Book Review: "Doomed Romances" ed. by Joanne Ella Parsons

Full Title: Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love edited by Joanne Ella Parsons

“For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.”

Carmilla by J Sheridan Le Fanu

I was quite lucky to have the British Library release a book on my birthday. Doomed Romances came out on the 25th of January and honestly, I had it pre-ordered for a while and completely forgot about it. It was a nice birthday gift to myself. To be perfectly honest, I have not been very well lately - physically I have had colds and sicknesses and mentally, I have not been in the best places. However, nothing makes me feel better like a really good set of scary stories. Nothing puts me back into a good mood like it and so, whilst reading these anthologies, I have been listening to volumes of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories on my Audible app. These have made sleeping a little bit easier since I am more relaxed. But, it has always been the British Library Tales of the Weird that have really been there for me through this nightmare.

I have to admit that even though there are new stories that I have not heard of or read before, I did like the addition of more famed stories of the genre to the anthology. These include Carmilla by J Sheridan Le Fanu, which is included in the incredible anthology of the author In a Glass Darkly and is probably one of my favourite short texts of the era of decadence. It deals with a vampire story with undertones regarding female homosexuality and hysteria. The suppression of sexuality and the resonance it has to other vampiric works such as Polidori's Vampyre and Bram Stoker's Dracula are sometimes too much to read in one sitting. You really do have to savour J Sheridan Le Fanu's most famed female empowerment text which, as the anthology itself states, renders men powerless.

Another story that I liked and though I have heard of before, I have never read until now is called Mr Captain and the Nymph by Wilkie Collins. I have to admit that this story felt more Herman Melville than Wilkie Collins, but I welcomed it anyway. If there is any tale in this book that is a 'doomed romance' then it is probably this one. Complete with the weird sorcery of other lands for which Wilkie Collins is most famous for, the story itself is mostly set upon the seas and deals with an unbelievable tragedy of love. A captain and his ship are lost among the high seas and ultimately, after washing up on the shore of an unchartered land - the captain falls in love with a priest's daughter. He wants to bring her back to England but, of course, there are many other things that get in the way before that can happen. Maybe even tragedy will strike. But the language of love to loathing is absolutely brilliant. I won't say exactly what happens at the end but it is a really great story with some very sinister undertones.

Other authors in this anthology include Mary Shelley, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Marjorie Bowen and even Angela Carter. It has some pretty great themes about doomed love and I think that there were clearly some stories better suited to this anthology than others (for example: I think Mary Shelley deserves her own separate anthology because her short works are really, really good). But, I do have to say that there were clear winners for the best stories within the anthology which was definitely surpassed by the effort put in by Wilkie Collins. I personally don't think I have ever read a story by him to date that has been so good. It was such a treat.