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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 26, 2008 9:10:14 GMT
Reign of Terror Vol 1 ed Michel Parry
Hardcover Edition: Severn House 1977
[?I think Corgi did a paperback edition prior to this]
Contents:
Introduction by Michel Parry
A Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity As Related by the Rev Jasper Ingoldsby, MA, His Friend & Executor by Richard Harris Barham
The Phantom Regiment by James Grant
A Night in the Old Castle by GPR James
The Forsaken of God by William Mudford
The Monk's Story by Catherine Crowe
The North Mail by Amelia B Edwards
The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Signal Man by Charles Dickens
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 26, 2008 9:21:29 GMT
Here's a collection of Victorian horror stories that I initially thought weren't going to be up to much. Oh but how wrong I was.
A Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity As Related by the Rev Jasper Ingoldsby, MA, His Friend & Executor by Richard Harris Barham
The less-than inspiring title of this one, and the fairly slow and complex scene-setting start that seems to be beloved of so many writers of this period, doesn't prepare you for what's coming and the 'hideous debasement of an innocent young woman' while under the hypnotic power of a couple of Satan-worshipping university students turns out to be something of a cracking opening to the volume. Anyone who loves the mock-outraged-but actually-don't-you-just-love-it style of Dennis Wheatley et al will get a kick out of this.
The Phantom Regiment by James Grant
An fine idea where a soldier who has died in various battles (and committed atrocities during them) keep sbeing reborn to fight again. Plenty of horrible bits in this to keep the 'enthusiast of the macabre' interested.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 26, 2008 10:27:24 GMT
Here's a slightly lopsided scan of the Corgi cover, yer lordship. I was initially a little disappointed with #1 because, unusually for Michel, he'd opted for mostly well known, easily available stories, but that introduction, An Age In Horror is just brilliant - 'specially when he gets onto the subject of 'Cocks'! Particularly looking forward to your thoughts on the Mudford and G. P. R. James stories.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 26, 2008 11:56:14 GMT
A Night in the Old Castle GPR James
Great scene setting in this one - the occupants of a storm-lashed carriage take refuge in the ruins of an old castle, get changed into their dinner suits (of course - I know I have under similar circumstances as rain makes a mess of velvet), and start sipping brandy. But the night has just begun and there's a dead girl in the vaults (best place I say) and a raving loony on the loose. No supernatural element to this - just good old fashioned horror.
The Forsaken of God - William Mudford
Difficult to summarise without giving away the ending but ther are some fantastic ravings in this one "I plucked this from the beak of a raven feeding on a murderer's brains! This is a single drop of black blood squeezed from the heart of a sweltered toad!"
The Monk's Story - Catherine Crowe
In his intro Parry says Montague Summers considered this 'a masterpiece of its kind'. Presumably he was referring to barking mad stories in which the principle characters do silly things like forget to lock up a psychopathic sleep walking monk who has returned from the grave and stabs people in his sleep. Utterley daft.
The North Mail - Amelia B Edwards
A bit more sober & straightforward which after the last few is probably a good thing. Anyone know if this is 'The Phantom Coach' by another name?
The Old Nurse's Story - Elizabeth Gaskell
'One of the best Xmas ghost stories' says Parry, and he may be right. The plot's the usual sounds-complicated-but-actually-straightforward ghostly affair, but Gaskell conjures some fantastic gothic imagery of the old house snowbound for Xmas. I was so impressed with this I've bought the Penguin Classics version of her stories.
The Signalman - Charles Dickens
Old Mr D knew how to scare us - a fitting end to the volume & a story everyone should read.
Overall a fine book. If I ever find any of the others in the series it'll be interesting to see if they compare.
JLP
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Post by dem bones on Nov 26, 2008 14:02:21 GMT
The Corgi covers and contents to the remaining three books in the series can be seen at Vault Of Evil: Wordpress - might drift them over at some stage. William Mudford: the only other story I've read of his is another proper horror story and a brilliant one at that, The Iron Shroud which finds the Saintly Vivenzio - "the noble and the generous, the fearless in battle, the pride of Naples in her sunny hours of peace" - captured by the despicable Tolfi and thrown into a collapsing prison. With each passing day, at the toll of a bell, the walls close in further and the ceiling drops. I bet Charles Birkin would've loved the outcome. Funnily enough, G. P. R. James ripped it off as The Iron Coffin episode of Faust, with one marvellous innovation - he 'improved' on it by introduced Lucrezia Borgia into the proceedings and she plays an absolute blinder! You can find the relevant episode (it holds together very well) in The Eerie Book Oh yeah. The Phantom Coach and The North Mail are indeed one and the same story.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Nov 26, 2008 14:28:32 GMT
Dicken's Signalman made a great short film too for xmas. Its a real tiptoeing tale
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Post by pulphack on Nov 26, 2008 19:09:23 GMT
absolutely - that beeb version and their mr james adaptations are probably more responsible for my exploring victorian and edwardian horror than even Hammer!
it does seem an odd selection in some ways - the Ingoldsby Legends are something i've tried many times to plough through, but as john says, the style is a little long winded. probably best taken in anthology form. i love the comparison with dennis wheatley - it had never dawned on me before, but i guess he was a direct descendant of the 'this is so very awful and now i'll tell you why' school of moral storytelling. the modern day equivalent of which can still be seen in NOTW and Daily Mail style journalism (and all the better for it if you have the right sense of humour).
