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Mar. 16th, 2006 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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darkling_talesLJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY irkthepurist)
hello again! further to my entry yesterday, here's another thing i wrote for my own lj i'll dust down for here. i hope again it's relevant. basically late last year after stumbling across this hugh lamb book i went a bit mad on the hunt for ghost stories of a certain era. partially because it was sort of a logical progression from my then recent obsession with british crime novels and also because it was such a new genre for me. i didn't really want to get into horror as such because i'm not really *that* interested in it as a genre, but i've always been a life long fan of m.r.james and reading around the subject and trying to identify the core books was a lot of fun. i'd find short stories in books such as this little masterpiece (one of my two favourite books of last year) and try and track down more by particular writers (hence me finding books by rolt, swain and munby), i'd find the odd list on webpages and - rather cheekily - i'd take note at what people like the ash tree press and tartarus books were charging small fortunes for and then try and find cheaper editions of them. i kind of disapprove of this limited edition luxury volume trend with niche books because it's almost as if you don't want other people to share in your treasures. it's a bit selfish really. however the fact i own their now ludicrously valuable "a pleasing terror" because i have a lovely fiancee means i'm not quite *that* principled... anyway. i've spent a lot of time hunting around places like ghosts and scholars, the ghost story society, the haunted bibliophile and the guide to supernatural fiction. lots of combing through these places for names, searching said names on amazon and ebay for bargains (for example, robert aickman books are reasonably cheap on amazon.com whereas they're as rare as hen's teeth on amazon.co.uk) and trying not to order too much too quickly so i still have a few treasures to discover
i've already pretty much developed my tastes of what i like in the genre, finding that "weirder" the stories get (if you like, the closer they are to the stuff lovecraft loves in supernatural horror in literature) the less keen i am. obviously someone like machen is the exception, because he isn't quite so florid as lovecraft is and something like "the great god pan" and "the white people" work because things are *suggested* rather than lovecraft's tendency to go "it's all too horrible to describe" which always struck me as a bit of a cop out (although i admit that i did like "The colour from out of space" a great deal). generally i'm finding people who are most like m r james to be my favourites, but with few exceptions. i think the best ghost stories for me, are the ones with roots in the real world, because like the way m r james bandies about evidence and inscriptions, it manages to feel more tangible which of course a ghost story really shouldn't be. the more real the world the ghost inhabits is, the more terrifying the ghost is. anyway, i'm rambling and to be honest haven't really thought this through that well. best crack on with the list...
oliver onions - "the beckoning fair one". a quite brilliant bit of psychological horror, all the better for the fact it's written from the victim's point of view
edith wharton - "mr jones". what i like about this one is how familiar and comfily spooky it seems until the very end which is jarringly and wonderfully horrible
lafcadio hearn - "of a promise broken". thrillingly nasty
barry pain - "the diary of a god". i know pain mainly for his light comedy eliza stories so the fact that this so - i don't know - mental? came as quite a surprise. it's a nice companion piece to "the willows"
bernard capes - "an eddy on the floor". all about the ending. quite brilliantly horrible
robert aickman - "the cicerones". made into a short film recently by jeremy dyson, and certainly the author i'm keenest to read more by. really unsettlingly odd. since i wrote this list i'd also add "ravissante" from "painted devils"
a n l munby - "an encounter in the mist". possibly the cleverest ghost story i've read in terms of the twist at the end, but i already went on about this one at some length yesterday!
john buchan - "fullcircle". i wasn't expecting this from buchan, but a reall fascinating story. not really a ghost story at all but more of a... god, i have no idea what to call it. but it's such a fascinating idea and so well told
charles williams - "Et in Sempiternum Pereant". this is one of those unsettlingly unique stories which i think works mainly because it's so stifling in how it's written. it's hard to explain but it's sort of memorable because of how profoundly odd it is
may sinclair - "the victim". another story like the munby one with a twist you cannot see coming for the life of you
e f benson - "the face". i was most surprised to learn that benson was at one time considered second only to m r james as britain's foremost ghost story writer, as i mainly know him for mapp and lucia and the most disappointing crime novel of all time. most of his ghost stories are eerie, clever and a bit similar in tone and then there's... this. you know that bit in "o whistle and i'll come to you, my lad" where the academic sees *something* pursuing him? imagine that facing you and that being the focus of the whole story. it's odd because it's so unresolved which is so unusual for a benson story
m r james - "o whistle, and i'll come to you, my lad". obviously the greatest ghost story of all time. without DOUBT
saki (h h munro) - "the open window". a cheat because it's not *really* a ghost story, but it's still brilliant and possibly THE greatest short story of all time. went to my school you know
henry james - "the friends of the friends". we all sort of think of "turn of the screw" when we think of henry james, but this is better than even that masterpiece. it's such a brilliantly odd idea, done so well
e nesbit - "mansize in marble". who'd have thought nesbit could have been so NASTY?
