William C Dickinson - Dark Encounters

[allthingshorror]

Harvil Press (1963)

Brian Russell

CONTENTS

The Keepers of the Wall
Return at Dusk
The Eve of St Botulph
Can These Stones Speak
The Work of Evil
The Return of the Native
Quieta Non Movere
Let the Dead Bury the Dead
The Castle Guide
The Witch's Bone
The Sweet Singers
The House of the Balfother
His Own Number




BLURB:

Professor Dickinson's talent for evoking suspense, wonder and at times terror, owes much to his creation of a placid, scholarly atmosphere suddenly disturbed by something strange and inexplicable.

In this collection - which might well have been given the title 'Ghost Stories of a Scottish Antiquary' - archaeologists, historians and scientists find themselves unexpectedly faced with a return from the past which comes to them in unusual, and sometimes forbidding forms.

Almost every story is based upon some well known event or incident, and the development of the story is so convincing that it is difficult to decide when - if ever - the known and established facts give way to pure imagination.

All good ghost stories should arouse curiosity: some should communicate fear. Professor Dickinson's readers will certainly wonder if these strange happenings could occur - or perhaps even did occur. And sometimes, with a slight shudder down the spine, they will ask themselves - how, and why?

Professor William Croft Dickinson died in Edinburgh shortly after correcting the proofs of this book.

[Craig Herbertson]

Have you read that Johnnie, looks good.

[allthingshorror]

Not yet Craig, only bought it the other day from a pretty cool book dealer who knows what I'm normally after. It's on the to-read pile...

[lemming13]

You know, I read that anthology a very long time ago, borrowed it from my local library. Sadly, it was one of many hundreds of wonderful books they chose to sell off, and someone got to it before I did. I wish I could find it again, I really enjoyed it.

[valdemar]

I'd love to read some more of this writer's work - all I know him for is two stories anthologised in a Puffin children's book entitled 'The House of The Nightmare And Other Stories'. This book was actually on our English reading list at school! Hard to believe, but true. The two stories, which I have never forgotten, as they were so beautifully written, were 'His Own Number', and 'Return Of The Native'. 'His Own Number' concerns the fate of a man working with computers, who is one day presented with a six-figure number that has nothing to do with the job he's doing. It comes up several more times, and the man, bothered by this, decides to go home. He's given a lift, but on the way there the car breaks down. The man walks up the road to find help, but is run down and killed by a car on a blind bend. The six-figure number that bothered him so is the Ordnance Survey map reference for this blind bend. Short, sweet and very creepy.
'Return Of The Native' is the tale of an American, visiting Scotland, who is pursued by the vengeful spirit of a witch, executed centuries before by the American's ancestors. The story goes from being a pleasant travelogue to something very dark indeed, but in gradual steps, rather like the 'dread building' of MR James.
I've not read them since at least 1976, but they still lurk in my mind. That book cover is strangely eerie as well. ;D

[ripper]

Dark Encounters is available in e-book format from Ash-Tree Press.