An E. F. Benson fireside chat from Vault Mk 1Baron Vordenberg (Feb 25th, 2006)
There are a handful of E.F. Benson stories that strike me as truly masterly ('The Room in the Tower', 'The Man Who Went Too Far'', 'The Cat') though I'm always happy to read anything by him in an anthology.
I re-read his short story 'The Sanctuary' today and it really is a cracking tale of Satanism in the classic English mode, has some really sinister moments actually - can't help thinking it would have made the basis of a bloody great Hammer or Amicus film, in a period 20s English setting...
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The MonkerI have not even heard of 'The Cat' when did he write that one?
My favorite of Benson's is 'The House with the Brick-Kiln' but it rarely gets mentioned as being one of his best. I think with this tale Benson pulled no punches and just piled on the horror without his usual 'This is nasty, believe me' trappings. I think it works well. My other favorite was 'And No Bird Sings' until it dawned on me that the occurrence described by that particular story's title might not really be all that unique in horror fiction after all. It's still a fine enough story however.
Not sure when he wrote 'The Cat', Monker, but its a good 'un - its in 'The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson' on Robinson Books.
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Baron VordenbergReading 'The Sanctuary' gave me some bloody weird dreams last night. I think I'll follow your recommendation and re-read 'The House with the Brick-Kiln' tonight - that should induce some pleasant dreams.
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demonik ... and you could always try
The Dance and
The Face if you're really planning on cheering yourself up.
"Among the collections of short stories, E. F. Benson's three volumes rank high, though to my mind he sins occasionally by stepping over the line of legitimate horridness. He is, however, blameless in this aspect as compared with some Americans (sic), who compile volumes called Not At Night
and the like. They are merely nauseating, and it is very easy to be nauseating." - M. R. James,
Some Remarks On Ghost Stories,
The Bookman, Dec. 1929.
Thankfully, Benson doesn't seem to have taken too much notice of MRJ and continued writing extremely 'horrid' stories throughout his career, which was just as well. When he adopted a gentler touch, as in
Machaon - the narrator's servant of twenty years, Parkes, has cancer; Speaking through the medium, Mrs. Forrest, a benevolent Greek ghost suggests an alternative cure and Parkes survives - it doesn't really suit him.
Cynthia Reavell (ed.) - E. F. Benson: The Tale Of An Empty House (Black Swan, 1986)
cover illustration: Julek Heller Foreword - Cynthia Reavell
Introduction - Susan Hill
The Face
Caterpillars
Expiation
The Tale Of An Empty House
The Bus-Conductor
How Fear Departed From The Long Gallery
The Other Bed
The Room In The Tower
Mrs. Amworth
And No Birds Sing
Mr. Tilly's Seance
Home, Sweet Home
Sanctuary
Pirates M. R. James' comments would certainly have gained a sympathetic response from Cynthia Reavell and Susan Hill, as both opt for the atypically gentle
Pirates as their favourites, with Ms. Hill also commending
How Fear Departed From The Long Gallery. She writes:
"Caterpillars is a tale of creepy crawlies. Mrs Amworth is about vampires. And No Birds Sing is a very odd, nasty little tale about evil made manifest in the form of a slug-like beast that gives off a terribly corrupt stench, and causes everything in its vicinity to die.
These, though they certainly cause a shudder to run up the spine, I find the least convincing of the stories, whose shadow falls for no longer than the brief time it takes to read them. Indeed, they even hover on that borderline of the horrible and the ridiculous, so that in certain moods we laugh rather than tremble at them. That is never true of the pure ghost story". I don't know. I'm rather partial to EFB's beloved slug-like elementals myself, and a bridge-playing, blue-rinse vampire is an inspired creation.
Incidentally,
The Cat is from Benson's first collection,
The Room In The Tower (Mills & Boon, 1912). I don't think there's a modern edition available but would be happy to be proved wrong.
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Baron VordenbergThat Julek Heller cover looks creepily effective Dem, very nice.
Actually one Benson story which has always fascinated me for some reason is 'The Man Who Went Too Far' - I find that one especially strange and have re-read it many times - it's weird and lyrical nature-mysticism leading up to the violent climactic encounter and the mark of the cloven hoof is really compelling and Benson seems to be dealing with some quite deep points in this tale...it's very thought-provoking as well as seriously eerie
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Dr. Terror'The Man Who Went Too Far'' and 'The House with the Brick-Kiln' along with 'The Face' are among my Benson favourites too
There was a radio version of
The Face in the Fear on 4 series. And it's even better than the printed version.
