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Post by dem bones on Jun 17, 2008 21:31:02 GMT
David Blair (ed.) - Gothic Short Stories (Wordsworth Editions, 2002) Anna Letitia Aiken - Sir Bertrand: A Fragment Nathan Drake and Anonymous - Captive of the Banditti Anonymous - Extracts from Gosschen's Diary: No. 1 Charles Robert Maturin - The Parricide's Tale Anonymous - The Spectre Bride Sir Walter Scott - The Tapestried Chamber Edgar Allan Poe - Berenice Charles Dickens - A Madman's Manuscript J.S. le Fanu - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter Nathaniel Hawthorne - Ethan Brand Elizabeth Gaskell - The Old Nurse's Story Robert Louis Stevenson - The Body-Snatcher Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper Ambrose Bierce - The Death of Halpin Frayser M.R. James - Canon Alberic's Scrapbook Ralph Adams Cram - No. 252 Rue M. le Prince S. Carleton - The Lame Priest Mary Wilkins Freeman - Luella Miller Richard Middleton - The Bird in the Garden E.F. Benson - The Room in the TowerBlurb: Selected and Edited with an Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent at Canterbury
This superb new collection brings together stories from the earliest decades of Gothic writing with later 19th and early 20th century tales from the period in which Gothic diversified into the familiar forms of the ghost-and horror-story. Some of these stories, like the haunting The Lame Priest are ‘lost masterpieces’ and several have never been anthologised before.
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 8, 2009 16:01:41 GMT
I haven't got this particular book yet but I read this story today after a friend recommended it to me and this seems as good a place to put it:
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman I find it hard to believe this was written so long ago. It's an excellent, cleanly, disturbingly and effectively written description of a woman's descent into madness as she is confined to her bed and finds herself seeing things in the wallpaper on the other side of her room. I think Rog Pile has written a review under Fontana 9 on the Old Vault that sings its praises as well. In a way it's kind of nice to know there are some classics out there I have still yet to read and any fan of Gothic horror here should try and get hold of it. I think it's also in Mary Danby's 65 Great Spine Chillers
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Post by jamesdoig on May 12, 2009 0:02:40 GMT
I'm reading this book at the moment - it's excellent. A great introduction and an interesting selection, particularly "The Lame Priest" which I've never seen before.
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Post by lobolover on Jun 19, 2009 20:55:34 GMT
To be honest, bearing a few exceptions, this looks more like a "The essential most famous short gothic fiction", rather then focusing on the "lesser known" . Not judging the book or it's contents, mind you, just saying .
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Post by unholyturnip on Jun 22, 2009 10:49:58 GMT
I'd have to say that I'd class the majority of these as 'ghost stories', not Gothic. Ghosts can and do feature in Gothic, but they're not the same genre. There's a whole body of work in the Gothic that doesn't have any ghosts at all, but is more focussed on torture and depravities of the kinky sort. As a genre it's typically much less subtle than the ghost story, and isn't so much designed to creep you out as it is to shock you and envelop you in atmosphere. I suppose ghost stories and Gothic share the latter in common, but the ends to which they use it are starkly different. The Body-Snatcher is the one I'd say most resembles Gothic in this book, but even that is a far cry from Monk Lewis and his cohorts. Minor discrepancies aside though, I'd certainly not object to the book in terms of the stories it contains were the title of the book different. They're almost all very good.
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Post by lobolover on Oct 12, 2009 17:33:49 GMT
Then there is that Gothic fiction which pretends to have a ghost and then explains it away . "The Necromancer" by "Kahlert" (both autho and translator have a pseudonym and I don't feel like looking up the supossed real autho now, so meh) is one such book . For a two volume set to spend one and a half volume calling necromancy "fake fakes cheaters cheats etc." seems rather anti-climatic .
And yeah, explaining away a reportedly fully ghostly aparation by simply saying "he dressed himself like a ghost" is reeeealy low .
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 10, 2009 14:57:30 GMT
I've been doing a lot of travelling recently and Wordsworths seem to find their way very easily into my pocket, so I thought I'd make a concerted effort to read some more 'proper' literature.
