Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson’s stories have proven difficult to categorise given their fluid movement between genres. Studying them necessitates reading across broad theories of nineteenth century Anglophone literature in the United States, gender theory, theories of the Gothic––and then of the distinct American Gothic––as well as traditions of women writing short fiction in that era. Critical study of Gothic short stories by late nineteenth century American women, as a single category, is still minimal, and is largely focused on the process of recovering that writing from periodicals, and collecting new anthologies, rather than on theorisation.

Stevenson’s tales are are both wondrous and uncanny. Often gruesome, anxious, and disturbing, the narratives display the problems of identity-formation and the idea of selfhood, the latter constantly shifting and metamorphosing in a world often imposing strict limitations and linearity. The wonder tales move that struggle for identity from a geographical realm to a psychic and sometimes symbolic one. Presenting these unpublished tales here, this project suggests the role Stevenson’s experimental genre work plays within late nineteenth century literature, and argues for the inclusion of more diverse and lesser-known voices within literary history.