Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini (ed.): The Web She Weaves (USA 1983)

From the Publisher:
THE LODGER, Marie Belloc Lowndes • THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER, Edith Wharton • THE MAN IN THE INVERNESS CAPE, Baroness Orczy • THE WOMAN IN THE STORE, Katherine Mansfield • MURDER IN THE FISHING CAT, Edna St. Vincent Millay • THE LIPSTICK, Mary Roberts Rinehart • POSTICHE, Mignon G. Eberhart • SUSPICION, Dorothy L. Sayers • HARLEQUIN'S LANE, Agatha Christie • HIS HEART COULD BREAK, Craig Rice • CHINOISERIE, Helen McCloy • GOOD-BYE, MISS LIZZIE BORDEN, Lillian de la Torre • MCGOWNEY'S MIRACLE, Margaret Millar • ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN THE MORNING, Charlotte Armstrong • THE POSSIBILITY OF EVIL, Shirley Jackson • THE SNAIL-WATCHER, Patricia Highsmith • THE LOCKED ROOM, Celia Fremlin • THE FALL OF A COIN, Ruth Rendell • DOUBLE JEOP. ARDY, Susan Dunlap • MY NEIGHBOR, AY, Joyce Harrington • NORMAN AND THE KILLER, Joyce Carol Oates • CATTAILS, Marcia Muller • GREAT-AUNT ALLIE'S FLYPAPERS, P. D. James

Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini (ed.): The Web She Weaves. An Anthology of Mystery & Suspense Stories by Women. Including Stories by Marie Belloc Lowndes Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, tdna St. Vincent Millay Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie Margaret Millar, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, P.D. James, and Many Others. Edited and with an Introduction by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1983, ISBN: 0688048315, 514 p., $9.95.

Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini (ed.): The Web She Weaves (USA 1983)

From the Publisher:
Except for the work of a few legendary figures, such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery and suspense fiction is thought by many readers to be largely the domain of men. The stories collected in The Web She Weaves should put any such preconceptions to rest forever.

Spanning more than one hundred years of mystery and suspense writing, they demonstrate a wide variety of subject matter, style, and approach, from Gothic horror to hypnotic psychological suspense.

Some of the authors are well known within the genre: Margaret Millar, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, P. D. James, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Agatha Christie among them. Others may seem at first to be surprising choices: Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Joyce Carol Oates, for example. There are younger, less established, but no less skilled writers as well: Celia Fremlin, Susan Dunlap, Joyce Harrington, and Marcia Muller, to name a few.

The Web She Weaves will appeal to everyone who loves a good mystery story, and particularly to those who wish to explore the contributions of women to the genre. The stories have been carefully chosen to represent the best of women's writing in the field of mystery and suspense fiction over the past one hundred years. They show the historical development of the mystery story, and also document the contributions of women writers to the form. The editors' introduction and headnotes develop these themes and place specific stories within the context of the writer's career and the genre as a whole.

Above all, each of the stories included in this volume was written to be enjoyed. The twenty-three women writers represented in The Web She Weaves -- whether classic or contemporary, well-established or relative newcomers -- have produced stories of mystery and suspense that are among the most entertaining and expert ever written.

About the editors
Marcia Muller is the author of four mystery novels, including Edwin of the Iron Shoes and Ask the Cards a Question, both of which were main selections of the Mystery Guild, and of several short stories and nonfiction articles. She was born in Detroit, educated at the University of Michigan, and has lived in California since 1967.

Bill Pronzini has published more than thirty novels, most in the mystery/suspense field. Among them is Hoodwink, for which he won the 1981 award of the Private Eye Writers of America, Inc., for best novel featuring a private investigator. He has also been nominated for the Edgar awards of the Mystery Writers of America in the fields of best short story, best first novel, and best critical/biographical work. Mr. Pronzini is also the author of some 250 short stories, articles, and essays, and has edited or co-edited more than twenty anthologies. He is a native Californian and lives in San Francisco.

Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini (ed.): The Web She Weaves. An Anthology of Mystery & Suspense Stories by Women. Including Stories by Marie Belloc Lowndes Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, tdna St. Vincent Millay Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie Margaret Millar, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Joyce Carol Oates, P.D. James, and Many Others. Edited and with an Introduction by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1983, ISBN: 068802453X, 514 p., $17.50.