w c morrow - "the permanent stiletto". not quite a ghost story again, but so bloody NASTY! wonderful
hume nisbet - "the haunted station". very odd, unusual little australian ghost story
frank baker - "miss hargreaves". more like thorne smith than anything else, i'd love to have seen margaret rutherford as miss hargreaves in the play version
mary e wilkins freeman - "the shadows on the wall". in some ways it's very predictable - you can see the end coming for miles - but there's a horrible image there of the brother with his sword which makes it so memorable
rudyard kipling - "at the end of the passage". tricky going at times, but there's a certain feverishness to the writing which chimes nicely with the content
sir arthur conan doyle - "the captain of the pole star". like the kipling story, there's a sort of dreamlike quality to it which makes the story so memorable
l t c rolt - "cwm garon". there's a nice thread of cosmic horror in this story, as lovecraft would put it (i always love m r james' sniffy comments on lovecraft's essay on supernatural horror in this letter: "In it is a disquisition of nearly 40 pages of double columns on Supernatural Horror in Literature by one H.P. Lovecraft, whose style is of the most offensive. He uses the word cosmic about 24 times. But he has taken pains to search about & treats the subject from its beginnings to MRJ, to whom he devotes several columns. No doubt this is why I am favoured with a copy."), which has an unusual eerie tone to it. rolt is an unusual writer, which is why he's one of the better followers of james, and this i think is his finest moments. i've been to places like this near where my parents live. it reminds me in part of alan garner's wonderful "the owl service" as well...
e g swain - "bone to his bone". swain's an interesting one - very much writing in the style of m r james with the only significant difference being that stoneground is the scene for all the stories and with one central hero. "bone to his bone" is an odd little story because in a way it's sort of predictable but then suddenly takes you in a different direction. swain never quite convinces but he's different enough for him to be worth looking for
mary elizabeth braddon - "at crighton abbey". a bit of melodramatic fluff in some ways, but wonderfully written
mrs j h riddell - "the open door". again, a little predictable but it's so beautifully written despite that
george macdonald - "uncle cornelius his story". as ghost stories go, less terrifying more a bit of an excuse for a "moral" but it's nicely done. an enjoyable oddity
algernon blackwood - "the willows". lovecraft credited this as the greatest bit of supernatural writing ever. save for james, he's probably right...
yeah, that'll do for now - i hope you approve!
irkthepurist)hello again! further to my entry yesterday, here's another thing i wrote for my own lj i'll dust down for here. i hope again it's relevant. basically late last year after stumbling across this hugh lamb book i went a bit mad on the hunt for ghost stories of a certain era. partially because it was sort of a logical progression from my then recent obsession with british crime novels and also because it was such a new genre for me. i didn't really want to get into horror as such because i'm not really *that* interested in it as a genre, but i've always been a life long fan of m.r.james and reading around the subject and trying to identify the core books was a lot of fun. i'd find short stories in books such as this little masterpiece (one of my two favourite books of last year) and try and track down more by particular writers (hence me finding books by rolt, swain and munby), i'd find the odd list on webpages and - rather cheekily - i'd take note at what people like the ash tree press and tartarus books were charging small fortunes for and then try and find cheaper editions of them. i kind of disapprove of this limited edition luxury volume trend with niche books because it's almost as if you don't want other people to share in your treasures. it's a bit selfish really. however the fact i own their now ludicrously valuable "a pleasing terror" because i have a lovely fiancee means i'm not quite *that* principled... anyway. i've spent a lot of time hunting around places like ghosts and scholars, the ghost story society, the haunted bibliophile and the guide to supernatural fiction. lots of combing through these places for names, searching said names on amazon and ebay for bargains (for example, robert aickman books are reasonably cheap on amazon.com whereas they're as rare as hen's teeth on amazon.co.uk) and trying not to order too much too quickly so i still have a few treasures to discover
i've already pretty much developed my tastes of what i like in the genre, finding that "weirder" the stories get (if you like, the closer they are to the stuff lovecraft loves in supernatural horror in literature) the less keen i am. obviously someone like machen is the exception, because he isn't quite so florid as lovecraft is and something like "the great god pan" and "the white people" work because things are *suggested* rather than lovecraft's tendency to go "it's all too horrible to describe" which always struck me as a bit of a cop out (although i admit that i did like "The colour from out of space" a great deal). generally i'm finding people who are most like m r james to be my favourites, but with few exceptions. i think the best ghost stories for me, are the ones with roots in the real world, because like the way m r james bandies about evidence and inscriptions, it manages to feel more tangible which of course a ghost story really shouldn't be. the more real the world the ghost inhabits is, the more terrifying the ghost is. anyway, i'm rambling and to be honest haven't really thought this through that well. best crack on with the list...
