| Author | Message | ||
     Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.249.99.182 |
I just posted an article on horror writer W.F. Harvey over at the Vintage Horror site. He is best known for his great story "The Beast with Five Fingers", which has appeared in a ton of anthologies and was adapted(with some changes)into a movie in 1946 starring Peter Lorre.  http://www.vintagehorror.com/node/108 | ||
| Tom English (Deadletterpress) Username: Deadletterpress Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 68.10.197.98 |
Thanks, Matt. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.178.51 |
'August Heat' is one I particularly liked. | ||
| Stephenw (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Hi Matt, you seem a bit of an expert on classic short horror stories. I just read a great ghost story with a difference called 'The House In The Wood' by John Hastings Turner and was trying to find out when it was written and a bit more about him. I've traced it back to 'The Evening Standard Second Book Of Strange Stories' (1937) but also discovered a story with the same title by one Amyas Northcote in his collection 'In Ghostly Company' (1922). Is there any chance they could be one and the same story/author under a different name? A not unusual practice in those days I know. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.180.48 |
Stephen, I think it's just a case of two writers using the same title. According to Ashley and Contento's invaluable Supernatural Index, 'The House on The Wood' is the only supernatural story by the dramatist and novelist John Hastings Turner (1892-1956) to appear in an anthology (or two, to be precise: it was also in The Tenth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, edited by R. Chetwynd-Hayes in 1974). Apparently, Turner shared writing credit on the 1933 Boris Karloff film The Ghoul. I can't find any references to any other supernatural stories by him, though. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.180.48 |
Sorry, that should be 'The House in the Wood'. I also forgot to say that Amyas Northcote (who had only that one collection published) lived from 1864 to 1923. In Ghostly Company was one of the many elusive collections of ghost stories from largely forgotten authors of the early 20th century, and one of the first to be resurrected by Ash-Tree Press in the 1990s. | ||
| Stephenw (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Hey, thanks for that Huw! It's a haunting little yarn with some very unusual ghosts. I'm working my way through all the Fontana Great Ghost & Horror Stories series as well as the Pan Horror series as I have great memories of them from my youth. Best story so far, for me, has been 'The Island Of Regrets' (1965) by Elizabeth Walter in one of the Pan Books - a mini-epic by a much underrated author. | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.249.99.182 |
I also thank you Huw because I did not know the answer. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.32.72 |
Glad to help (and to have a chance to use my old reference books!). Elizabeth Walter is a writer I've long admired. Her five (I think it's five) collections of stories could really benefit from the 'collected' treatment. One of the things I like most about her fiction is the wide range of locales she uses. There are stories set in Wales (one is literally set just a mile or two from my old home back in Pembrokeshire), the Harz mountains in Germany (where I also lived - perhaps that's why her stories resonate with me) and many other places. She isn't very well-known, and while her stories aren't really groundbreaking in any way, they are consistently high in quality and deserve wider recognition. | ||
| Stephenw (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I've read six stories to date (all in the three series I mentioned) and there isn't a weak one among them. She comes across (so far) as a writer very much in the M.R. James tradition. Not particularly original but a crafter of quality, vividly descriptive supernatural fiction that really gets under your skin - there is a tangible quality to her horror that makes it strangely convincing no matter how outlandish the subject matter. The stories I've read are; 'The Island Of Regrets' (1965), 'The Tibetan Box' (1965), 'The Spider' (1967), 'A Question Of Time' (1968), 'In The Mist' (1971) & 'Telling The Bees' (1975). Glad to meet a fellow fan! | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.249.99.182 |
I'll have to check into her. I am unfortunately not an expert, although I'm honored if it seems that way. What I do is find one story I like by an arthur each month, and then read as many stories by them as I can (or have time for), and research their life. I'm learning about them with each article. I'll see what I have Elizabeth Walter and if I have enough I'll do an article on her. Thanks. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.231.91 |
Stephenw, I can recommend the Arkham House volume In the Mist, especially "Come and get Me" which is an all-time favourite of mine. You won't easily forget Plas Aderyn, a house "in awesome isolation in a region not thickly populated at best." "Island of Regrets" is in there as well. Don't know if the book is still available though. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.180.51 |
