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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Nov 21, 2012 19:24:44 GMT
I've got the Hippocampus edition - well worth getting with intros by ST Joshi. Both are praised in Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature. I notice you do not mention if you have actually read them.
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Post by ripper on Nov 21, 2012 19:30:00 GMT
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.
I feel sure that there must be quite a few haunted house novels from the 19th and early 20th centuries languishing in obscurity.
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Post by jamesdoig on Nov 21, 2012 22:01:19 GMT
I notice you do not mention if you have actually read them. Yes, I've read them. They didn't strike me as lost masterpieces. Cold Harbour is the better book, but I remember less the haunted house and more the dominating Svengali-like character, Furnival.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Nov 21, 2012 23:17:04 GMT
Thanks, James.
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Post by ripper on Nov 22, 2012 13:41:38 GMT
Dem, many thanks for confirming that the appendix of vampire novels is in the Ryan Penguin anthology, and I agree it is a bit thin :-).
Charlotte Riddell has several entries on Haining's list and I was wondering if anyone had read them? Sarob published "The Haunted River and 3 other Ghostly Novellas" by Charlotte Riddell )I assume all 4 are by Riddell) back in 2001, but used copies are quite costly from what I have seen online.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 22, 2012 23:43:36 GMT
Charlotte Riddell has several entries on Haining's list and I was wondering if anyone had read them? Sarob published "The Haunted River and 3 other Ghostly Novellas" by Charlotte Riddell )I assume all 4 are by Riddell) back in 2001, but used copies are quite costly from what I have seen online. I sleepread through The Uninhabited House in Bleiler's Five Victorian Ghost Novels once, but couldn't tell you anything about it beyond dead man reveals how he came to be that way and who was responsible, most likely over too many pages. There didn't seem enough ghostly action to sustain a short novel, though in fairness, EFB obviously rated it highly and I know who i'd listen to out of the pair of us - unless it's about the merits of the Not At Night's, Creeps and Peter Haining anthologies, of course, in which case, dem's your man. Seeing as Haining includes a number of novellas on his list, I can't believe he overlooked Bulwer-Lytton's The House And The Brain
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Post by ripper on Nov 23, 2012 12:17:51 GMT
Dem, many thanks for your thoughts on Riddell's "The Uninhabited House." I had forgotten completely about Bleiler's volume of novellas :-). Actually, my face is a little red this morning as I suddenly realised that "The Uninhabited House" was included in the Wordsworth Riddell collection "Night Shivers," which I actually have. As Bleiler and Wordsworth chose the same Riddell novella, I wonder if that is an indication that both think that "The Uninhabited House" is Riddell's best work at that length?
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Mar 22, 2013 20:56:23 GMT
Has anyone here read Sinister House or Cold Harbour (both of which are on Haining's list)? If so, what did you think? Hippocampus Press has a two-for-one edition of them that I've often thought about purchasing. I've got the Hippocampus edition - well worth getting with intros by ST Joshi. Both are praised in Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature. They didn't strike me as lost masterpieces. Cold Harbour is the better book, but I remember less the haunted house and more the dominating Svengali-like character, Furnival. Having read them now, that's my take as well. Sinister House is passable but not especially original or memorable. Furnival elevates Cold Harbour by giving the reader an interesting villain to hate, but I agree with both HPL and Joshi that Young didn't manage to stick the landing.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 6, 2013 17:44:40 GMT
This, along with The Dark Descent and Dark Forces would make a great starter kit for the new horror fan. I love bumper volumes like this where you can spend years following down each individual author whose story you liked, and this is one of the best of its kind. I also like how he introduces each of the stories with details of 'Address', 'Property', 'Viewing Date', 'Agent'. I agree with both points, as well as the comments about how Haining's descriptive list of haunted house novels is both fascinating and sometimes puzzling (e.g., the summary of J. U. Nicolson's Fingers of Fear). Has anyone here read Algernon Blackwood's Jimbo, Richmal Crompton's The House, or Andrew Lytle's A Name for Evil? Seeing as Haining includes a number of novellas on his list, I can't believe he overlooked Bulwer-Lytton's The House And The Brain Maybe because that story is the first one in the book itself, under its alternate title, "The Haunted and the Haunters"? So far the biggest find for me has been L. P. Hartley's "Feet Foremost," which revolves around a rather malignant ghost who follows a clear set of rules (laid out for the reader, of course, in old documents dug up by the heroine). My only complaint is that Hartley didn't go for the jugular at the end, instead opting for an almost literal deus ex machina.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 7, 2013 10:29:31 GMT
