From a dancing automaton running amok at a ball, to a prehistoric beast lurking in the depths of a Yorkshire cave, this anthology explores the nature of the ‘old weird’, and unordinary stories which go outside the boundaries of everyday life.

The anthology includes not only stories by well-known writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jerome K. Jerome, but also by long-forgotten authors such as D. F. Hannigan and Reginald Bacchus. Focusing on the idea and history of what can be classified as ‘old weird’, compared to the ‘new weird’, Rennison applies experience and knowledge of Victorian literary history to bring these supernatural tales to the surface.

NICK RENNISON is a writer, editor and bookseller with a particular interest in the Victorian era and in crime fiction. He is the editor of six anthologies of short stories for No Exit Press: The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The Rivals of Dracula, Supernatural Sherlocks, More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock's Sisters and American Sherlocks, plus A Short History of Polar Exploration, Peter Mark Roget: A Biography, Freud and Psychoanalysis, Robin Hood: Myth, History & Culture and Bohemian London, published by Oldcastle Books. He is also the author of The Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to Crime Fiction, 100 Must-Read Crime Novels and Sherlock Holmes: An Unauthorised Biography. His crime novels, Carver's Quest and Carver's Truth, both set in nineteenth-century London, are published by Corvus. He is a regular reviewer for both The Sunday Times and BBC History Magazine.