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Witch House

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Witch House
Dust-jacket illustration by Ronald Clyne.
AuthorEvangeline Walton
Cover artistRonald Clyne
LanguageEnglish
GenreFantasy, horror
PublisherArkham House
Publication date
1945
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages200

Witch House is a fantasy novel by American writer Evangeline Walton. It was published in 1945 by Arkham House in an edition of 3,000 copies.[1] It was the first full-length novel to be published by Arkham House and was listed as the initial book in the Library of Arkham House Novels of Fantasy and Terror. An expanded version, with a newly written 20,000-word prologue, was published in England in 1950. In 2013, Centipede Press issued the first American edition of this revised version, also including previously unpublished writings by Walton and several of her short stories.[2][3]

According to Robert Weinberg, the volume was Arkham House's greatest flop - an excellent novel that took nearly two decades to go out of print.[4]

E. F. Bleiler described the novel as a "Neo-Gothic thriller... [marked by] imaginative writing, a good climax, but a prolonged, dull first section and characterizations that do not click."[5] The Encyclopedia of Fantasy found it to be "an atmospheric Haunted-Dwelling tale".[6]

References

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  1. ^ 3,000 according to Witch House, by Evangeline Walton, Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1945, p. 201 of 200.
  2. ^ F&SF Interview, Douglas A. Anderson
  3. ^ Centipede Press announcement
  4. ^ Robert Weinberg "Science Fiction Specialty Publishers" in Science Fiction Collections: Fantasy, Supernatural and Weird Tales (Haworth Press, 1983), p. 129
  5. ^ E. F. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction, Kent State University Press, 1983 (pp. 512-13)
  6. ^ Encyclopedia of Fantasy

Sources

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  • Jaffery, Sheldon (1989). The Arkham House Companion. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, Inc. p. 12. ISBN 1-55742-005-X.
  • Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd. p. 28.
  • Joshi, S.T. (1999). Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. p. 31. ISBN 0-87054-176-5.
  • Nielsen, Leon (2004). Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 55. ISBN 0-7864-1785-4.
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