oliver onions - "the beckoning fair one". a quite brilliant bit of psychological horror, all the better for the fact it's written from the victim's point of view
edith wharton - "mr jones". what i like about this one is how familiar and comfily spooky it seems until the very end which is jarringly and wonderfully horrible
lafcadio hearn - "of a promise broken". thrillingly nasty
barry pain - "the diary of a god". i know pain mainly for his light comedy eliza stories so the fact that this so - i don't know - mental? came as quite a surprise. it's a nice companion piece to "the willows"
bernard capes - "an eddy on the floor". all about the ending. quite brilliantly horrible
robert aickman - "the cicerones". made into a short film recently by jeremy dyson, and certainly the author i'm keenest to read more by. really unsettlingly odd. since i wrote this list i'd also add "ravissante" from "painted devils"
a n l munby - "an encounter in the mist". possibly the cleverest ghost story i've read in terms of the twist at the end, but i already went on about this one at some length yesterday!
john buchan - "fullcircle". i wasn't expecting this from buchan, but a reall fascinating story. not really a ghost story at all but more of a... god, i have no idea what to call it. but it's such a fascinating idea and so well told
charles williams - "Et in Sempiternum Pereant". this is one of those unsettlingly unique stories which i think works mainly because it's so stifling in how it's written. it's hard to explain but it's sort of memorable because of how profoundly odd it is
may sinclair - "the victim". another story like the munby one with a twist you cannot see coming for the life of you
e f benson - "the face". i was most surprised to learn that benson was at one time considered second only to m r james as britain's foremost ghost story writer, as i mainly know him for mapp and lucia and the most disappointing crime novel of all time. most of his ghost stories are eerie, clever and a bit similar in tone and then there's... this. you know that bit in "o whistle and i'll come to you, my lad" where the academic sees *something* pursuing him? imagine that facing you and that being the focus of the whole story. it's odd because it's so unresolved which is so unusual for a benson story
m r james - "o whistle, and i'll come to you, my lad". obviously the greatest ghost story of all time. without DOUBT
saki (h h munro) - "the open window". a cheat because it's not *really* a ghost story, but it's still brilliant and possibly THE greatest short story of all time. went to my school you know
henry james - "the friends of the friends". we all sort of think of "turn of the screw" when we think of henry james, but this is better than even that masterpiece. it's such a brilliantly odd idea, done so well
e nesbit - "mansize in marble". who'd have thought nesbit could have been so NASTY?
w c morrow - "the permanent stiletto". not quite a ghost story again, but so bloody NASTY! wonderful
hume nisbet - "the haunted station". very odd, unusual little australian ghost story
frank baker - "miss hargreaves". more like thorne smith than anything else, i'd love to have seen margaret rutherford as miss hargreaves in the play version
mary e wilkins freeman - "the shadows on the wall". in some ways it's very predictable - you can see the end coming for miles - but there's a horrible image there of the brother with his sword which makes it so memorable
rudyard kipling - "at the end of the passage". tricky going at times, but there's a certain feverishness to the writing which chimes nicely with the content
sir arthur conan doyle - "the captain of the pole star". like the kipling story, there's a sort of dreamlike quality to it which makes the story so memorable
l t c rolt - "cwm garon". there's a nice thread of cosmic horror in this story, as lovecraft would put it (i always love m r james' sniffy comments on lovecraft's essay on supernatural horror in this letter: "In it is a disquisition of nearly 40 pages of double columns on Supernatural Horror in Literature by one H.P. Lovecraft, whose style is of the most offensive. He uses the word cosmic about 24 times. But he has taken pains to search about & treats the subject from its beginnings to MRJ, to whom he devotes several columns. No doubt this is why I am favoured with a copy."), which has an unusual eerie tone to it. rolt is an unusual writer, which is why he's one of the better followers of james, and this i think is his finest moments. i've been to places like this near where my parents live. it reminds me in part of alan garner's wonderful "the owl service" as well...
e g swain - "bone to his bone". swain's an interesting one - very much writing in the style of m r james with the only significant difference being that stoneground is the scene for all the stories and with one central hero. "bone to his bone" is an odd little story because in a way it's sort of predictable but then suddenly takes you in a different direction. swain never quite convinces but he's different enough for him to be worth looking for
mary elizabeth braddon - "at crighton abbey". a bit of melodramatic fluff in some ways, but wonderfully written
mrs j h riddell - "the open door". again, a little predictable but it's so beautifully written despite that
george macdonald - "uncle cornelius his story". as ghost stories go, less terrifying more a bit of an excuse for a "moral" but it's nicely done. an enjoyable oddity
algernon blackwood - "the willows". lovecraft credited this as the greatest bit of supernatural writing ever. save for james, he's probably right...
yeah, that'll do for now - i hope you approve!
