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Post by dem bones on Oct 9, 2008 14:08:33 GMT
M. P. Dare - Unholy Relics & Other Uncanny Tales (Edward Arnold, 1947) Unholy Relics
The Haunted Drawers
A Nun's Tragedy
A Forgotten Italian
Fatal Oak
The Demoniac Goat
The Nymph Still Lives
The Beam
The Haunted Helmet
The Officer's Coat
Borgia Pomade
An Abbot's Magic
Bring Out Your Dead Dare's approach is Jamesian - his heroes, Gregory Wayne and childhood friend Alan Granville (who feature in all the stories) are antiquarians - but rather than adopt the gentle approach of an E. G. Swain, he's at his happiest when he's piling on the horrors. And so am I. ;D In A Nun's Tragedy, the two confirmed bachelors (they're actually misogynists) almost come to grief at the slimy hands of a Sister who was walled up alive. It's reminiscent of Perceval Landon's marvelous Thurnley Abbey but I can't see too many of us complaining about that. The horrible Borgia Pomade is Lucrezia's magical face cream. Not one she used on herself, you understand, but the special gift she reserves for her love rivals. A couple of dabs and it will disfigure a girl's face beyond recognition. In Bring Out Your Dead, a scholar unwisely pilfers a skull from a plague pit, and slowly succumbs to the Black Death. The Demoniac Goat features a vampire-like, Satanic Reverend with a thing about human sacrifice. Far lighter in touch, The Haunted Drawers is early Talbot Rothwell; cheeky flapper girl Eva has the scandalized gents investigate the contents of her dresser, while The Haunted Helmet belongs to a suit of armour which stands by the stairs in a Leicestershire Manor house ... when it's not going walk-abouts or ripping the frock off spoilt brat Phoebe.
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Post by jkdunham on Oct 9, 2008 14:40:39 GMT
Dear Santa...
I don't know about anybody else but my wish list just got one longer. How could you not love any collection that contained a story called 'The Demoniac Goat'?
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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 9, 2008 18:32:23 GMT
My Ash-Tree Press edition of this one has one of the most bizarre author photographs I have ever seen. Mr Dare is standing by a gate in the country, smoking a cigarette, and wearing nothing but a pair of tiny underpants.
It also has two extra stories compared with the volume above:
Beyond the Veil and
Ghosts I Have Met
I know Ramsey Campbell dislikes this book, and suggested the 'a' inthe author's surname should be replaced with an 'i'. I read it a few years ago now and didn't think too much of it but Dem's reading of it suggests that perhaps I should revisit it.
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Post by carolinec on Oct 9, 2008 22:13:39 GMT
My Ash-Tree Press edition of this one has one of the most bizarre author photographs I have ever seen. Mr Dare is standing by a gate in the country, smoking a cigarette, and wearing nothing but a pair of tiny underpants. Sounds like it might be worth getting for the author photo alone!  |
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Post by dem bones on Oct 10, 2008 0:38:31 GMT
*Tsk!* Well isn't that just typical! I'll thank you to mind your 'p's and 'q's when you're among us genteel, pipe-smoking antiquarian fellows, young lady! It's not as if you ever hear us blabbering on about Kylie in their underwear every five seconds ( Agent Provocateur, black, silky, etc.) or anything! Dear Santa...I don't know about anybody else but my wish list just got one longer. How could you not love any collection that contained a story called 'The Demoniac Goat'? One of the better stories: Rev. Ashley Tudor goes Pagan after discovering an Altar to the Goat God, sets about finding him some human sacrifices, etc. Funny enough, it's set in your neck of the woods. GHOSTS & SCHOLARS 10 (1988) “Writers In The James Tradition No.7 - M.P. Dare" by Geoffrey K. Nelson Marcus Paul Dare (1902-62), wrote “Unholy Relics”, a collection of thirteen tales. A genuine student of the occult, Dare’s life appears to have been a puzzle, as certain claims about his education and career were as fictional as his ghosts, while he was sent to prison repeatedly for stealing from churches, bookshops and libraries. Just reread this, and quite an eyeopener it is, too. Sadly, Dare ended his life by taking poison in 1962, fearful of being sent back to prison. It seems that he was forever attempting to establish a bookshop only to be prosecuted for nicking stock from whichever library was local to him at the time. |
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Post by carolinec on Oct 10, 2008 11:20:11 GMT
My Ash-Tree Press edition of this one has one of the most bizarre author photographs I have ever seen. Mr Dare is standing by a gate in the country, smoking a cigarette, and wearing nothing but a pair of tiny underpants. Sounds like it might be worth getting for the author photo alone! *Tsk!* Well isn't that just typical! I'll thank you to mind your 'p's and 'q's when you're among us genteel, pipe-smoking antiquarian fellows, young lady! It's not as if you ever hear us blabbering on about Kylie in their underwear every five seconds ( Agent Provocateur, black, silky, etc.) or anything!  I did think afterwards that maybe I shouldn't have posted that. After all, I don't really want those of you gents who write books to get the idea that if you posed in your underpants on the inside back cover I'd definitely go out and buy the book!  |
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Post by David A. Riley on Oct 10, 2008 11:26:14 GMT
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Post by carolinec on Oct 10, 2008 13:51:46 GMT
Which reminds me, David - I'm really looking forward to your planned collection which has been mentioned here and on the BFS board. But, honestly, you don't have to strip of for the author photo - I'll buy it anyway!  (Oh dear, am I getting a bad reputation around here or something? ) |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 10, 2008 14:59:52 GMT
I should just like to take this opportunity to point out that on both my author photographs so far I am wearing underpants, you just can't see them, and that's because they are beneath a pair of immaculately tailored trousers rather than because they are exceptionally skimpy or anything like that. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the Boxer Short is the preferred undergarment of this particular horror writer.
