D K Broster was one of the great British historical novelists of the twentieth century, but her Weird fiction has long been forgotten. She wrote some of the most impressive supernatural short stories to be published between the wars. Melissa Edmundson, editor of Women's Weird, Women's Weird 2, Elinor Mordaunt's The Villa and The Vortex and Helen Simpson's The Outcast and The Rite, all published by Handheld, has curated a selection of Broster's best and most terrifying work. From the Abyss contains eleven stories, including: 'The Window', in which a deserted chateau takes revenge on anyone who opens one particular window. 'The Pavement', in which the protectress of a Roman mosaic cannot bear to let it go. 'Clairvoyance', in which the spirit of a vengeful Japanese swordmaster enters an adolescent girl. 'From the Abyss', in which the survivor of a car crash is followed out of the gorge by her doppelganger.

One of the first students at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, D.K. Broster (1877-1950) wrote popular historical novels after serving as a Red Cross nurse during World War I, including this tale of the adventures of royalist sympathizers after the French Revolution.