The Eden Book Society
The Eden Book Society was a publishing house which produced horror novelettes for a private list of subscribers from its inception in 1919 until 2006, presided over by the Eden family. Handed down through the generations, the history of the Eden Book Society is intertwined with that of the Eden family itself - shrouded in mystery and occult intrigue, with many dark rumours emanating from their ancestral home of Irkwell Manor.
Dead Ink secured the rights to the Eden archive - a century of unseen horror, written under pseudonyms by some of the greatest authors of their day - and will reissue The 1993 Collection later this year: eight vintage horror novellas, never previously available to the public. Here's Nathan Connolly, Managing Director of Dead Ink Books on his first visit to Irkwell Manor to retrieve the original manuscripts and materials stored in the basement of the Eden estate:
This is the story of how I - Nathan Connolly, Managing Director of Dead Ink Books - took over custodianship of The Eden Book Society.
For 100 years the Edens had resided over one of the most enigmatic publishing houses to have ever existed. A publishing house that only ever published its books to a private list of subscribers. A publishing house that released bizarre, uncanny tales penned by a motley assortment of some of the most prestigious authors of their day alongside outright degenerates and charlatans. A publishing house that was forever dogged by scandal, outrage, and accusation. A publishing house that over a decade ago was put up for sale, and Dead Ink Books welcomed into the fold.
It’s been almost ten years since the family solicitor met us on a chilly October evening after the news that the sale had finally gone through, and as we stood before the impressive stately home and surveyed it’s sorry state with its temporary mesh fencing and wild, overgrown gardens, a chill seemed to sweep through our group.
We were here with one real purpose, to retrieve the original manuscripts and materials stored in the basement of the Eden estate, which had never made it onto computers or screens. But to also look upon the origins of this great press and the secretive family who ran it.
We’d known that the estate had been closed off since the Eden family line ended with the death of Margaret Eden in 2006, and the Lancashire weather had been characteristically unkind to the manor since. Windows had been left gaping to the elements, brickwork had begun to crumble, and one of the roofs had collapsed inwards with another showing distressing signs of sagging in the same direction.
Night was already closing in, alongside a punishingly cold weather front, when the solicitor finally arrived and ushered us up to the manor house, pulling a thick iron key from a pocket to unlock the heavy padlock which secured the main door before pushing it open on rusted hinges.
If the weather had been unkind to the exterior of the house, it had been cruel to the interior. We paused in the once grand entryway to don hard hats, hi-vis vests and torches which the solicitor passed to each of us. We all shared a brief look of acknowledgement, that perhaps we had misunderstood what we were getting ourselves into, but we had come too far to turn back now.
We were led through a flooded basement where all sorts of bio-hazards bloomed and sprouted, there was an ever-present fear of the ceiling falling on top of us, and every so often one of us would gag after disturbing some pool of decay. Despite that, there was a beautiful sense of being mesmerised by the weight of literary history, and ultimately we found what we had been searching for.
What we found, and ultimately took responsibility for, in that archive was the history of the Eden family and their society stretching back generations. It has been a monumental task to catalogue and preserve it – one that even ten years later is still ongoing. The material of the archive—the books themselves, but also photographs, correspondence, diaries—was stored with no natural order. Much of it was unsalvageable after sitting in the dank waters of the basement. Some of it was fire damaged from misadventures of the past. Much of it must be handled delicately lest it further decay.
But my memory of that day is not of trudging through a desultory and morbid cave of blight and disrepair, but of opening the final seal on a Pharaoh's tomb to be greeted by the glint of gold. Those twisted and molded stacks sang to me that night and made promises of riches and revelations.
Since that fateful day of excavating the secrets of the Eden manor, I am now able to look back on it with fondness. We brought our first reissue of the Eden classics - the 1972 series - to a new readership nine years ago. And now we are very pleased to finally be able to bring you the 1993 series. All these books were published by The Eden Book Society in that year under the stewardship of Constance Eden, Editor-in-Chief, who has long been regarded as an enigma within the enigma of the society itself.
The 1993 collection includes eight spine-tingling horror stories, from vampiric intrigue to visitors beyond the grave, psychological torments to vigilante killers. I leave you with but one question, are you brave enough to join The Eden Book Society?
The Eden Book Society
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The Eden Book Society is a literary hoax perpetrated by Dead Ink in order to create a playground for today's horror authors to let their imaginations run wild. The real authors behind the 1993 collection are Chikodili Emelumadu, Grady Hendrix, Alison Rumfitt, Alex Pheby, Nina Allan, John Darnielle, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan & Kylie Whitehead.
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