British Weird

China Miéville doesn’t follow trends, he sets them. Relentlessly pushing his own boundaries as a writer—and in the process expanding the boundaries of the entire field—with Embassytown, Miéville has crafted an extraordinary novel that is not only a moving personal drama but a gripping...

A mythmaker of the highest order, China Miéville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Miéville’s Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole...

Step into the wildly complicated world of the Tudors—where marriages could change a country, family arguments could become religious revolutions, and getting too close to the throne was occasionally hazardous to your neck. STRANGE BUT TRUE: THE WEIRD HISTORY OF THE TUDORS explores the outrageous, dramatic, and often unbelievable true stories behind one of England’s most famous royal dynasties. From Henry VII’s shaky claim to the crown to Henry VIII’s six marriages, Anne Boleyn’s spectacular rise and fall, Edward VI’s short reign, Lady Jane Grey’s disastrous nine days, Mary ...

Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later. It is a time of...

With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police...

From the vaults of the British Library comes a new anthology celebrating the best works of forgotten, never-since-republished supernatural fiction from the early 20th century. Waiting within are malevolent spirits eager to possess the living and mysterious spectral guardians - a diverse host of phantoms exhumed from the rare pages of literary magazines and newspaper serials to thrill once more.

During her lifetime Violet Paget, who wrote as Vernon Lee, was referred to as 'the greatest of modern exponents of the supernatural in fiction', and yet today she remains on the periphery of the genre. This collection of her uniquely weird short stories and dark fantasies proves why she was once considered among the best of the genre, and why she deserves to return to those ranks today.

Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets. 

England is beautiful, historic, charming—and apparently absolutely crawling with ghosts. Weird England Haunted Road Trip takes you through some of the country’s strangest, darkest, funniest, and most unforgettable places, from haunted castles and medieval alleys to witch-trial country, ruined abbeys, plague streets, underground tunnels, cursed pubs, and windswept coastal towns that look suspiciously ready for a vampire. Along the way, you’ll encounter headless queens at the Tower of London, Roman soldiers beneath York, the Pendle witch trials, Dracula’s Whitby, mysterious legends at...

London has spent two thousand years collecting strange objects, stranger stories, and an impressive number of dead people beneath perfectly respectable buildings. WEIRD LONDON TRAVEL is a funny, fascinating journey through the British capital’s most unusual attractions, hidden histories, macabre museums, royal oddities, and wonderfully peculiar corners. This is not a dry guidebook filled with dates and sensible walking shoes. It is London with the curtains pulled back—and possibly something scratching behind them. Follow a route through Roman ruins, plague pits, haunted pubs, medieval ...

From Alexander the Great to Watergate, this unique, witty book based on the massively popular history podcast is full of wisdom and good old-fashioned banter. "These bespectacled, middle-aged bookworms have somehow made history alluring, borderline sexy.” —Times (UK) The Rest is History...

Strangling vines and meat-hungry flora fill this unruly garden of strange stories, selected for their significance as the seeds of the villainous (or perhaps just misunderstood) 'killer plant' in fiction, film and video games. Step within to marvel at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's giant wisteria and H.G. Wells' hungry orchid; hear the calls of the ethereal women of the wood and the frightful drone of the moaning lily; and do tread carefully around E. Nesbit's wandering creepers. Every strain of vegetable threat can be found within this new collection.

The world ended with a spill. Britain's cities became poisoned wastelands where the air burns, plants hunt, and strange things roam the ruins. Only one place remains untouched: Albion Street, a perfectly ordinary London street protected by mysterious filtration towers and maintained by people who barely understand how any of it still works. Colin Miller is just the street sweeper. He fixes drains, replaces lamp bulbs, and tries to finish his shift without anything exploding. Unfortunately, blocked drains lead to forgotten tunnels, roses start asking for bus tickets, ghostly maintenance ...

Some roads are longer on the inside than the outside. You know this road. You have driven it: the motorway at two in the morning, the country lane that loops back on itself, the junction you do not remember passing. You have driven it and arrived safely, telling yourself the strangeness was tiredness, or the radio, or the particular quality of light that fog produces over flat ground in October. You have been mostly right. The Path in the Fog is a collection of twenty original horror stories set on the roads of Britain—and on the roads beneath the roads, the ones that only become visible ...

The Wicker Man meets The Twisted Ones in Bitter Karella’s Quaint Folk—a queer folk horror novel that peels back the idyllic veneer of a seemingly perfect island town to reveal the rot beneath. "The folk horror I always wanted: queer, funny, bloody, and outrageous in the best way." —Laura...

A groundbreaking collection of stories, including four never-before-published tales, from the award-winning author of Perdido Street Station What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling...

Step into a world where people chase giant wheels of cheese down muddy hills, pull ridiculous faces for international glory, dance with hobby horses through crowded streets, and roll flaming barrels through tiny villages—all in the name of tradition. Quirks of Tradition: England’s Most Bizarre Festivals and Customs takes you on a hilarious and fascinating journey through the strangest side of English history and culture. From medieval oddities and royal disasters to ghostly legends and bizarre celebrations that still survive today, this book uncovers the wonderfully weird customs that ...

It’s strange what you can miss if you don’t care to look. You really should, you know; you ought to keep your wits about you, lest someone step forth from the shadows and give you a fright. I speak from experience, believe me. One bitterly cold December morning, snobbish theatre critic Lionel Smallwood and his wife Frances find themselves enjoying the wares of the Victorian Christmas market in the Dorset town of Grimstone Peverell. Chilled to the marrow, they retire to the town’s minster where they are accosted by a pious and enthusiastic guide. Eager to acquaint them with every ...

A steam yacht is sailing the North Atlantic when they spot a mysterious light. Upon investigation, they discover a derelict cargo ship but when they board, superstitions soon turn to very real fears for the safety of the crew.

Phantom Death is an imaginative story about a painting that has perplexed crowds across Europe. The painting must be viewed in solitude and is presented in a dark room, draped in black silken rope. When the unnamed narrator views the painting for himself, though, he is interrupted by another, setting off an unexpected chain of events.