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Post by dem bones on Dec 6, 2008 14:38:22 GMT
Marjorie Bowen - The Bishop Of Hell & Other Stories (Wordsworth, 2006: Originally The Bodley Head, 1949) Hilary Long - Introduction Personal Note Biographical Note
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine The Crown Derby Plate The Housekeeper Florence Flannery Elsie's Lonely Afternoon The Bishop Of Hell The Grey Chamber The Extraordinary Adventure Of Mr. John Proudie The Scoured Silk The Avenging Of Ann Leete Kecksies Ann Mellor's LoverBlurb: Marjorie Bowen (1885-1952) spent the early part of her working life providing for a demanding and ungrateful family. We are lucky that she did so, since among the results were these short stories of rare quality. In their use of dreams, ancient anecdote, and ruined or dilapidated buildings (Florence Flannery, The Fair Hair of Ambrosine) they are at times in the finest tradition of The Castle of Otranto and the Gothic revival which had chilled the blood of the British public a hundred and fifty years earlier. But her stories are more subtle in their construction, and often use simple materials (The Crown Derby Plate, Elsie's Lonely Afternoon), interweaving their terror and mystery with the commonplace of everyday life. Their mastery of detail, sureness of expression and acute reading of human nature give them a sinister force, which is realistic and unnerving, yet at the same time tinged with pity and compassion. Had a crawl along Charing Cross Road this morning and nipped into that seedy bargain books emporium to snap up three from the Mystery & The Supernatural series: Mark Valentine's The Werewolf Pack, David Stuart Davies' vampire selection Children Of The Night and the one i'm most excited about, Marjorie Bowen's The Bishop Of Hell, a collection which so appalled Peter Penzoldt ( The Supernatural In Fiction (Humanities, 2nd edition, 1955) he was moved to wonder "how such tales [that revel in sadism] can be constantly republished in the face of the laws against pornographic literature is an unsolved mystery." (see Marjorie Bowen - Great Tales Of Horror for the complete roll of shame.) Don't - like Mr. Penzolt - get too excited: not by any stretch of this imagination could this stuff be called torture porn although the excellent Kecksies is delightfully nasty-minded. Of those I've previously encountered, most are good old-fashioned atmospheric ghost stories - The Crown Derby Plate was even selected by Robert Aickman for the first of the Fontana Ghost books. includes: Kecksies: Bowen at her most horribly brilliant. Sir Nicholas and Edward Crediton demand shelter and food at the hovel of Goody Boyle. She informs them that there is already a corpse under her roof, that of Robert Horne who Crediton banished because he was a rival for the hand of Anne, now Mrs. Crediton. Both men mock the dead man and generally behave abominably and when Goody Boyle tells them that the strange friends he made while roaming the marshes are coming to pay their respects, Crediton suggests a jest. He will take Horne’s place and give the outcasts a fright! So they dump the body in a hemlock patch and Sir Nicholas helps wrap his friend in the shroud. They would do well to remember Horne’s oath that he would possess Anne one way or another …. The Crown Derby Plate: Miss Martha Pym, sixty year old antique dealer, has always wanted to see a ghost, but maybe not as much as she’d like to locate the one piece missing from her beloved china tea set. Staying with friends on the Essex flats, talk turns to Hartleys, the house where she purchased the incomplete set at auction thirty years ago. Hartleys is now owned by the reclusive and reputedly eccentric Miss Lefain. Perhaps she’ll know the whereabouts of the missing plate?
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Oct 22, 2013 17:13:50 GMT
Had a crawl along Charing Cross Road this morning and nipped into that seedy bargain books emporium to snap up three from the Mystery & The Supernatural series: Mark Valentine's The Werewolf Pack, David Stuart Davies' vampire selection Children Of The Night and the one i'm most excited about, Marjorie Bowen's The Bishop Of Hell, a collection which so appalled Peter Penzoldt ( The Supernatural In Fiction (Humanities, 2nd edition, 1955) he was moved to wonder "how such tales [that revel in sadism] can be constantly republished in the face of the laws against pornographic literature is an unsolved mystery." (see Marjorie Bowen - Great Tales Of Horror for the complete roll of shame.) Don't - like Mr. Penzolt - get too excited: not by any stretch of this imagination could this stuff be called torture porn although the excellent Kecksies is delightfully nasty-minded. Of those I've previously encountered, most are good old-fashioned atmospheric ghost stories - The Crown Derby Plate was even selected by Robert Aickman for the first of the Fontana Ghost books. I've almost finished reading The Bishop of Hell, and I'm thinking that Penzoldt's condemnation should be taken as a recommendation. "The Crown Derby Plate" and "Kecksies" seem to get most of the attention among Bowen's stories, but my top pick so far would be "Florence Flannery." I don't want to give away too much, so I'll merely say that it involves a recently and unhappily married couple (apparently a theme for Bowen), a three hundred year old tale of love gone wrong (ditto), and ghastly revenge perpetrated by a carp-man who may have something to do with someone once sacrificed to a fish-god on a South Sea island. If that's "revelling in sadism," I'm all in. By the way, does anyone have an opinion about Bowen's novel Black Magic, which was reprinted as part of Dennis Wheatley's Library of the Occult? It sounds like a good time.