Seeing as Haining includes a number of novellas on his list, I can't believe he overlooked Bulwer-Lytton's The House And The Brain Maybe because that story is the first one in the book itself, under its alternate title, "The Haunted and the Haunters"? Ah, that'll be me at the top of my game, as per usual ..... The majority of those listed by Mr Haining have passed me by including the Blackwood,Crompton and Lytle, hadn't even heard of the latter pair. Do't think i'd have the patience to see a Blackwood novel through - since a run in with Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural have rarely ventured beyond his greatest hits. The rest of the unreads/ unheard of's are a pig in the poke, so, as usual, am most curious about those with titles which suggest they might be a bit horrible but probably aren't - Lytle's A Name For Evil, Russell Thorndyke's The Master Of The Macabre - and who could resist getting to grips with Pierre Bessand-Massenet 's Amorous Ghost? From Dr. Terror Vault Mk 1, Nov. 14-16, 2005: Originally published in 2000, this new edition (2005) contains seven additional stories, which were cited by certain movie actors as favorites .... I really enjoyed Ghost Hunt, in this one. A forerunner of tv shows like Most Haunted.... Of the ones new to me, these particularly stood out: In Letters of Fire - Gaston Leroux The Patter of Tiny Feet - Nigel Kneale The House of Dust - Herbert de Hamel Happy Hour - Ian Watson Never did get to see a copy of the original edition with the familiar Simon Marsden graphic, but i'm guessing it must have sold very well for Robinson to reissue it so soon afterward. Have been on to them to reissue more from their mammoth back-catalogue, and perhaps the support on here played a small part in seeing Mammoth Book of Zombies and Mammoth Book of Werewolves (retitled Wolf Men) returned to print as they were among the suggested titles.
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Post by Swampirella on Mar 29, 2017 15:50:39 GMT
Peter Haining (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Robinson, 2007) I'm almost finished this one; it's not bad. Penelope Lively's "Univited Ghosts" was my favorite. I really did enjoy the quirky touch of "Property" "Date" etc for each story/house.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Mar 29, 2017 20:59:18 GMT
I just got this one; who knows when I'll get around to reading it but it looks excellent by all accounts. Move it to the top of the pile - it's a lot of fun....
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Post by Swampirella on Mar 29, 2017 23:30:39 GMT
Thanks for the tip, I appreciate it! It's third from the top, right under The Sixth Ghost Book which I'm half-way through and hope to finish tonight and and "Female of the Species" SMBSLT!
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Post by ripper on Apr 9, 2017 9:20:54 GMT
Thanks for the tip, I appreciate it! It's third from the top, right under The Sixth Ghost Book which I'm half-way through and hope to finish tonight and and "Female of the Species" SMBSLT! I am sure you will have a good time with this one, Miss Scarlet. It is one of my favourite of Haining's anthologies, and the way he introduces each tale really works for me.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 22, 2022 9:58:24 GMT
'Richard Dehan' [Clothilde Graves] - A Spirit Elopement: (Off Sandy Hook, 1915). Matrimonial bliss short-lived for our unnamed narrator and her husband, Vavasour, the frustrated decadent poet/ wealthy heir to Sims Mild & Bitter. The honeymoon is interrupted by Katie, a long dead ghost who "knew your husband before you did" through his frequenting of NW London séance rooms. When the pair return from Guernsey to Sloan Street, the gatecrasher comes with them. The exasperated wife turns to Madame Blavant, Professoress of Spiritualism & Theosophy, whose intervention further complicates matters.
A. E. Coppard - The Kisstruck Bogie: (Fearful Pleasures, 1946). "It must have been a dreary time for him; could anything be more devitalising than the task of haunting a house that is, as it were, unhauntable through the absence of human contacts." A long untenanted eighteenth-century country house somewhere in the vicinity of Westbury. From the day a new owner finally takes up residence, the lonely invisible presence monopolises his attention, confiding the sob story of his wretched existence since his beloved wife's desertion. The break-up unhinged him. Terrified that his thoughts had turned to random murder, he blew his brains out in this very house. He's been stranded here since. Human company revives his confidence, and Kisstruck's account ends on a cheery note as the ghost takes a girlfriend on the astral. Story also notable in that it finally resolves the matter of whether ghosts wear phantom clothes.
Fay Weldon - Watching Me, Watching You: (Women's Own, Jan. 1981). The ghost first entered 66 Aldermans Drive, Bristol, on the shoulder of a parlourmaid returned from a séance where she'd failed to make contact with her dead lover. It has stayed ever since to pry upon the tangled relationships, infidelities, divorces, and tragedies of those who've lived there right through to 1980, occasionally intervening on the side of women wronged.
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