Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana from its historical roots through its most recent branches.
This week, we cover Oliver Onions’ “The Beckoning Fair One,” first published in 1911 in his
Widdershins collection. Spoilers ahead.
“I don’t say I don’t love my work when it’s done; but I hate doing it. Sometimes it’s an intolerable burden that I simply long to be rid of.”
At forty-four, writer Paul Oleron has grown tired of roughing it in garrets. Crossing a rundown square, he notices precarious “To Let” boards in front of a red-brick building that, while it’s seen better days, at least had better days to begin with.