The Women of the Wood

By Abraham Merritt

A forest can shelter the wounded, but it can also resist those who would master it. On the eastern shore of a mountain lake in the Vosges, an isolated inn stands near birch-and-fir woodland that seems charged with a life beyond ordinary perception. Trees lean, listen and suffer beneath lyrical personification, while the surrounding landscape hovers between natural refuge and supernatural threat. McKay, a former wartime pilot recovering from severe psychological and spiritual strain, feels an unusual affinity with the trees. His sympathy for the coppice and its apparent inhabitants places him against Polleau and his sons, whose hostility towards the forest turns a human dispute into something stranger and more perilous. Faery and dryad-like figures emerge through a dreamlike atmosphere, yet certainty remains elusive: vision, hallucination and supernatural experience overlap until the woodland's presence can no longer be dismissed. This compact work of weird fiction draws its tension from the struggle between human control and a natural world that may possess its own consciousness, loyalties and powers of judgement. The lake's opposite shore, a ruined hunting lodge and the shadowed woodland form a setting in which trauma meets both restoration and menace. Sensory prose gives the forest an almost bodily immediacy, while questions of moral responsibility deepen the psychological horror without resolving its central mystery. This book was out of print for decades and is now republished by Alpha Editions. It has been restored for today's and future generations. This edition is not just a reprint - it's a collector's item and a cultural treasure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9378416594
• ISBN13: 9789378416590
• Release Date: March 2027
• Publisher: Alpha Edition
• Length: 30 Pages
• Weight: 0.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"