Dorothy Kathleen Broster, writing under the pen name D. K. Broster, was an English novelist and short-story writer active during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Liverpool in 1877, Broster was a private individual who actively avoided publicity throughout her career. Because of her chosen subject matter and her use of initials, many readers of her era mistakenly assumed she was a male writer of Scottish origin.\n\nBroster's literary output primarily consisted of historical romances, typically set during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Her most celebrated work is the 1925 novel The Flight of the Heron, which is set against the backdrop of the Jacobite rising of 1745. This novel cemented her reputation for meticulously researched historical settings and compelling, romantic narratives.\n\nIn addition to her historical fiction, Broster was a skilled writer of horror and weird fiction. Her supernatural stories frequently explored eerie themes, featuring haunted artists, psychic individuals, possessed objects, and malevolent entities that tormented the living. Her contributions to the genre were highlighted in the 2022 retrospective collection, From the Abyss: Weird Fiction, 1907–1945, which gathered her speculative and macabre short stories for a modern audience. Broster passed away in 1950, leaving behind a diverse body of work spanning romance, history, and the supernatural.
