The Door Ajar

<p><em>The Door Ajar</em> a collection of seven short stories of the weird and uncanny by Virginia Milward was first published by William Rider & Son Limited in the spring of 1912. Two of the tales are premonitory and three of them involve haunted objects-a book from the time of plague a silver box that witnessed the French Revolution and a painting from fifteenth-century Florence-that reveal the tragic ends of those who once possessed them. The atmosphere in all of the stories is oppressive; the women in them are haunted desperate tortured abandoned or exhausted and the cause for their sad state is usually a man for 'where men go pain follows-pain and misery of mind.' These are tales in which 'woman suffers and the man sins and the man shares all the sin but not the suffering.'</p><p></p><p>This Nezu Press edition the first republication of the collection since 1912 includes a 17-page biographical essay by Gina R. Collia that reveals the real identity of the author and paints a vivid picture of her troubled life: 'I Have No Use for Men': The Life of Pearl Rudkin.</p><p></p><p>'They are striking and brilliantly written; the occult strain in them gives them an additional piquancy. The last story A Minor Third which is less obviously occultistic than the rest ends in a situation which is seldom surpassed for power in short stories.' ~ <em>Westminster Review</em> 1912.</p><p></p><p>'Seven short stories of passion and crime in which the weird and uncanny form a fascinating background to scenes of high dramatic power and throbbing human interest.' ~ <em>Old Moore's Monthly Messenger</em> 1912.</p>