I'm coming for you, Hester. ********************
intruder2kHi Guys,
E.F. Benson is yet another favourite of mine so I was glad to see his name mentioned here. For me, he's easily M.R. James' equal, and this 'terrible twosome' produced consistently great ghost stories in the first half of the 20th century.
Here are my Benson favourites:
CATERPILLARS: Yuck! I defy anybody NOT to be disturbed by those crab-legged sentient ghost-caterpillars writhing on the bed...
THE CONFESSION OF CHARLES LINKWORTH: His best 'traditional' (i.e. non-gruesome) ghost story - that ringing phone still gives me the creeps...
THE THING IN THE HALL: Benson's definitive dealing with seances, topped by apparation of a giant slug; well, you can't beat that, can you?
Honourable mentions go to SANCTUARY and THE ROOM IN THE TOWER, of course. I have a 'collected ghost stories' book of his around here somewhere, and it's one of my most treasured possessions - especially as I haven't got around to actually reading it yet!
Cheers
Graham
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demonik Picked up Richard Dalby's
The Collected Ghost Stories of EFB in the library yesterday. It certainly collects his four volumes of Ghost Stories - plus a non-fiction article on the Clonmel Witch Burning of 1895 - and, while this will certainly be enough to satisfy most people ... it ain't the full story!
Continuing the good work of Hugh Lamb, who'd revived
The Chippendale Mirror and
The Case Of Frank Hampden in his anthologies, Jack Adrian compiled, selected and introduced
The Flint Knife; Further Spook Stories by E. F. Benson for Equation in 1988.
The Flint Knife, The Chippendale Mirror, Dummy On A Dahabeah, The Friend In The Garden, The Light In The Garden, The Witch Ball, The China Bowl, The Shuttered Room, The Box At The Bank, The Return Of Frank Hampden, The Ape, Sir Roger de Coverley, The Red House, Through, The Passenger.
Bibliography and Acknowledgements. Not all of them are up there with his finest work, but
The Chippendale Mirror is of particular note as this was dramatised as the murder-from-the-past, re-enacted-in-the-present sequence in
Dead Of Night. Of the rest, one that's stayed with me (I've not read it in years) is
The Friend In The Garden which sees Death pay a visit, not in the guise of a terrible, vengeful hate-figure, but as a bringer of peace.
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The MonkerI have just read what must be one of Benson’s most underrated stories; 'Between the Lights'. I will not give anything away here; in case you haven't read it, I am not very good with synopses anyway. All I will say is that it is not one of your regular Benson spooks. I can only guess that it was based on a dream or something.
It has been described as "longwinded" so perhaps I'm no judge.
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Olivaro I agree with the midnight dwellers on this site, Edward Frederic Benson is a true master of uncanny tales. My first encounter with Benson was in 1971 at the age of 7 when a girl in the neighbourhood borrowed me a paperback (the cover looked sooo harmless) which contained THE ROOM IN THE TOWER by Benson (along with THE OUTSIDER by Lovecraft, ON BRIGHTON ROAD by Middleton and A SCHOOL STORY by James) . Well, several years may have passed but the story still has a strong grip on me. Its climax comes slowly but with an impact, this nightmarish shifting from a bad dream to frightening reality sure made a little boy spend some nights under the bedspread.
A terrible experience - and most enjoyable.
Later still and once in a while I've stumbled across a Benson story here and a Benson tale there when finally in 1994 the first collection by Edward Frederic Benson appeared in Germany. Sadly, it seems that this edition was no bestseller, DER MANN DER ZU WEIT GING was given only one imprint, and to this day it has remained the only collection of this Master of the Uncanny.
Of course, there's a bunch of chilling stories like AND NO BIRD SINGS (an all-time favorite too) or NEGOTIUM PERAMBULANS, but nothing compares to one night in a certain room in the tower.
Well, don't let the bedbugs (or worse) bite
Olivaro
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?Been on a bit of a Bensonfest today...
'The Caterpillars'
'And No Bird sings'
Gavon's Eve'
'Negotium Perambulans'
'Mrs. Amworth'
I'm noticing that Benson seemed to have quite the phobia for anything slug-like or creepy crawly. The entitiy in the great 'And No Bird Sings' is strikingly similar to the lurking Thing in 'Negotium Perambulans'...
This from the latter story:
"It seemed to have no head, but on the front of it was an orifice of puckered skin which opened and shut and slavered at the edges. It was hairless and slug-like in shape and texture..."'And No Bird Sings':
"...half slug, half worm. There was no head to it, it ended in a blunt point with an orifice. In colour it was grey and covered with sparse black hairs..."Whatever. They're still excellent stories beautifully told.
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