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 26, 2008 22:14:13 GMT
I think unless you're a big fan of a particular writer then anthologies are the best way to go. I've started the Mrs Gaskell book and the 'sameness' of the stories becomes evident, not so much in the plots, but in the way the stories are told, especially in that there's an awful lot of what we would think is unnecessary setup, where you get the entire history of the families of each of the main characters in the style of the local town gossip.
And thanks, Pulphack! My main memoires of Wheatley are of his description of possessed girls in stockings and suspenders and stone willies all described as 'Oh my I think this is dreadful but here it is in lascivious detail'.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 26, 2008 22:15:00 GMT
Memories! My memoires are NOT for publication
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Nov 26, 2008 22:23:01 GMT
Yes, I distinctly remember not being all that worried when they captured these cute looking Christian girls for their depraved rites. In fact, I'm fairly sure I was rubbing my hands with glee. Favourite will always be The Devil Rides out. Top film
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Post by dem bones on Nov 27, 2008 13:05:11 GMT
Moving on from possessed girls in stockings and suspender belts (more of whom later!) here's the rest. The cover painting for no. 4 is definitely a Les Edwards job so it's not unlikely he did them all as Parry also featured him throughout the Mayflower Black Magic series. Michel Parry (ed) - Reign Of Terror: The 2nd Corgi Book Of Victorian Horror Stories (Corgi, 1977) Wilkie Collins - The Dream Woman Charles Collins - The Compensation House Lord Lytton - The House And The Brain Hain Friswell - The Dead Man’s Story John Berwick Harwood - Horror: A True Tale Mary Elizabeth Braddon - The Cold Embrace H. G. Bell - The Merchant Of Rotterdam Erckmann-Chatrian - The Child StealerMichel Parry (ed) - Reign Of Terror: The 3rd Corgi Book Of Victorian Horror Stories (Corgi, 1977) William Carleton - Wildgoose Lodge J. S. Le Fanu - Sir Dominick's Bargain Henry James - The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes Rhoda Broughton - Under The Cloak George MacDonald - The Grey Wolf Robert Louis Stevenson - The Body Snatcher Hugh Conway - The Secret Of The Stradivarius E. Lynn Linton - The Fate Of Madame Cabanel Michel Parry (ed) - Reign Of Terror: The 4th Corgi Book Of Victorian Horror Stories (Corgi, 1977) Rudyard Kipling - The Strange Ride Of Morrowbie Jukes Rosa Mulholland - The Haunted Organist Grant Allen - The Beckoning Hand Hume Nisbet - The Demon Spell Mrs. Henry Wood - A Mysterious Visitor Sir Gilbert Campbell - The Lady Isobel James Platt - The Witches' Sabbath Agnes MacLeod - The Skeleton Hand This is as good an introduction to Victorian horror as you're likely to find outside of Montague Summers' The Supernatural Omnibus and really is crying out for the Omnibus treatment - what a Christmas present that would make! Maybe we'll get around to tackling the books individually at a later date but here are some random notes. Erckmann-Chatrian's nasty The Child Stealer is outrageous for the time and still hugely effective. Several children have gone missing, and nobody knows whats happened to them ... The Merchant Of Rotterdam concerns an inventor and his latest marvellous contraption which takes all the pain out of marathon walks. Stevenson's The Body Snatcher came in for stick at the time of publication for it's thinly veiled references to Dr. Knox, recipient of an endless procession of corpses via Burke and Hare Enterprises. The North Mail (aka The Phantom Coach) is perhaps the epitome of the Victorian ghost story, equal parts doomed romance and supernatural terror. Fate of Madame Cabanel tackles the horror of where superstition gets you as a naive young English woman is accused of being a vampire by rhubarbing French villagers. The House And The Brain fictionalises the "true" haunting of Berkley Square to brilliant effect - it's still the only work of Bulwer-Lytton's that kept me the slightest interested. Hume Nisbet's The Demon Spell reveals the reasons behind the sudden cessation of Jack the Ripper's reign of terror!
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 27, 2008 17:24:56 GMT
Well I'd love to tackle the others but at the moment I can't find them for less than a tenner a paperback. There were also some hardcover editions and the covers of those are markedly different from the scans shown here (my volume 1 is a far more sedate affair than the Corgi one).
Looks like it'sback to the second hand shops.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 28, 2008 10:14:02 GMT
Cover, blurb for Barnes & Noble reprint of Volume 1, 1980. Fred Charles Blurb THE GOLDEN AGE OF TERROR
"That the sixty-four year reign of Queen Victoria generated more than its share of horrors, no one can deny. The backstreets of Victorian London, those grim, overcrowded warrens of despair, were a bustling breeding ground of horror .... If this collection helps in some way vindicate Victorian supernatural and horror fiction and return it to its rightful position of preeminence, I shall be well pleased. But, to be honest, my principal aim in compiling these stories is somewhat more modest.
"Like Dickens' Fat Boy, 'I only wants to make your flesh creep .... " —from the introduction by Michel Parry
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 28, 2008 11:38:20 GMT
The Severn House one is different again, Dem. When the scanner's plugged in I'll try and work out how to post it. That B&N one's a bit rubbish, isn't it?
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Post by dem bones on Nov 28, 2008 15:32:27 GMT
The Severn House one is different again, Dem. When the scanner's plugged in I'll try and work out how to post it. Posting Images You know, the more I think about it the more I reckon it would be a great idea to Omnibus the four books: I mean, all of the authors have been in their graves for at least seventy years (technically, at least, in Dickens' case: his ghost, it is claimed, haunts Rochester Castle but only on Christmas Eve. Anyway, I can't see him complaining) so that opens it up for Wordsworth if Michel is compliant. Perhaps some more on this later .....
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