The Arkham House is a sort of 'best-of' collection of tales chosen by the author, and it is, as Hubert says, very good. It's a shame someone doesn't bring out a complete edition of her stories - there aren't that many. Here are the contents of her collections, for anyone who's interested: Snowfall and Other Chilling Events (1965) - Snowfall - The New House - The Tibetan Box - The Island of Regrets - The Drum The Sin Eater and Other Scientific Impossibilities (1967) - The Sin-Eater - Dearest Clarissa - A Scientific Impossibility - A Question of Time - The Spider - Exorcism Davy Jones's Tale and Other Supernatural Stories (1971) - Davy Jones's Tale - The Hare - In the Mist - The Lift - The Street of the Jews - Hushabye, Baby Come and Get Me and Other Uncanny Invitations (1973) - Come and Get Me - The Concrete Captain - The Thing - The Travelling Companion - The Spirit of the Place - Prendergast - Grandfather Clock Dead Woman and Other Haunting Experiences (1975) - Dead Woman - The Hollies and the Ivy - A Monstrous Tale - The Little House - Dual Control - Telling the Bees - Christmas Night In the Mist (1979 - compilation) - author's preface - The Concrete Captain - The Sin-Eater - In the Mist - Come and Get Me - The Island of Regrets - The Hare - Davy Jones's Tale Hubert, I agree with you about 'Come and Get Me'. One of her greatest strengths as a writer was her ability to convey the atmosphere of a location The title of her story 'The Spirit of the Place' could serve as an appropriate title for any collection of her work, I think. | ||
| Stephenw (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
Thanks again Huw. Instead of waiting for a complete collection I may start trying to collect these books individually. As a horror writer I think she's worth it! I've so far completed rereading (as I collected them all at the time) the first 10 of each of the Fontana Ghost, Fontana Horror & Pan Horror series. As I go along I'm selecting my Top 20 stories I would include in a collection of my own - purely for the craic you understand. :-) Here they are so far: 1. 'The Island Of Regrets' (1965) by Elizabeth Walter. 2. 'The Grey Ones' (1953) by J.B. Priestley. 3. 'Esmeralda' (1944) by John Keir Cross. 4. 'The Beckoning Fair One' (1911) by Oliver Onions. 5. 'Ringing The Changes' (1955) by Robert Aickman. 6. 'The Inner Room' (1965) by Robert Aickman. 7. 'The Speciality Of The House' (1948) by Stanley Ellin. 8. 'The Wendigo' (1910) by Algernon Blackwood. 9. 'The Red Lodge' (1928) by H.R. Wakefield. 10. 'Meeting Mr Millar' (1971) by Robert Aickman. 11. 'The Mysterious Stranger' (1860) - Anonymous. 12. 'Clarimonde' (1839) by Théophile Gautier. 13. 'By One, By Two, And By Three' (1913) by Stephen Hall. 14. 'How Love Came To Professor Guildea' (1900) by Robert Hichens. 15. 'The Beast With Five Fingers' (1928) by William F. Harvey. 16. 'The Yellow Wallpaper' (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. 17. 'The Fly' (1958) by George Langelaan. 18. 'The Smiling People' (1946) by Ray Bradbury. 19. 'The Silver Mask' (1933) by Hugh Walpole. 20. 'The Queen Of Spades' (1834) by Alexander Pushkin. ...all entirely subjective of course but at least there should be some author ideas for you there Matt. And I make no apologies for the number of Robert Aickman stories in there. His work stands head and shoulders above everyone else in those collections so far! Ah the joys of being a horror fan... | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.79.169.219 |
Thanks for the suggestions. Some of those I've read already but there are several I'll have to keep a look out for. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
Which ones have you not read Matt? I consider every one of those stories to be a stone cold horror classic and there were loads more it pained me to leave off. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.33.203 |
Vincent Price did a wonderful job of reading Ellis's 'The Speciality of the House' for his radio series The Price of Fear. I can't remember which other stories he adapted, although I have a feeling one was by Bram Stoker (possibly 'The Squaw' or 'The Judge's House'). | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
Got another question for you Huw. Was the Charles Birkin (1907-1985), who also wrote short horror stories under the pseudonyms Charles Lloyd & Charles Lloyd Birkin in the 1930s, the same Charles Lloyd who was still writing horror in the 60s & 70s. I have a story called 'A Low Profile' (1975) I'm trying to make sure was by the same author of such tales as; 'An Eye For An Eye' (1932), 'Special Diet' (1933) & 'Havelock's Farm' (1936). He also appears to have written a single novel 'The Witch-Baiter' (1967). Thanks. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Charles Birkin is appalling though. He's Guy N. Smith for retired colonels. John Kier Cross wrote much more interesting and serious stories in the conte cruel mode. Even the smug Roald Dahl is better than Birkin. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
I agree his stories are only notable for their cruelty and extreme violence at the time they were written but I still would like to know (for the record) if it was the same person writing as Charles Lloyd in the 70s. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.32.55 |
Stephen, according to Mike Ashley's preface to A Haunting Beauty (Midnight House's Birkin collection) Birkin did indeed publish under the name Charles Lloyd (his first two Christian names). Mike Ashley and Stefan Dziemianowicz (among others) seem to have a much higher opinion of Birkin's work than does Joel. I expect his work appeals more to the admirer of the conte cruel. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
I really like Roald dahl's short story collections. Lamb to the Slaughter is one of my all time favourites. There's a story called Pig that genuinely gave me nightmares when I was younger. I can't see how he's particularly smug. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
I've read two John Keir Cross stories; 'Esmeralda' (listed above) a seriously frightening ghost story in which the ghost never actually lived and 'The Other Passenger' which is the finest doppelganger short story I've read to date and narrowly missed inclusion. If the rest of his stuff is as high quality I must get my hands on a collection. Does one exist? As for Roald Dahl - I totally agree with WG he was a master of the blackly comic short story. I have his 'Complete Collection' and it's one of my favourite anthologies! Smug... no way! Grinning devilishly... oh yes!! | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.177.50 |
Stephen, good news - a John Keir Cross collection most certainly does exist: The Other Passenger (1944). It contains eighteen stories. The later (1960s) Ballantine paperback edition contains only nine of them. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
So were those 18 stories the only horror material Cross wrote? Another writer I've been very impressed with reading those collection is Gerald Kersh. Three stories to date and every one a corker; 'Comrade Death' (1938), 'Sad Road To The Sea' (1940) & 'Men Without Bones' (1954). Any info? Also 'The Whispering Horror' (1967) by Eddy C. Bertin is one of the scariest vampire stories I've come across! Hoping for more of his yarns to come. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Cross has one other story ('Mothering Sunday') in one of his Faber weird fiction anthologies, and wrote some supernatural fiction (as well as fantasy and SF) for children, but I think TOP was largely it where that side of his adult writing was concerned. (And I mean 'adult', as those familiar with the book will appreciate.) Lots of Kersch out there, including a recentish Ash-Tree Press selection. I have a second-hand 'Best of' as well as the selection from his weird fiction edited by Harlan Ellison in (I think) the early seventies, NIGHTMARES AND DAMNATIONS. One Kersch book that won't be reprinted any time soon is his ill-fated debut novel JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH. When this book came out, Kersch was successfully sued for libel by several members of his family, one of whom used the money to buy a car with which he promptly ran Kersch down, seriously injuring him. The reaction of Philip Roth's family to PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT was a bar mitzvah by comparison. | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.79.169.219 |
If I were putting together an anthology of favorites (I only included one story by each author or I'd be basically reprinting Alone With The Horrors) it would be as follows (in no particular order): "The Whistling Room" by William Hope Hodgson "The Beast With Five Fingers" by W.F. Harvey "Just Waiting" by Ramsey Campbell "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood "The Music of Erich Zann" by H.P. Lovecraft "No. 252 Rue M Le Prince" by Ralph Adams Cram "Thurnley Abbey" by Perceval Landon (I wish I could find more by him) "Happy Hour" by Ian Watson "The Upper Berth" by F. Marion Crawford "Schalken the Painter" by J. Sheridan LeFanu "The Cotillon" by L.P. Hartley "The Sweeper" by A.M. Burrage "Caterpillars" by E.F. Benson "The Calamander Chest" by Joseph Payne Brennan "A Warning to the Curious" by M.R. James | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
I still can't figure out Joel's dismissal of Dahl and reverence for Bloch . . . | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
It's quite simple really. The latter rules and the former sucks. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
Oh, right. Thanks for clarifying that for me. I understand now.  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
So you don't think many of Bloch's stories were cheap, gimmicky and pedestrian? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
You've just cheered me up no end Matt! Of the 15 you listed there are 8 I still have to read. If I was to pick one Aickman story it would be 'Ringing The Changes' with the other two replaced by 'The Whispering Horror' by Eddy C. Bertin & 'The Judge's House' by Stoker. I have no difficulty liking Dahl & Bloch (especially his early Lovecraftian stories). Very different writing styles but both masters of their art IMHO. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.213.225 |
"So you don't think many of Bloch's stories were cheap, gimmicky and pedestrian?" Yes, but he wrote over a thousand stories and wrote more good ones than almost anyone else. And I'd rather have cheap, gimmicky and pedestrian than flash, gimmicky and self-important any day. Noisy little motorbike or silver-plated Porsche? I know which I'd rather encounter on the highway. I always feel Bloch, even at his most cheap and cheerful, is sharing a sense of the cruelty and absurdity of life. Dahl is sneering, and rubbing an imaginary cleverness badge on his blazer. And when he's firing on all cylinders, Bloch could run Dahl off the road with anger, insight, mordant wit, psychological empathy, seriousness and nerve. No contest. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
Fair enough. But I still don't dismiss Dahl. Man From The South, The Landlady and a few others are great one-dimensional horror tales. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
In fact, I'm not sure I can think of Bloch tale as effective as these, but that may well be my ignorance. I've read a lot of Bloch, but not all of it. One tale folk hold up as a Bloch classic - 'Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper' - is cheap and gimmicky, IMHO. | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.79.169.219 |
I also forgot to add Fritz Lieber's "Smoke Ghost" to my list. "Fair enough. But I still don't dismiss Dahl. Man From The South, The Landlady and a few others are great one-dimensional horror tales." I've read "Man From the South" and I agree it's a very well written story. I was tensing up at points in it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
Dahl knew about suspense, certainly. The Landlady is a masterclass in suggestiveness. In his children's stuff, too, he controls the reader wonderfully: will never forget the will-he?-won't-he? sequence when Charlie was seeking that last golden ticket. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 145.229.156.40 |
Another obscure author query for Huw (or anyone): who were "The Gibsons" authors of the 1947 vignette 'Justice' and also who was the G.B.S. who wrote 'The Whittakers Ghost' from 1879? Both stories appear in 'The 11th Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories'. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.199.230 |
Charles Birkin is appalling though. He's Guy N. Smith for retired colonels Goodness me no I'm afraid I can't agree with that. Birkin was a polished stylist with an eye for the kind casual cruelty and sadistic stupidity humanity is capable of. I think he's great. He's one of my all-time favourite writers and when I read a Birkin story I can feel the bitterness and the desire to drive the point home about just how awful, unfair, insane and just plain nasty people can be. 'A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts' is one of my favourite horror stories of all time, not least because it still seems to have the power to upset people rather a lot. For me, one story like that is worth a hundred self-consciously 'literate' attempts at writing horror. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
Hi John, you should know if it was the same Charles Birkin (writing as Charles Lloyd) who penned 'A Low Profile' (1975). There's a great scene in it where this British ex-pat living in an African colony during a brutal military coup comes across two elderly old spinsters who have had their throats cut over a game of scrabble and he sits down and finishes the game for them while talking away in a state of shock. He certainly has a talent for grand guignol imagery and shock value but I'm still undecided about him as a writer. He did seem to have one hell of a lengthy career. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.194.192 |
Stephen, I don't know anything about 'the Gibsons', I'm afraid! I can't guess at the identity of GBS either, unless it's George Bernard Shaw - I know he wrote some short stories, but I have no idea if any of them were ghost stories. If I find anything in my trusty books, I'll let you know. That was indeed Charles Birkin's pseudonym, by the way. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
George Bernard Shaw!! I wonder could it be... He would have been 23 when 'The Whittakers Ghost' was first published in 'Argosy' in 1879. It really is a great little ghost story with a memorably horrendous spectre that arrives by coach and bangs at the front doors of a country mansion (in Canada, near Montreal) as a family harbinger of death. There is a real touch of M.R. James about the tale but does the Canadian setting rule out Shaw as author I wonder? | ||
| Matt_cowan (Matt_cowan) Username: Matt_cowan Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 68.249.107.193 |
I'm afriad I can't help either, Mr. Walsh. Sorry about that. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.251 |
Yes indeed some of 'Charles Lloyd's stories (eg Special Diet) turn up elsewhere as being by Charles Birkin. |