British Library Tales of the Weird: Deadly Dolls

Dolls, mannequins, humanoid toys and dummies are the quintessential symbols of the uncanny, referenced by Freud in his foundational essay on the phenomenon of the familiar-turned-unsettling, and remaining a terrifying recurring menace of horror media today.

In this new collection, Elizabeth Dearnley revives a sinister troupe of uncannily animated figures from tales across the 19th and 20th centuries, by authors including E T A Hoffmann, Angela Carter, Vernon Lee, Algernon Blackwood and Rosemary Timperley. Terror and nightmares await when the doors of the doll house swing open and its denizens come out to play.