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Post by jamesdoig on Oct 23, 2013 8:46:49 GMT
You can read it for free here: ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/bowen/marjorie/black-magic/ I quite liked it, though it's a bit crudely done - the general consensus seems to be that it "shows promise". Another medieval-set, witchcrafty novel that isn't too bad, and also in the Library of the Occult, is Evelyn Eaton's The King is a Witch - a popular sub-genre.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Oct 24, 2013 14:55:47 GMT
I quite liked it, though it's a bit crudely done - the general consensus seems to be that it "shows promise". Another medieval-set, witchcrafty novel that isn't too bad, and also in the Library of the Occult, is Evelyn Eaton's The King is a Witch - a popular sub-genre. Thanks, James. The Bowen book seems easy to find, so I'll probably buy a copy. I'd never heard of the Eaton book.
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rob4
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 104
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Post by rob4 on Dec 27, 2013 20:33:05 GMT
just finished this great collection. I also found these at Adelaide university which are of interest. free to download as ebooks. ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/meta/authors.htmlThe Folding Doors Half-Past Two The Hidden Ape The House by the Poppy Field One Remained Behind Raw Material The Sign-Painter and the Crystal Fishes they are not quite as good but worth a read, The Folding Doors is particularly tense.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Dec 9, 2015 20:59:42 GMT
Had a crawl along Charing Cross Road this morning and nipped into that seedy bargain books emporium to snap up three from the Mystery & The Supernatural series: Mark Valentine's The Werewolf Pack, David Stuart Davies' vampire selection Children Of The Night and the one i'm most excited about, Marjorie Bowen's The Bishop Of Hell, a collection which so appalled Peter Penzoldt ( The Supernatural In Fiction (Humanities, 2nd edition, 1955) he was moved to wonder "how such tales [that revel in sadism] can be constantly republished in the face of the laws against pornographic literature is an unsolved mystery." (see Marjorie Bowen - Great Tales Of Horror for the complete roll of shame.) Don't - like Mr. Penzolt - get too excited: not by any stretch of this imagination could this stuff be called torture porn although the excellent Kecksies is delightfully nasty-minded. Of those I've previously encountered, most are good old-fashioned atmospheric ghost stories - The Crown Derby Plate was even selected by Robert Aickman for the first of the Fontana Ghost books. I'm almost finished reading The Bishop of Hell, and I'm thinking that Penzoldt's condemnation should be taken as a recommendation. "The Crown Derby Plate" and "Kecksies" seem to get most of the attention among Bowen's stories, but my top pick so far would be "Florence Flannery." I don't want to give away too much, so I'll merely say that it involves a recently and unhappily married couple (apparently a theme for Bowen), a three hundred year old tale of love gone wrong (ditto), and ghastly revenge perpetrated by a carp-man who may have something to do with someone once sacrificed to a fish-god on a South Sea island. If that's "reveling in sadism," I'm all in. By the way, does anyone have an opinion about Bowen's novel Black Magic, which was reprinted as part of Dennis Wheatley's Library of the Occult? It sounds like a good time. Right! Florence Flannery is going to be tonight's feast of Bowen!
