Then May the Senses Fall
Evelyn Underhill’s Forgotten Fiction
Edited by Bill Gillard and Robert Stauffer
Paperback
ISBN 9781958972953
$22.99 US
eBook available
October 7, 2025
The lost fiction—fantasy and horror—of the famous Christian writer.
A revered priest’s horrifying metaphysical secret that is revealed only after his death. A sculptor’s obsessive desire to craft the horrific face that haunts his dreams and drives him to madness. A journey upriver to an unspoiled realm whose denizens revile anything tainted by humans. The sole survivor of an island shipwreck and the terrifying ancient being he confronts.
Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) is best known for her groundbreaking and accessible studies on Christian mysticism: over forty books and hundreds of articles and lectures on spiritual practices, including her most famous work, Mysticism (1911). Yet even the most avid Underhill reader does not know that she spent her youth writing some seriously weird fiction: supernatural short stories that H.P. Lovecraft might have enjoyed. Here for the first time is a collection of short stories, poetry, and an essay written by the foremost Christian mystic of the twentieth century. Furthermore, Underhill’s brief fiction career represents an important step in her mystical and spiritual development. Understand these stories and you go a long way toward understanding how Underhill became the transformational thinker and mystic the world knows her to be.
The English Anglo-Catholic author Evelyn Underhill is best known for her groundbreaking and accessible studies on Christian mysticism including her most famous work, Mysticism (1911), which is still read widely around the world. She resided in London and died in 1941.
Editors Bill Gillard and Robert Stauffer are co-authors of Speculative Modernism: How Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Conceived the Twentieth Century (McFarland, 2021), a scholarly study of science fiction, horror, and fantasy during the literary Modernist era. Gillard (PhD, MFA) is an award-winning professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and author of books on literary Modernism and speculative fiction, a novel, a short story collection, and volumes of poetry. Stauffer (PhD) is an associate professor of English at Dominican University New York who specializes in medieval and Renaissance literature, and has also published science-fiction short stories.
“I think her work is essential for anyone seeking an authentic Christian mysticism that refuses to be confined by its historical boundary of the cloister.” —Carl McColman, author of The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism
“This volume makes a significant contribution to the study of Evelyn Underhill’s work by gathering in one volume these selections from her early fiction and poetry, including one published here for the first time. With fresh insights into her early mystical sensibility, the short stories collected here also provide an immersive read!” —Kathleen Henderson Staudt, president, Evelyn Underhill Association
“Underhill’s fiction invites us to enter the provocative landscape of the spirit. This book juxtaposes poetry, fiction, and commentary in a way that thrills the reader, providing a new perspective on, and way to experience, Underhill’s more well-known writing on mysticism.” —Jessica L. Malay, emeritus professor of English, University of Huddersfield; author of Evelyn Underhill and the Christian Social Movement
“With this illuminating collection of Evelyn Underhill’s early short fiction and poetry, Bill Gillard and Robert Stauffer shine a light on a key period in the development of one of mysticism’s foremost advocates. Combined with Underhill’s revealing essay ‘A Defence of Magic,’ these works channel some of her first eclectic explorations along the border between mundane and spiritual experience. Gillard’s and Stauffer’s perceptive and accessible commentaries offer readers insightful guidance while helpfully situating Underhill in the esoteric milieu of her time.” —James H. Thrall, Knight Distinguished Chair Emeritus for the Study of Religion and Culture at Knox College; author of Mystic Moderns: Agency and Enchantment in Evelyn Underhill, May Sinclair, and Mary Webb
“Evelyn Underhill was a captivating storyteller. Her short stories are thought-provoking and filled with mystery. It is wonderful to have them all in one place and interspersed with some of her poetry plus short reflections.” —Robyn Wrigley-Carr, author of The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill
“Through her short stories and poems, Underhill reminds us that sometimes art is the best philosophy.” —Diego Pérez Lasserre, PhD, author of “Mysticism and Practical Rationality: Exploring Evelyn Underhill through the Lens of Phronesis”
