Hugh Lamb - Gaslit Nightmares II

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Hugh Lamb (ed.) - Gaslit Nightmares II: Victorian & Edwardian Tales Of Terror (Futura, 1991)

Cover: Richard Jones

Blurb:
Feel the finger of death caress your eyes.
Under the gaslights of late nineteenth-century London, Jack the Ripper, Charles Peace and others plied their bloody trade. In these twenty-three stories, by authors such as Alexandre Dumas, Jerome K. Jerome, Robert W. Chambers and Sabine Baring-Gould, that world opens its doors again – to ghosts, horror and death.

Introduction - Hugh Lamb

Frank Frankfort Moore - The Strange Story Of Northavon Priory
William Hope Hodgson - A Tropical Horror
Lafcadio Hearn - Nightmare-Touch
E. R. Suffling - The Phantom Riders
Robert W. Chambers - Un Peu D'Amour
John C. Shannon - The Spirit Of The Fjord
S. Baring Gould - Mustapha
Alexandre Dumas - Marceau's Prisoner
Bernard Capes - Dark Dignum
Bernard Capes - The Vanishing House
Perceval Gibbon - The King Of The Baboons
W. Bourne Cooke - The Woman With A Candle
Edward Lucas White - The Pig-Skin Belt
Raymund Allen - The Black Knight
Lewis Lister - The Terror By Night
Wirt Gerrare - The Dark Shadow
L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace - The Mystery Of The Felwyn Tunnel
Mrs. Molesworth - Old Gervais
Maurice Level - In The Light Of The Red Lamp
Maurice Level - The Test
Perceval Landon - Mrs. Rivers's Journal
Jerome K. Jerome - The Woman Of The Saeter
S. Levett-Yates - The Devil's Manuscript


Includes:

Raymund Allen - The Black Knight: During the Indian mutiny, Colonel Bradshawe is taken prisoner and forced to play a game of chess with the chief, "the stakes, my life against a safe conduct to the English lines." As if he's not got enough to contend with, there's a diabolical priest waging psychic warfare against him, forcing him to commit suicidal moves.

Lewis Lister - The Terror By Night: Maynard is fishing in a moorland stream. When he catches a tiny trout which expires before he can return it to the water, for reasons unbeknown to himself he builds a small pyre and sacrifices it to "the God of waste places." Presently a girl on horseback, Lady Dorothy, approaches. She warns him of the local superstition that this is not a place to be wandering by night as it is haunted by a thing that hunts people to death. Maynard scoffs at the legend. When darkness falls, he finds himself pursued.

Maurice Level - In The Light Of The Red Lamp: "In the first shock of grief, you sometimes have extraordinary ideas ... can you believe that I photographed her lying on her deathbed? I took my camera into the white, silent room, and lit the magnesium wire. Yes, overwhelmed as I was with grief, I did with the most scrupulous precaution and care things from which I should shrink today, revolting things ... yet it is a great consolation to know she is there, that I shall be able to see her again as she looked that last day."
Now, six months after his beloved's death, accompanied by the narrator he prepares to develop the photographs of the dead woman. Slowly the images appear - and a horrible tragedy is revealed.

Maurice Level - The Test:Bourdin is accused of stabbing a woman to death. The magistrates have him view the corpse in an effort to break him, but he maintains his innocent. It seems he'll get away with it until the spectacular intervention of a bluebottle ...

W. Bourne Cooke - The Woman With A Candle: Autumn 1900, Knelby village. The narrator encounters an aged sexton who tells him about the haunting of the rectory, "by an old and ghastly woman ... who walks the house at dead of night with a lighted candle in her hand". In his youth the sexton had a dreadful encounter with the spectre, who led him to the skeleton of a local M beauty.

S. Levett-Yeats - The Devil's Manuscript: John Brown, a ruined publisher, is visited by M. de Bac, a mysterious figure who knows all of Brown's most dreadful secrets. He presents him with enough money to save his business, preventing a huge scandal. In return he wishes him to publish an excellent - if immoral - collection, The Yellow Dragon, obviously best-seller material. de Bac leaves the mark of a trident on Brown's arm and promises him undreamt of success for the next ten years, after which time he must be prepared to join his patron on a journey.

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Alexander Dumas - Marceau's Prisoner: Saint-Crepin, December 1793 during the French Revolution. The Republican army army attack the Royalists and villagers as they hear Mass. In the midst of the slaughter, General Marceau rescues the Marquis De Beaulieu's daughter, Blanche, and smuggles her to Nantes. But Delmar "one of Robespierre's agents, in whose hands the guillotine was more active than intelligent" is onto them, and when Marceau is recalled from leave, Blanche is thrown into prison and condemned to death. Marceau rushes to the death cell and begs her to marry him, knowing even Delmar wouldn't dare behead the wife of a General with so exemplary a record. Next, a visit to Robespierre, who grants Blanche a free pardon. He arrives back at the prison only to learn that two carts have just set out for the Place D'Execution. Marceau fights his way through the crowd brandishing the pardon and arrives at the scaffold just in time to see ....