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Post by dem bones on Dec 9, 2015 21:13:34 GMT
By the way, does anyone have an opinion about Bowen's novel Black Magic, which was reprinted as part of Dennis Wheatley's Library of the Occult? It sounds like a good time. Right! Florence Flannery is going to be tonight's feast of Bowen! Seem to have had a copy of that, and her The Poisoners, hanging around for decades without ever quite committing to read the damn things. Maybe in the new year. Glad you are enjoying The Bishop Of Hell rather more than Mr. Penzoldt did. Wish he'd have gotten around to the mid-period Pan Book Of Horror Stories. God only knows what he'd have made of some of 'Alex White' and Norman Kaufman's choicer items.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 22, 2016 9:11:19 GMT
The Fair Hair Of Ambrosine: Claude Boucher is a clerk at The Chamber doing his best to keep a low profile during the dangerous early months of the Terror. Citizen Boucher's problems begin when he's entrusted with delivering certain documents to Saint-Cloud. The mission fills him with dread. Three years ago, he enjoyed a dalliance with Ambrosine, a lascivious, vice-ridden young dancer at the Faubourgh Saint-Antoine. The affair ended abruptly when Ambrosine was brutally done to death in her own bed. France having more pressing matters to attend just then, the crime was quickly forgotten and the murderer escaped justice. It is not that Claude ever cared for Ambrosine - in fact, he believes he hated her - but she loved him, and her dead face has recently taken to haunting his dreams. Worse still, his awful premonition that the killer will also strike him down should he return to Saint-Cloud. Claude confides his fears in a trusted friend, René Leonrais who, funnily enough, adored Ambrosine but gallantly stepped aside when it was clear she preferred Claude. René assures Claude that there are no such thing as ghosts, but he will gladly accompany him on the journey to ease his mind. I am sure we all know where this is heading.
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 22, 2016 11:30:22 GMT
I wrote about Black Magic in my book on Pope Joan, where I said that it has one of the best first lines I know of: "In the large room of a house in a certain quiet city in Flanders, a man was gilding a devil". How can you not want to read the novel after that? It's actually one of my favourite things by Bowen; certainly my favourite of the (few) novels by her I've read. M.R. James quite liked it too. In Letters to a Friend (letter of August 1925) he wrote (to Gwen McBryde): "...I have read... Black Magic which I hope you also have perused. I am not clear whether the lady always had those wings on her back or when she acquired them." The scene in question is quite puzzling, but rather wonderful too.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 24, 2019 16:49:23 GMT
The Avenging of Ann Leete: ( The New Magazine, Dec. 1923). When his fiancee inexplicably goes missing, Eneas Bretton's first thought is that she's taken a time out from Glasgow to come to terms with her father's death. But before long Bretton's suspicions fall on his love rival, Dr. Rob Patterson - could he have murdered Ann in a jealous rage? Taking a seat in the pew behind Patterson, Eneas concentrates his willpower on the medic to try force him to confess. Presumably this is not one of the stories complained about as "pornographic" or what have you by Mr. Penzolt. A borderline fashion victim outing in that, live or dead, over a period of seventy years, Ann is never seen in anything other than a dark green silk dress and tartan scarf. They don't bring her much luck.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 26, 2019 12:03:02 GMT
The Bishop of Hell: (The Blue Magazine, Sep 1925. As by 'Joseph Shearing'). The divinely, fantastically miserable case histories of handsome devil Hector Greatrix (Peer of the realm, ordained priest - albeit swiftly defrocked, debauchee, utterly despicable scoundrel, etc.) and Alicia Bulkeley, who turns her back on the happiest marriage in history, to suffer poverty, prostitution and countless degradations as his floozie. Greatrix seduces the Colonel's wife just to prove he can, then flees with her to the continent to escape his several creditors. Craven as he is slippery, "The Bishop" avoids a return to London until Alicia's finances are exhausted, whereupon he has no option but to visit a solicitor and claim his inheritance. Happily for us, the author is in sadistic mood and deadly marksman Colonel Bulkley is not to be denied his ghastly revenge.
The Grey Chamber: Bowen's translation of a late eighteenth century German shocker. Hot-headed young Blendau insists on sleeping in the castle's supposedly "haunted" chamber. Alleged "ghost" is that of the fair Gertrude, nineteen, who, on the eve of taking up the habit, was raped by something named Graf Huges. Bad enough that the cruel loss of her virginity cost the poor girl any hope of becoming a nun, but worse was the follow. Gertrude's confessor was of a mind that she brought it all upon herself and condemned her to purgatory for 300 years! Her dreams crushed, Gertrude drank poison and died.
