Peter Haining - Hallowe’en Hauntings

[dem bones]

Peter Haining (ed.) - Hallowe’en Hauntings (William Kimber, 1984)

ionicus

Introduction: Peter Haining

William Black - Hallowe’en Wraith
Julian Hawthorne - Ken’s Mystery
Tod Robbins - Cock-Crow Inn
Hugh Walpole - The Oldest Talland
Charles Williams - Et In Sempiturnum Pereant
Edith Wharton - All Souls’
Dorothy Macardle - The Vow On Hallowe’en
Robert Bloch - The Cloak
Ellery McQueen - The Adventure Of The Dead Cat
H. P. Lovecraft - The Very Old Folk
August Derleth - Hallowe’en For Mr. Faulkner
Ray Bradbury - The Candy Skull
Basil Copper - The Candle In The Skull

Blurb:

Hallowe’en - the night departed souls can rise from their graves, the night of witches, hobgoblins and demons, the night of the old Celtic festival - what better subject for writers of the supernatural to give full rein to their fancy? Peter Haining in this new anthology has gathered together a wide variety of such stories from both sides of the Atlantic.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and what better way to celebrate! My favourite of the Haining Kimbers (which isn't saying much, seeing as I've only read three or four) and a way better selection than companion volume, Christmas Spirits.

Includes:

Basil Copper - The Candle In The Skull: Little Kathy is blabbering on about how she's going to have a skull for Halloween, but her father Martin isn't listening - he never does, not having any time for the child who seems in some way uncanny. Besides, the brilliant scientist is preoccupied with his women trouble. Of late Janet has threatened to call at the house and make a scene in front of his wife Charlotte. There's only one thing for it: Charlotte will have to "disappear" and then the wretched Kathy can be put into care.

Hearing a noise in his laboratory, he sneaks up on his wife from behind and bashes her with an iron bar, then dumps the corpse into the acid tank before returning to his room. But later, when he comes to, he hears Charlotte calling to him: has he only dreamt that he murdered her?
Rushing to investigate, he takes a header down the cellar steps ...

Kathy shows off her prize skull to her mother before setting out for trick or treat mischief. "Don't you think it looks like Auntie Janet?" she innocently enquires ...

Tod Robbins - Wild Wullie the Waster: Branstaun Tower, Scotland. A pointless argument during a billiards match leads to the premature ends of Wild Wullie Campbell and his friend Roderick Dingwall. As ghosts the "doddering old fossils" hide away in the attic by day and enjoy nightly billiards, but then the new owners arrive ...

Delightful. It's like some kind of literary precursor to the Shiver & Shake comic strip![/s]

it's a great story, but it's not the one PH includes here, which is, of course, Cock-Crow Inn

On Halloween night, the notorious pirate Whitechapel Willie climbs down from the gallows and sets off for the village of Wishbone Point to avenge himself on Hangman Tibbit and steal from him his girl, Nancy Greer, the innkeeper's daughter. He's been swinging for twenty days and the crows have modified his looks, but then Nancy always was sweet on him. Although Tibbet survives, Nancy is a madwoman from that day forth and the Tibbet family are cursed to be born with elongated necks. It's widely held amongst the villagers that Nancy is entirely to blame: if she'd only attended the burning of witch Anna Mulvane that night as a good Christian woman should then none of it would have happened.

Dorothy Macardle - The Vow On Hallowe’en: "Remember - young lady, you will drive with me - yet! Maybe not now, but some day! This is not a threat, it is a declaration and neither stars, moon nor even heaven itself shall deliver you from it."

Audrey is being nudged into marriage with the saturnine Rothschild Manny, her selfless parents pressurising her not to spurn this God-given opportunity to revive the family fortune. Audrey detests the man and, when he turns up unexpectedly on Halloween night, demanding she take a ride with him in his flash new car, all her frustration comes to a head and she tells Manny exactly what she thinks of him! Furious, Rothschild races off into the night, writes off his car and dies horribly.

A year passes. On the anniversary of the tragedy, Audrey attends a masked ball with her sweetheart, Arthur. A stranger in a domino approaches and requests the next dance ....

Total pure Gothic melodrama! This should have been filmed, with Tod Slaughter playing Rothschild Manny.

August Derleth - Hallowe’en For Mr. Faulkner: October 31st, 1953, and Guy Faulkner, a New Yorker in London to complete his genealogical studies, is lost in the fog. A stranger approaches, asks for a light and, when Mr. Faulkner complies, he is shocked to catch a glimpse of the man's face in the flame as it looks just like his own! The stranger leads him to a house in Old Paradise where a group of gentlemen in strange attire welcome him as though he were a close associate! Funny thing is, he's sure he knows them from somewhere ....

