Widdershins

Onions wrote several collections of ghost stories, of which the best known is Widdershins. It includes the novella The Beckoning Fair One, widely regarded as one of the best in the genre of horror fiction, especially psychological horror. On the surface, this is a conventional haunted house story: an unsuccessful writer moves into rooms in an otherwise empty house, in the hope that isolation will help his failing creativity. His sensitivity and imagination are enhanced by his seclusion, but his art, his only friend and his sanity are all destroyed in the process. The story can be read as narrating the gradual possession of the protagonist by a mysterious and possessive feminine spirit, or as a realistic description of a psychotic outbreak culminating in catatonia and murder, told from the sufferer's point of view. The precise description of the slow disintegration of the protagonist's mind is terrifying in either case. Another theme, shared with others of Onions' stories, is a connection between creativity and insanity; in this view, the artist is in danger of withdrawing from the world altogether and losing himself in his creation.

cious of the strain. Her devotion and fidelity and love plagued him; she was only humiliating both herself and him. It would have been bad enough had he ever, by word or deed, given her cause for thus fastening herself on him … but there; that was the worst of that kind of life for a woman. Women such as she, business women, in and out of offices all the time, always, whether they realised it or not, made comradeship a cover for something else. They accepted the unconventional status, came and went freely, as men did, were honestly taken by men at their own valuation—and then it turned out to be the other thing after all, and they went and fell in love. No wonder there was gossip in shops and squares and public houses! In a sense the gossipers were in the right of it. Independent, yet not efficient; with some of womanhood's graces forgone, and yet with all the woman's hunger and need; half sophisticated, yet not wise; Oleron was tired of it all….

And it was time he told her so.

"I suppose," he said tremblingly, looking down between his knees, "I suppose the real trouble is in the life women who earn their own living are obliged to lead."

He could not tell in what sense she took the lame generality; she merely replied, "I suppose so."

"It can't be helped," he continued, "but you do sacrifice a good deal."

She agreed: a good deal; and then she added after a moment, "What, for instance?"

"You may or may not be gradually attaining a new status, but you're in a false position to-day."

It was very likely, she said; she hadn't thought of it much in that light—

"And," he continued desperately, "you're bound to suffer. Your most innocent acts are misunderstood; motives you never dreamed of are attributed to you; and in the end it comes to—" he hesitated a moment and then took th

Oliver Onions was a prolific writer of tales of the supernatural in the first half of the 20th century. Despite what one might think initially, he did write under his given name, though omitted the George. He is recognised as a master of the genre, though he did write quite a lot of other stuff.

The

Is his real name Oliver Onions, I wondered.
His real name is George Oliver Onions.
Pretty cool, eh?

My favourite story was The Rocker.

Great writing. Less horror and more psychological which is my preference for ghost stories.

The Edwardian era was the last great period of the English ghost story, and Oliver Onion's Widdershins is one of the classic collections of the age. Although each of the nine stories here is worth reading, the collection is famous because of "The Beckoning Fair One," a novella of ghostly obsession a

I originally picked up this hard-to-find book after reading of it in Newman & Jones' excellent overview volume, "Horror: The 100 Best Books." "Widdershins" is a collection of Oliver Onions' short stories, and was first published in 1911. Onions was supposedly a meticulous writer, writing and rewriti

Oliver Onions

Widdershins

Oliver Onions

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