DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Medusa's Daughters

Magic and Monstrosity from Women Writers of the Fin-de-Sicle

Theodora Goss editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Lanternfish Press

Published:14th May '20

Should be back in stock very soon

Medusa's Daughters cover

“The witchy women are Medusa’s daughters indeed—their gaze kills. But rather than sending heroes to slay them, the writers of this collection celebrate the deadliness of these femmes fatales.”


After a period of decline, Gothic literature underwent a revival at the end of the 1800s. As the century turned, women writers such as Vernon Lee, Mary Coleridge, and Rosamund Mariott Watson left an indelible mark on fantasy and horror literature. Like Medusa herself, their poetry and short stories embody the very essence of magic and monstrosity.


Curated and annotated by award-winning fantasy author and Victorianist Theodora Goss, this collection of rare and strange gems serves as a tantalizing sampler of work by fin-de-siècle women writers, whose legacy still echoes in the speculative fiction we know and love today.

“Evocative of the legend of Medusa, the mirrors perfectly capture the mood of this collection as women writers tell of their evils, desires, and dreams through the lenses of fantasy and horror.”—Booklist


"Goss has gathered a collection of strengths: gothic tales of women, by women, some of which had been lost to time and forgetting... creating a gothic landscape that is at once timeless and timely, filled with brilliant, angry, determined women who leap right off the page."—Fran Wilde, Nebula-winning author of Updraft 


 "Medusa’s Daughters is a sinister Gothic delight, full of unrepentant witches, ghosts, dryads, and changelings. Goss is an expert guide to the strange codes of fin-de-siècle patriarchy and the bold, monstrous women who defied them." —Barbara Barrow, author of An Unclean Place and The Quelling

  • Winner of Foreword INDIES in Anthology category 2020

ISBN: 9781941360361

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

336 pages

Annotated edition