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Post by dem bones on Jan 28, 2011 19:07:58 GMT
Tales Of The Occult; Edited by Jack C. & Barbara H. Wolf, Fawcett Crest, 1975 Secret Worship by Algernon Blackwood Strange Occurrence in Clerkenwell by Arthur Machen In the Valley of the Sorceress by Sax Rohmer DeGrey: A Romance by Henry James Playing with Fire by Arthur Conan Doyle The Door in the Wall by H. G. Wells The Cobweb by H. H. Munro ("Saki") Not Here, O Apollo! A Christmas Story Heard at Midsummer by Arthur Quiller-Couch The Yellow Sign by Robert Chambers Was It a Dream? by Guy de Maupassant The Inn of the Two Witches by Joseph Conrad Phoebe by O. Henry The Fortune Teller by Karel Capek The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling The People of Pan by Henry S. Whitehead Earlier Service by Margaret Irwin Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne Casting the Runes by Montague R. James The Legend of the Arabian Astrologer by Washington Irving slightly modified from Vault Mk I Jack C. Wolf and Barbara H. Wolf (eds.) - Ghosts, Castles And Victims: Tales Of Gothic Horror (Fawcett, 1974) introduction: Origins Of Gothic In Literature - Jack C. Wolf and Barbara H. Wolf 1. Setting Horace Walpole - The Castle Of Otranto (extract)
Clara Reeve - The Old English Baron (extract)
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights (extract)
Edmond Hamilton - The Dead Planet 2. Human Threat Anne Radcliffe - The Romance Of The Forest (extract)
M. G. Lewis - The Monk (extract)
Edgar Allan Poe - The Pit And The Pendulum3. Supernatural Threat E. Bulwer Lytton - The Haunted And The Haunters
Edgar Allan Poe - The Fall Of The House Of Usher
Nathaniel Hawthorne - The House Of The Seven Gables (extract)
Charles Dickens - The Signal-Man4. Human Monsters Bram Stoker - Dracula (extract)
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein (extract)
Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (extract)
George W. M. Reynolds - Wagner, The Wehr-Wolf (extract)
Robert Maturin - Melmoth The Wanderer (extract)5. Monsters Of Unknown Origin H. G. Wells - The War Of The Worlds (extract)
M. R. James - Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book
Fitz-James O'Brien - What Was It?
John Wyndham - The Day Of The Triffids (extract)6. Psychological Threat Henry James - The Turn Of The Screw (extract)
Charles Brockden Brown - Wieland (extract)
Saki - Sredni Vashtar7. Unknown Threat Algernon Blackwood - The Willows (extract)
Guy de Maupassant - The Horla (extract)
Ralph Adams Cram - The Dead Valley
H. P. Lovecraft - From Beyond
Fitz-James O'Brien - What Was It?
Selected Bibliography
About The Authors
Tales Of The Occult looks by far the better of the two, Ghosts, Castles & Victims being too top-heavy with extracts for my tastes, though the essays and linking material are worth revisiting. It's Ok if the edits are self-condensed, stand alone stories ( Wagner, The Wehr-Wolf) but harder to defend in the case of, say, The Horla. Still, this is a fair overview of the development of the Gothic horror story, showing how, in the right hands, it could even effortlessly seam with SF (Shelley, Hamilton, Wyndham). Be warned however: even a short extract from Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron will have you pining for the thrills and spills of Etienne Aubin. The 'hero', Edmund, who is forever sinking to his knees, bursting into tears and praising God has to be among the least dynamic lead characters it has ever been my misfortune to encounter in all my years of reading this stuff. Masochists can torment themselves to a peak of unbridled agony with the full version in Seven Masterpieces Of Gothic Horror (Bantam, 1971). |
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