Anna Letitia Aiken - Sir Bertrand: A Fragment And it really is. Sir Bertrand ends up investigating spooky goings-on at a country house in something that's really a bit too slight to start off a volume like this
Nathan Drake and Anonymous - Captive of the Banditti. Brilliant entertainment for all the wring reasons - Mr Drake writes a deeply gothic fragment which is then finished off by the extraordinarily below par hack skills of 'anonymous' in such a way that the join wouldn't be any more obvious if it had nails hammered through it. I laughed and laughed.
Charles Robert Maturin - The Parricide's Tale. I haven't read Melmoth but it might not be such hard work on the basis of this - the tale of a complete and utter bastard sentenced to a monastery where he succeeds in being even more a bastard. Twice.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 10, 2009 15:03:14 GMT
Anonymous - The Spectre Bride Now this is more like it! Poor young girl gets seduced by evil well-dressed man who turns out to be cursed to collect a million souls for his evil master. Some absolutely cracking dialogue as regards cemetery weddings rounds this nasty little gothic off nicely.
Sir Walter Scott - The Tapestried Chamber. I've always found Sir Walter to be a bit too turgid for my tastes. This isn't too bad but it's very ordinary, although the description of the hag-like ghost jumping on the protagonist's bed raised a shiver.
Edgar Allan Poe - Berenice. Crackingly mad! Bloke fancies his cousin, gets obsessed with her teeth and when she dies he pulls them out, only to find out shortly afterwards she's not really dead but sleeping. And in need of dentures and a lot of cotton wool
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Post by dem bones on Nov 10, 2009 22:16:16 GMT
As unholyturnip correctly points out, this is a weird selection; half a dozen or so examples of overwrought Gothic/ Blue Book lunacy before a jarring move into sophisticated Classic Victorian Ghost Story territory. Is Sir Bertrand preceded by the short essay On the Pleasures To Be Derived From Objects Of Terror or is it just the strange, hallucinatory fragment itself (which i love, BTW)? I think it works better with the introduction. Anyway, if you've enjoyed yourself so far, Lord P., you might like to investigate Peter Haining's Great British Tales Of Terror and Great Tales Of Terror From Europe & America, both of which contain several wildly entertaining moments and the odd duffer to balance things out. An example of the more bizarre macabre offerings is; Charles Pigault-Lebrun – The Unholy Compact Abjured: According to Haining, the first English translation, which appeared in weekly publication The French Novelist c. 1825. A churchyard in Salins. A young soldier, St. Armand, traveling to reunite with beloved cousin Ninette, asks directions of a crone who, smiling nastily answers "Turn where thou wilt, thy road is sure - it leads to death!". Armand takes his leave of the mad old bat as a storm breaks, and takes shelter inside a convenient, seemingly uninhabited magnificent chateau. The door slams shut behind him as if by black sorcery, and for all his efforts, he is unable to reopen it! Overcome with fatigue, Armand sinks into a deep, troubled sleep. His sleep was soon disturbed by a frightful dream: he heard all at once, the sound of a knell, mingled with the cries of bats, and owls, and a hollow voice, murmured in his ear, “Woe to those who trouble the repose of the dead!” He started on his feet, but what a sight met his eyes! The hall was partially illuminated by flashes of sulfurous fire; on the pavement was laid the body of a man newly slain, and covered with innumerable wounds, from which, a band of unearthly forms, whose fearful occupation, proclaimed the hellish origin, were draining the yet warm blood.
St Armand uttered a shriek of terror, and was in an instant surrounded by the fiends: already were their fangs, from which the remains of their horrid feast still dripped, extended to grasp him, when he hastily made the sign of the cross, and sank senseless upon the ground. Armand regains consciousness to find a wizened old man crouching over him. This mysterious being says he can save Armand from the vampires, but in return he must vow on oath to slay the next person to embrace him. St. Armand agrees, only to find himself transported to the chamber of Ninette. Forgetting his pledge, he falls into her arms, whereupon the old magician appears at his side. "Wretch! ... Pierce her heart! She is the dove that thou must instantly sacrifice if thou wilt not become a feast for the vampires!" "Sacrifice her? Never! Never!" "Then thou art my prey!" What I like about the gothics is that, even at this crucial stage, you can't be absolutely certain how it will turn out as some of the authors could be right sadistic fiends when they put their mind to it. As it happens Monsieur Pigault-Lebrun (or whoever) isn't one of them but you at least get a good groan out of his ludicrous resolution.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 11, 2009 11:03:49 GMT
It's just the fragment Mr D - no essay, although that sounds like something worth seeking out!