Blendau is first tormented by a spectral Gertrude, then by the skeleton of the wretch responsible for her misery. After which he realises he's maybe not so fearless where phantoms are concerned, discreetly sneaks out of the castle and rides away rather than spend another night in THE GREY CHAMBER.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 27, 2019 5:03:02 GMT
Quite possibly The Bishop of Hell's nastiest offering to date which, given Kecksies and the title story, is quite saying something. All Story, 8 June 1918. The Scoured Silk: ( All-Story Weekly, 8 June 1918. As by 'Joseph Shearing'). Recently wed Humphrey and Flora Orford have not long arrived in London when the latter dies after a short illness. The Widower pays for a commemorative stone inside St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and returns to his reclusive pursuits. Two decades later, Humphrey Orford announces his engagement to a girl half his age. Prior to the happy event, the ageing scholar insists bride-to-be accompany him to St. Paul's to view the tomb of Mrs. Orford Mk. I. "Do not trouble, my dear girl. She is dead. She was a wicked woman. a very wicked woman." Even before this creepy episode, Miss Elisa Minden has misgivings about the impending union, arranged entirely between Orford and her father. Is she really suitable wife material for a brainy cobweb who'll not grant anyone access to his library? Why can't she marry a man of her own generation, e.g., her handsome cousin, Captain Philip Hoare? Philip may have his moody moments, but at least he comes without dead wife in tow. To prove he's nothing to hide, Orford reluctantly provides Elisa, her parents and Captain Hoare a guided tour of the gloomy, old fashioned house, including his Sanctum Santorum, the library, with it's portrait of Flora and a macabre painting depicting a corpse on the gallows. Draped across a chair, a mouldering silk dress, patched and mended a hundred times. What can it all mean? Hounded by Elisa, Mrs. Boyd the housekeeper eventually confides the story of the first Mrs. Orford's infidelity. Flora was wearing the scoured silk dress when Humphrey caught she and loverboy in the act. As a JP, he used his influence to have the latter hung as a thief. Flora was not seen in public from that day forth. And then, a twist as a lead player is murdered and the story seemingly takes a turn for the locked-room mystery. Not to worry; the author has something altogether more fiendish up her sleeve.
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elricc
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by elricc on Aug 29, 2019 21:13:31 GMT
I revisited this, as I only remembered the Crown Derby plate, I forgot how traumatised I was by Elsie's Lonely Afternoon, small girl is grateful for very small mercies.. The writing is very lush and florid, lots if sadistic men, abused women and bodice, poldark with spooks
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Post by dem bones on Sept 2, 2019 8:22:50 GMT
The writing is very lush and florid, lots if sadistic men, abused women and bodice, poldark with spooks Very much so. Ann Mellor's Lover: A London book dealer, who is clairvoyant-in-reverse (he receives vivid pictures from the past), finds a pencil sketch at back of a book of stupendously boring sermons. The sketch depicts a girl .... So begins a romantic adventure which sees the bookman ghosted back to a past-life in mid eighteenth century Wapping where, as Eric Ericson, wealthy Norwegian timber merchant, he fell in love with the beautiful if simple Ann. Alas, Ann's guardian won't hear of any marriage to a foreign Johnny and sends him packing. Eric then hatches a plot to abduct and wed his lover before the old boot can raise objections, a hair-brained scheme which sets him on course for the Tyburn gallows. Good story, if only slightly horrible by MB's standards. The Housekeeper: London, 1710. When Robert 'Beau' Sekforde (dandy, rakehell, freeloader in lace ruffles, Boris Johnson, etc.) and the ageing, dissolute Countess wed, they did so on the understanding that their dearly beloved was loaded. What crushing disappointment for both to learn they'd been duped. Now Sekforde has run out of creditors and none will play him at cards. The mansion's been repossessed, the servants absconded with the silver plate, their debts are such that a long stretch in the debtor's prison is a certainty. It has reached a point where Sekforde has come to regard the murder of his first wife as rash. For all that she was a shrew, Jane was a blasted good housekeeper. Not that he'd want her to come back.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 11, 2019 16:22:13 GMT
Planning to finally have a shot at this when/ if I get my act back together; Marjorie Bowen - The Poisoners (Fontana, 1970: originally Hutchinson, 1936 as by George R. PreedyBlurb: Paris 1673 - City of sudden death!
Paris is gripped by a series of gruesome murders — young and fashionable ladies suddenly become rich. dry-eyed widows. Then a chance remark at a dinner party puts the police on the track of a strange and deadly poison. The trail leads to a ring of Satanists, many of them high-ranking members of the French aristocracy. Behind the brilliant facade of Louis XIV’s flamboyant court at Versailles, the Poisoners carry out their scandalous rituals: Black Masses in fetid cellars, macabre killings — even the sacrifice of new-born babies. The Sun King himself is in deadly danger, completely unaware that one of his mistresses may be furtively plotting his assassination . . .
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