Book Review: ‘The Female Hypnotist’ Edited by Donald K. Hartman

Title: The Female Hypnotist: Stories from the Victorian and Edwardian Eras

Editor: Donald K. Hartman

Publisher: Themes & Settings in Fiction Press

Publication Date: 2025

The Female Hypnotist is a collection of twelve short stories and two novellas from both the Victorian and Edwardian eras. As the title suggests, all of the stories share the common theme of a female hypnotist character. The collection was edited by Donald K. Hartman

The collection contains stories from a variety of authors. There are more well-known authors, such as Louisa May Alcott and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as authors I wasn’t familiar with including: Marie Madison, Richard Marsh and Montefiore Bienenstok. I have not read a lot of stories from the Victorian or Edwardian periods so I appreciated the opportunity to explore the works of writers I haven’t encountered before. I’m sure many readers will enjoy this book for the same reason.

My favourite thing about this collection was being able to compare how the female hypnotists were portrayed across the different stories.

I was surprised by how many of the authors used the same descriptions for their characters. Typically the hypnotists are described as young women with long dark hair and pale complexions. Instead of a plain girl from a humble background, the women tend to be high society ladies who are either stunning beautiful or prettily attractive in a way that fascinates many of the male characters. The exception to this seeming rule is only broken when the hypnotist is an old woman with a classic ‘evil hag/witch’ type appearance. The stories definitely follow the stereotype where a dark-haired character equals a mysterious nature. In this case I’m unsure if the authors were being inspired by their peers or possibly by earlier characters from folklore like Morgan Le Fey.

The female hypnotist characters fall into two categories – either they start the story as evil and act as a malevolent presence throughout or their mystical powers gradually corrupt them as the story processes. The hypnotists are always villainous in some way. Typically the male characters can also be divided into two categories – the men are either victims of the hypnotist’s devilish plan or they become the hero of the story and defeat the antagonistic female hypnotist.

Many of the stories revolve around a male character who meets or is introduced to the hypnotist. The hypnotist then use their abilities to punish or use the man in some way. This ranges from: changing the man’s personality and behaviour (often with unexpected consequences), to an elaborate robbery, or even to murder. Each story had it’s own dark twist to enjoy.

I have to be honest, I don’t find stories from these periods (what I would consider ‘classic literature’) as entertaining as modern stories however this is purely my personal preference and is in no way the fault of the book. All of the stories are well written and I was genuinely interested to read this collection because the subject of female hypnotists is one that is completely new to me.

The Female Hypnotist has been excellently curated by Hartman. I really like it when a short story collection has a clear theme which this book definitely does. The book also has one of the most extensive bibliographies I’ve ever come across. It was immediately clear that a lot of research and hard work has gone into putting this collection together. If anyone is interested or curious in this subject I was definitely encourage them to give The Female Hypnotist a read.

An Advanced Reader Copy of ‘The Female Hypnotist’ and the images used in this review were kindly provided by Donald K. Hartman. To see more of his collections, check out his author page.

If you enjoyed this review you may also like these reviews: