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joysilenceLast month I finally got my hands on the Ash-Tree Press edition of H Russell Wakefield's anthology The Clock Strikes Twelve. Though perhaps not quite as crammed with classics as some of his earlier collections, it was well worth the effort of finding it.
The two stand-out stories are The First Sheaf and Lucky's Grove. The former, a rare and scary excursion into pagan horror, concerns the desperate measures to which a drought-ridden village will go to save the harvest; the author brilliantly evokes both the splendour of a boyhood Summer in the English countryside, the hostility of the reputedly inbred villagers, and above all, the loss of innocence. Lucky's Grove, meanwhile, depicts an escalating series of 'accidents' that befall a man who digs up a pine from a sacred grove to use as a Christmas tree, and while it has a slightly bitty feel to it the way Wakefield weaves Norse mythology into the bustle of a traditional Christmas is memorably original.
These two gemstones are ringed by a constellation of lesser jewels, including the previously uncollected, oneiric From The Vasty Deep (about the enactment of a grim prophecy made by an Egyptian mystic about two rival actors) and A Black Solitude, a frightening but very amusing story a clef about an evil room haunted by dead Satanists, featuring newspaper baron Lord Northcliffe and Aleister Crowley in very thin disguise. The portrayal of the rather pathetic but charismatic Crowley is laugh-out-loud funny (Wakefield is the only ghost story author I know who is capable of studding a tale with hilarious one-liners without dampening the horror.) There is a bit of filler - Wakefield never had the same success rate as a Benson or James - and certain of his traits may put off some readers. For instance, while his urbanity can make him seem more modern than the antiquarian authors (the tales are peppered with frank references to homosexuality, adultery and so on) he is waspish to a degree, with an unpleasant misogynistic streak that is only occasionally offset by the introduction of sensible female characters.
However, when he writes at the top of his form, there's no-one better than Wakefield, and he's also an interesting bridge between the Edwardian type of ghost story and modern horror. This edition also benefits from a chatty, if at times opinionated, intro from Barbara Roden - and a fab piece of cover art featuring scary baubles hanging from a Xmas tree!
The two stand-out stories are The First Sheaf and Lucky's Grove. The former, a rare and scary excursion into pagan horror, concerns the desperate measures to which a drought-ridden village will go to save the harvest; the author brilliantly evokes both the splendour of a boyhood Summer in the English countryside, the hostility of the reputedly inbred villagers, and above all, the loss of innocence. Lucky's Grove, meanwhile, depicts an escalating series of 'accidents' that befall a man who digs up a pine from a sacred grove to use as a Christmas tree, and while it has a slightly bitty feel to it the way Wakefield weaves Norse mythology into the bustle of a traditional Christmas is memorably original.
These two gemstones are ringed by a constellation of lesser jewels, including the previously uncollected, oneiric From The Vasty Deep (about the enactment of a grim prophecy made by an Egyptian mystic about two rival actors) and A Black Solitude, a frightening but very amusing story a clef about an evil room haunted by dead Satanists, featuring newspaper baron Lord Northcliffe and Aleister Crowley in very thin disguise. The portrayal of the rather pathetic but charismatic Crowley is laugh-out-loud funny (Wakefield is the only ghost story author I know who is capable of studding a tale with hilarious one-liners without dampening the horror.) There is a bit of filler - Wakefield never had the same success rate as a Benson or James - and certain of his traits may put off some readers. For instance, while his urbanity can make him seem more modern than the antiquarian authors (the tales are peppered with frank references to homosexuality, adultery and so on) he is waspish to a degree, with an unpleasant misogynistic streak that is only occasionally offset by the introduction of sensible female characters.
However, when he writes at the top of his form, there's no-one better than Wakefield, and he's also an interesting bridge between the Edwardian type of ghost story and modern horror. This edition also benefits from a chatty, if at times opinionated, intro from Barbara Roden - and a fab piece of cover art featuring scary baubles hanging from a Xmas tree!
