Gaslight was chosen as a name for this etexting project because the period when gas was used for illumination corresponded with the Victorian and Edwardian eras. We thought that the rivals of Sherlock Holmes (promoted by Hugh Greene in four anthologies) deserved as much attention from mystery fans as the Doyle canon was receiving. But we expanded to include Holmes' precursors, and then to include adventure stories and The Weird, written between 1800 and 1919.

       Gaslight began as a Mailserv discussion list in the early 1990's. Stories were summoned by listmembers via email in plain text format. In 1997, the list became a website partially sponsored by the English Department of Mount Royal College, Calgary, and partially on GeoCities.com

       Much of the old site is viewable at Archive.org.

 

       After a hiatus, Gaslight-Arts.com was created (2020-apr), and began announcing on Twitter (2020-may) and Instagram (2021-oct). This blog which you are reading began (2023-mar) as a way to record incidental details and sidelights uncovered during the etexting and file distribution process.