Cue the underpants thread.....
As opposed to the thready underpants
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Post by David A. Riley on Oct 10, 2008 14:59:57 GMT
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Post by carolinec on Oct 10, 2008 18:42:51 GMT
Cue the underpants thread..... Hmmm, that's a point. If you guys can have a "Phwoar" thread, maybe the ladies should have an underpants thread ...?  |
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Post by dem bones on Oct 10, 2008 20:44:44 GMT
Hmmm, that's a point. If you guys can have a "Phwoar" thread, maybe the ladies should have an underpants thread ...? I turn my back for, like, five seconds and next thing you know the board is buried under a bundle of unseemly leopardskin mankini's and pvc parachute pants! It's PC gone mad! Poor old M. P. Dare! He must be spinning in his grave! |
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Post by jkdunham on Oct 11, 2008 11:01:36 GMT
A genuine student of the occult, Dare’s life appears to have been a puzzle, as certain claims about his education and career were as fictional as his ghosts, while he was sent to prison repeatedly for stealing from churches, bookshops and libraries. Sounds like a fascinating character! I'm loving this book more by the minute. Even his name, Marcus Dare, makes him sound like a pulp hero! |
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Post by dem bones on Oct 11, 2008 12:32:42 GMT
Sounds like a fascinating character! I'm loving this book more by the minute. Even his name, Marcus Dare, makes him sound like a pulp hero! After Frederick Cowles I'd say he was the pulpiest of the Jamesian authors. With the disciples of MRJ, there's a tendency to follow his technique to the letter and - i'm not saying this is always the case but often enough - frown upon sadism and gore as unseemly topics for a ghost story. Cowles essentially said bollocks to that, and liberally laced his work with scenes of torture and bloodshed. Dare is far quieter. Again, he has all the antiquarian trappings of James, but never allows his tales to get bogged down in them. Read as a whole, Unholy Relics can be a little samey, but it's an anthologist's dream. I'm very surprised Hugh Lamb didn't reprint it over his much admired New Victorian Nightmares From a Gaslit Graveyard of Supernatural Terror & Cold, Palpable Fear (Vols.l - XXV) series. Speaking of Hugh, does anyone have Forgotten Ghosts - The Supernatural Stories Of Hugh Lamb (1996), one of the Ash Tree Press "occasional booklet"s edited by Barbara & Christopher Roden? All I know about it is the contents run like this: Barbara & Christopher Roden - Foreword
Mike Ashley - Introduction
H. Rider Haggard - Only a Dream
Frank Norris - The Ship That Saw a Ghost
C. D. Heriot - The Trapdoor
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward - Kentucky’s Ghost
W. L. George - Waxworks Needless to say, a cover scan would be much appreciated. |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Feb 28, 2011 12:10:22 GMT
I've been meaning to revisit this book ever since Dem posted on it above but it was only this weekend that I finally took it off the shelf.
Goodness me! The natural forerunner to Talbot Rothwell and Garth Marenghi, Mr Dare's stories can be most appreciated by those who enjoy fiction that produces an incredulous grin. My copy is masquerading under the Ash-Tree imprint but once you get past that and the introduction it's full steam ahead with Mr Dare's remarkably intolerant continuing characters, who live and write books together and have no time for "meddlesome women". In fact it isn't until The Nymph Still Lives that Gregory Wayne owns up to ever having been..er...turned on - in this case by a young lady ghost in a see-through dress doing a seductive dance on Hadrian's Wall! So far so very Up Pompei! (and The Haunted Drawers story is also very Carry On Monty (James that is).
Otherwise it's very Marenghi. The title story offers maggots maggots maggots and The Demoniac Goat is a scream from start to finish, especially the goat's 'dialogue'. Best dialogue so far though goes to Fatal Oak - "But My God man that scorched corpse sitting in that chair is your wife!" "I think you'e made a mistake with your tenses there - that scorched corpse sitting in the chair was my wife" and to cap the whole sordid tale of adultery and hanging off "This is the kind of case best investigated by one of those Scotland Yard chappies, preferably with the name Inspector MacArbre!"
Add in all kinds of inappropriate racism "Although he had a cockney accent he was quite well educated." "The Portuguese are all a bit strange". "How uncharacteristically helpful - a signpost in the Midlands" and this one scores highly on the What Were They Thinking? entertainment-ometer
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