Great British Tales of Terror
Oct. 27th, 2005 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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darkling_talesLJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dfordoom)
I’m reading Great British Tales of Terror: Gothic Stories of Horror and Romance 1765-1840., edited by Peter Haining. It’s a collection of gothic tales from 1765 to 1840. The stories in this collection are extremely variable in quality, but it only cost me a couple of dollars in a used bookstore so I shouldn’t complain. So far I’ve liked:
Horace Walpole’s Maddalena – apparently based on an Italian legend, a tale of love and violence.
William Child Green’s Secrets of Cabalism, or Ravenstone and Alice of Huntingdon – a story of occultism in the reign of Mary I, involving cabalism, and hermeticism (and I’m a sucker for anything involving those kinds of occult sciences) liked this one a lot.
Leigh Hunt’s A Tale for a Chimney Corner – a subtle but rather interesting ghost story.
Mary Shelley’s The Dream – a young woman spends the night on St Catherine’s Bed, a high rock ledge over the Loire. Spending the night there will bring either death, or a dream that will answer her question.
And I’ve disliked:
Francis Lathom’s The Water Spectre – the best thing about it is the Scottish atmosphere and the Weird Sisters, straight out of Macbeth.
W. Harrison Ainsworth’s The Spectre Bride – a rather gruesome, but not very interesting, story about damnation.
dfordoom)I’m reading Great British Tales of Terror: Gothic Stories of Horror and Romance 1765-1840., edited by Peter Haining. It’s a collection of gothic tales from 1765 to 1840. The stories in this collection are extremely variable in quality, but it only cost me a couple of dollars in a used bookstore so I shouldn’t complain. So far I’ve liked:
Horace Walpole’s Maddalena – apparently based on an Italian legend, a tale of love and violence.
William Child Green’s Secrets of Cabalism, or Ravenstone and Alice of Huntingdon – a story of occultism in the reign of Mary I, involving cabalism, and hermeticism (and I’m a sucker for anything involving those kinds of occult sciences) liked this one a lot.
Leigh Hunt’s A Tale for a Chimney Corner – a subtle but rather interesting ghost story.
Mary Shelley’s The Dream – a young woman spends the night on St Catherine’s Bed, a high rock ledge over the Loire. Spending the night there will bring either death, or a dream that will answer her question.
And I’ve disliked:
Francis Lathom’s The Water Spectre – the best thing about it is the Scottish atmosphere and the Weird Sisters, straight out of Macbeth.
W. Harrison Ainsworth’s The Spectre Bride – a rather gruesome, but not very interesting, story about damnation.