Excellent, gloomy stuff, also notable for doomed characters the village Priest and loyal Tinguy who is forever scuttling from the shadows to bring news to and from Blanche. Hugh Lamb writes that he found this story in the July 1892 edition of The Strand, and it reads like it should have been included in Horror At Fontenay where, incredibly, Marceau fails to rescue another woman from the guillotine in an entirely different story!

This pair also show up in Richard Dalby's Chillers For Christmas, so being lazy, i just copied these notes across.

Frank Frankfort Moore - The Strange Story Of Northavon Priory: Arthur Jephson throws a Christmas party at his new residence, little knowing of the black masses and human sacrifices which were celebrated in one of the chambers during the reign of Henry VIII. That night, the guests are awoken by a terrible scream followed by a yell of laughter, while a weird red light emanates from Tom Singleton's room. The following morning they retrieved his body, Tom having seemingly suffered a cardiac arrest, although how to explain the burn marks, "as if a red hot gauntlet had been laid upon it", found on a wooden shutter? On the anniversary of the tragedy, at the last minute Sylvia Jephson decides against using the room and instead allows a maid to sleep there ....

Bernard Capes - The Vanishing House: Capes in fine fettle. Narrated by Jack, the banjo player at Winchester's The Good Intent. At Christmas, Jack, his grandfather and fellow musicians scrape a living from playing the waits, and this night finds them stood in the snow before a strange house. A young lady opens the door and offers them drink, but the company retreat when they spot a hideous face leering at them across her shoulder. To save face, Grandfather accepts a glass and drains off half the contents. "Dear, dear!", said the gal in a voice like falling water, "you've drunk blood, Sir!". And that's when the story turns really strange.

Along with the Level pair, these are arguably the best from Gaslit Nightmares 2 so far.

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S. Baring Gould - Mustapha: Luxor. Young Mustapha the donkey-boy turns his back on Allah, preferring to party with the Brits. But all of this changes when he sets eyes on Ibraim the farrier's daughter. Ibraim, the most devout worshipper at the mosque, refuses to sanction marriage unless Mustapha returns to the faith. He does, vowing to cut his own throat should another drop of alcohol pass his lips. All is well until despicable whining English racist Jameson plays a cruel trick involving a plum pudding.

William Hope Hodgson - A Tropical Horror: Melbourne. 100 tons* of tentacled sea serpent with giant lobster claws flops aboard The Glen Doon, eats the cabin-boy and everyone else bar the narrator. "All-action" doesn't begin to cover it. (* approximate weight)

Perceval Gibbon - The King Of The Baboons: South Africa. When an army of baboons decimate his corn crop, Shadrack Van Guelder hires a motley crew of aged Kafirs to stand watch throughout the night, making as much noise as possible to drive the beasts away. The bull-headed, huge-fanged dog-baboons to the fore, the primates set upon the farmers and eight men are torn to pieces. The survivors recognise the ape king as Naqua, a yellow-skinned bushman who has turned were-baboon.

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Perceval Landon - Mrs. Rivers's Journal: Landon's famous creepy nun story, Thurnley Abbey, is a long-time personal favourite, so for those of us who've not seen hide or hair of his Raw Edges collection, this is rare treat indeed! By the terms of her late, spoilsport husband's will, Mrs. Rivers will be disinherited should she take up with her fancy man, Dennis Cardyne. The very merry widow is not to be thwarted. She and Cardyne carry on their clandestine love life as before and fool themselves that nobody will notice. Then Martha Craik, Mrs. Rivers' maidservant, is accused of murder. Cardyne knows Martha is innocent because he saw the killer creeping stark naked from the victims room. To come forward would be to expose Mrs. Rivers to scandal and penury, but to stay silent means a guiltless woman will swing on a gallows. He leaves it to Mrs. Rivers to decide which course he take.

Lafcadio Hearn - Nightmare-Touch: An essay detailing the author's childhood nightmares, waking and sleeping. Much to his parents' annoyance, the infant Lafcadio insisted he was being stalked by shadowy figures. The worst of it was - they touched him.

John C. Shannon - The Spirit Of The Fjord: The singularly beautiful woman in the skiff is Norwa, and, should you be one of the unlucky few to see her sailing by, you do not have many hours to live. Naturally, Gilbert Amyn, a popular passenger aboard the Valda, scoffs at such superstitious fancy, so we have a fair idea what will happen to him.