[mattofthespurs]

Just bagged myself this book off eBay for a fiver.
Looking forward to reading this as it has a few I have not come across before.

[dem bones]

Might have something to do with the gentle ionicus artwork but I didn't much rate Haining's stuff for Kimber. Stood against his best work for, say, Gollancz, these collections seemed flat and far too reliant on over-familiar work by name authors. They've grown on me in recent years - as has the artwork I once so despised - and this one is tidy enough, very good for a fiver I'd have said. A particular favourite is Julian Hawthorne's beautiful vampire story which I've tried and failed to write up at least twice for this board: my brief notes went on for two pages of really tiny handwriting.

[mattofthespurs]

I've been after adding this one to the collection for sometime but never seen it less than £25 (which the seller on eBay noted himself) so I'm jolly happy to have bagged this reasonably cheap.

The artwork is the kind I like. Fairly typical of the times and very generic, but painted so I'm happy.

I'll have a read when it arrives and see if I can add anything to the synopisis' that may have already appeared.

[dem bones]

Amazing how times change. Maybe ten years back, i selected Hallowe'en Hauntings, Christmas Spirits, a pair of RCH's and two After Midnight Ghost Stories from STACKS of Kimber titles piled high in a Charing Cross Road Remainder shop. Could've had loads more, too, if i'd known what i was doing, all at prices so token it convinced you this stuff really couldn't be given away. A decade later, i'm hunting down all those i passed on and - you know the rest!

[fullbreakfast]

Oct 6, 2009 7:42:10 GMT dem bones said:

A particular favourite is Julian Hawthorne's beautiful vampire story which i've tried and failed to write up at least twice for this board: my brief notes went on for two pages of really tiny handwriting.

I was intrigued by this description and tracked the story down on the net (it's on Project Gutenberg). I liked it a lot, a masterly piece of work I'd say and all the better for an ending which isn't (as one kind of expects from a tale of this vintage) too cut-and-dried.

Julian Hawthorne was an interesting character it seems - son of Nathaniel, of whom I'm also a fan, but something of a black sheep (he did some prison time for selling a few million shares in a silver mine that, how can one put this, didn't actually exist...).

There are a couple of his stories on the horrormasters site as well which I'm planning to read later.

[dem bones]

Oct 7, 2009 16:03:58 GMT fullbreakfast said:

Julian Hawthorne was an interesting character it seems - son of Nathaniel, of whom I'm also a fan

Now there's a man whose collected ghost and horror stories would make for a tidy Wordsworth Mystery & The Supernatural collection! To date he's not had much of a look in on here but it can only be a matter of time. When I used to do my tragic rating system, I put two red asterisks against The Christmas Banquet, Rappaccini’s Daughter and Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment signifying "a classic!" and he never scored less than double blue except for Feathertop which has a grey blob. I think that meant "haven't read it yet".

As to Hawthorne jnr., Haining also included Ken's Mystery in his clunky Vampire Omnibus where he renamed it - for the better - The Grave of Ethelind Fionguala. On the subject of JH's fall from grace Peter is atypically tight-lipped - "his reputation became somewhat clouded toward the end of his life when he became involved in several fraudulent ventures and as a result spent a term in prison" (Halloween Hauntings) - so thanks for dishing the dirt. According to Sam Moskowitz, Julian's masterpiece is David Poindexter's Disappearance. I'm not sure how many of his stories made it into anthologies - Moskowitz used The Delusion Of Ralph Penwyn and My Adventure With Edgar Allen Poe - but he was prolific over several decades, so, as with his father, another name for Wordsworth to consider.

[fullbreakfast]

Oct 7, 2009 19:28:54 GMT dem bones said:

Now there's a man whose collected ghost and horror stories would make for a tidy Wordsworth Mystery & The Supernatural collection! To date he's not had much of a look in on here but it can only be a matter of time. When i used to do my tragic rating system, i put two red asterisks against The Christmas Banquet, Rappaccini’s Daughter and Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment signifying "a classic!" and he never scored less than double blue except for Feathertop which has a grey blob. I think that meant "haven't read it yet.

I expect you know about it, but Tartarus have recently come out with a volume from Hawthorne senior, The Snow-Image and Other Stories of the Supernatural. A Wordsworth along the same lines would be a really good idea.

I want to go and re-read Rappaccini's Daughter now, which I've got in a tatty old Oxford World's Classics edition somewhere. It must be the best part of twenty years...