Est. Irkwell, Lancashire · MCMXIX
A century of unseen horror.
From 1919 until 2006 the Society published novellas to a private subscription of gentlemen, occultists and the quietly unwell. Now, for the first time, Dead Ink is republishing their archive
Edited by Constance Eden · The Eden List
The 1993 Collection
The eight novellas, written under pseudonyms, posted to subscribers in 1993. Reissued in full for the first time.
The complete set
All eight novellas in one bundle.
Every novella from the 1993 list, in the Society's original paperback dress. Marbled boards designed by Erwin Eden, who considered the pattern a form of divination.
The 1972 Collection
Five of the titles recovered from the archive · Currently reprinting
Five novellas posted to subscribers under Sebastien Eden's editorship. The plates are back on the press — join the list and we'll tell you the moment they're bound.
The 1921 Collection
Currently exhuming from the archive · Not yet cataloguedEight titles from the Society's second year remain in the archive. Coming soon.
Irkwell Hall · Northern Lancashire
The house that published the horror
Douglas Eden came back from Passchendaele irreparably wounded. His wife, Virginia, treated him with a form of experimental writing therapy at the family estate, and in 1919 the two of them turned that treatment into a subscription list — a way of gathering like-minded gentlemen with, as they put it, equitable experiences.
Irkwell Hall is a monstrosity of styles, extended and altered as the family's fortunes rose and fell. The oldest habitable part is Elizabethan. The ruins of older buildings still litter the grounds, along with a turf maze, a glass lake, and a hermitage that was, unusually, occupied.
Pencil and watercolour, undated · Erwin Eden
The Irkwell Estate
A map of the Eden grounds drawn by Erwin as a child. Erwin rarely left the grounds and was regarded, even by Eden family standards, as eccenric.
Pedigree of the Edens of Irkwell
The family
Four generations of the Eden family. Every name opens its card.Scroll sideways
The Edens of Irkwell
Drawn from the family archive
Solid rule: marriage · Broken rule: otherwise
Card index · Eden family papers
From the archive
Found on Connie Eden's body, 1999
Connie's Ambient Reading Tape
Two twenty-minute excerpts from an improvised musical seance held at Irkwell, credited to the Eden Analogue Spirit Orchestra. Hydrogalvanic resonance harps, pneumatic spirit oscillators, electrostatic siphon choirs, and synthesisers tuned to the presumed carrier frequencies of post-mortal consciousness.
A copy of this tape was found on Constance Eden's body. She was reportedly obsessive about it and would play it whilst reading.
The tape — £8.99
End of the Eden papers
Of course, none of the above is true.
The Eden Book Society is a literary hoax.
We invented it as a playground — a century of fictional back catalogue for today's horror writers to let their imaginations run wild inside. Nobody drowned in the Glass Lake. There is no Irkwell. Brother Cutter was just a terrible, terrible dream.
The eight novellas in the 1993 Collection are real, and they were penned by some of today's finest horror writers. The writers behind them are:
Dead Ink is an independent publisher based in Liverpool, UK. We are part of Arts Council England's National Portfolio.
Buy the 1993 Collection — £65