Charles Pigault-Lebrun – The Unholy Compact Abjured
That's such a great title even if the story was a letdown I wouldn't mind so much! I'm sure I've got the Haining somewhere so I'll dig it out.
Meanwhile:
Charles Dickens - A Madman's Manuscript A decidedly minor entry in the Dickens canon but worth a read - old Charlie could do gothic as good as if not better than the rest of them when he wanted to.
J.S. le Fanu - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter, I must get a LeFanu collection. THis is the third time I've read this story and I like it more every time. A prior viewing of the 1979 BBC adaptation of this story also added to my enjoyment this time as well.
Nathaniel Hawthorne - Ethan Brand. Not read any Hawthorne. This isn't bad but is apparently an 'abandoned novel', even though it's only 10 pages long! A riff on The Wandering Jew it does a good job of evoking the gothic in an unlikely setting.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 11, 2009 13:02:52 GMT
J.S. le Fanu - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter, I must get a LeFanu collection. Wordsworth will see you alright for reprints of In A Glass Darkly (the Dr. Hesselius investigations; Green Tea, The Familiar, Mr Justice Harbottle, The Room In Le Dragon Volant, Carmilla) and the Mr. James selected and introduced Madam Crowl's Ghost; Madam Crowl's Ghost Squire Toby's Will Dickon The Devil The Child That Went With The Fairies The White Cat Of Drumguinnol An Account Of Some Strange Disturbances In Aungiers Street Ghost Stories Of Chapelizod Wicked Captain Walshawe Of Wauling Sir Dominick's Bargain Ultor de Lacy The Vision Of Tom Chuff Stories Of Lough Guir Pigault-Lebrun opts for the big girls blouse softy ending (spoiler: being a frightfully proper Gothic heroine, Ninette wears a crucifix against her chaste bosom and this fends off the vampire till dawn. Then it's off to fetch the parson, vampires exorcised, lovers marry, etc.), but interesting to note he already has the Hammer Horror 'blood, boobs and a good title' ethos down pat over a century before it even exists. i'm not sure the experts consider Berenice to be top-notch Poe but it's the one story of his that nightmared me out. could be that there's something authentically perverted in the way he takes such obvious glee in disfiguring the heroine, could be that i'm just frightened by gummy people - it worked for me, anyhow. It's probably not the done thing to admit, but, as with his disciple Lovecraft, i've rarely ventured much beyond Poe's greatest hits, finding his second stringers and marginalia way too brainy and dull for my tiny mind to appreciate. in my most paranoid and suspicious moments, i even think half the dahlings who proclaim "oh, Poe! Lovecraft! The masters! I love every word!" couldn't have got much further than i have.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 11, 2009 14:11:40 GMT
Once again Dem you prove yourself to be a man after my own heart! I've read very little Poe. Berenice worked for me because of what you say above, and also because the ending was exactly what I wanted. Interestingly I found out afterwards that it's one of Lady P's favourites. I fully intend to read more EAP, especially as I'm planning something rather gothic and novel-like in nature but I may go for Mr LeFanu first as I had forgotten dear old Wordsworth do a couple of his collections.
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Post by Dr Strange on Nov 11, 2009 14:50:11 GMT
I'd recommend "In A Glass Darkly" over "Madam Crowl" - I thought the stories in the latter were all a bit samey and obvious, whereas there's a lot more originality in "In A Glass...". Le Fanu pretty much kick-started the whole "occult detective" genre with that... and (much more importantly) also gave us lesbian vampires.
Also, there are two (slightly different) versions of Schalken - I remember thinking one was a bit more subtle/ambiguous than the other, but I'm not sure which one is in the Wordsworth "Gothic Short Stories".
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 11, 2009 15:08:11 GMT
Interesting you say that Dr Strange - I seem to remember reading a version of Schalken that made it more overt that the villain was a vampire - does that fit in with you or am I off in my own fantasy world yet again?
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Post by mattofthespurs on Nov 11, 2009 18:18:34 GMT
J.S. le Fanu - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter, I must get a LeFanu collection. I would suggest Wordsworth's "Irish Ghost Stories" collection. Retails from Amazon for about a fiver and contains 1000 pages and I would estimate that 60% (at least) is le Fanu's stuff. All his greatest hits and more.
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