellen Datlow announced the contents for Best Horror of the Year back in April of this year. As is the custom this time of year, Ellen also announced a long-list of recommended stories from 2023. I’m delighted to see a number of inclusions from books we published. All three titles are still available if you’d […] The post Best Horror of the Year 2023 Recommendations appeared first on Swan River Press.| Swan River Press
Hi folks—It’s that time of year again when you’ll hopefully want to order some books for your loved ones for the coming holiday season. As always, the post office can be a hectic place as our colleagues there do their best to get everything on its way as quickly as possible. Below are An Post’s […] The post Holiday Postage appeared first on Swan River Press.| Swan River Press
The below is a response sent to the editor of the Irish Times and published on their website on 2 November 2024: Dear Editor, I note the recent article, “Irish Women Ghost Writers: Rediscovering Lost Voices” (30 Oct. 2024) by Jen Herron. Characterising Irish women ghost story writers as “lost”, “forgotten”, or otherwise is misleading. […] The post Irish Women Ghost Writers appeared first on Swan River Press.| Swan River Press
“Ireland’s contributions to supernatural literature has been a major one and, like its contribution to literary endeavour generally, out of proportion to the country’s small size.” – Peter Berresford Ellis, Supernatural Literature of the World One of the occasional criticisms of The Green Book is that it’s far too niche. That the focus on Irish […]| Swan River Press
Our previous issue saw a fabulous array of reminiscences of Lord Dunsany—and also some contemporary assessments of his works—written by his Irish colleagues, including Yeats, Bowen, Gogarty, Tynan, A.E., and others. Issue 10 was fascinating to assemble and the process gave me a better understanding of and more insight into Dunsany’s literary standing in Ireland […]| Swan River Press
“Editor’s Note #25” If you’ve already browsed the contents of this issue, you’ll have noticed that we devoted the entire number to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873). The last time we gave so much space to Le Fanu was for the bicentenary of his birth in 2014 (see Issue 3 and Issue 4). There is […]| Swan River Press
This three-volume set of Fitz-James O’Brien’s fiction is the most comprehensive collection of his horror and supernatural writings to date. It offers valuable material for readers of fantastical literature, featuring works never previously collected and some appearing for the first time outside their original publications. More on Fitz-James O’Brien can be found in issues of […]| Swan River Press
Conducted by John Kenny, October 2024 John P. Irish is an educator and independent researcher who specializes in the philosophical ideas of John Locke and John Adams. His dissertation topic was on the social thought of Fitz-James O’Brien. He has earned Master’s degrees in Philosophy and Humanities as well as a Doctorate in Humanities from […]| Swan River Press
A reader recently asked me if Swan River Press would ever consider publishing an edition of Robert W. Chambers’s classic collection The King in Yellow (1895). While I love that book, and own multiple early editions, it didn’t take me long to form a response: No, we would not. The main reason for this decision […]| Swan River Press
“Such things may have attached to them heaven knows what spooks and spirits.” On the evening of Saturday, 28 October 1893, Cambridge University’s Chit-Chat Club convened its 601st meeting. Ten members and one guest gathered in the rooms of Montague Rhodes James, the Junior Dean of King’s College, and listened—with increasing absorption one suspects—as their […]| Swan River Press
“His eye sockets were appallingly hollow, and he lifted his chin as the blind do when they seek.” Lucy M. Boston is best remembered today as the Carnegie Medal-winning author of a series of children’s novels set in Green Knowe, an ancient, haunted house based on Hemingford Grey Manor near Huntingdon, Cambridge. She began writing […]| Swan River Press
Conducted by John Kenny, June 2024 Robert Lloyd Parry is a performance storyteller and writer. In 2005 he began what he now refers to as “The M. R. James Project”, with a solo performance of Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book and The Mezzotint in MRJ’s old office in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The Project has since encompassed […]| Swan River Press
