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Post by dem bones on Mar 20, 2012 22:14:15 GMT
Michael Cox & R. A. Gilbert (eds.) – Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology (Oxford University Press, 1991) Introduction – Michael Cox & R. A. Gilbert
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu – An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street J. Y. Akerman – The Miniature Dinah Maria Mulock – The Last House in C—— Street Charles Dickens – To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt R. S. Hawker – The Botathen Ghost Rhoda Broughton – The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth Henry James – The Romance of Certain Old Clothes Anon – Pichon & Sons, of the Croix Rousse Mrs. Henry Wood – Reality or Delusion? George MacDonald – Uncle Cornelius His Story Tom Hood – The Shadow of a Shade Mary Elizabeth Braddon – At Crighton Abbey Anon (Thomas Street Millington) – No Living Voice Wilkie Collins – Miss Jéromette and the Clergyman Anon – The Story of Clifford House Amelia B. Edwards – Was it an Illusion? Charlotte Riddell – The Open Door Arthur Conan Doyle – The Captain of the “Pole-Star” Robert Louis Stevenson – The Body-Snatcher Mary Louisa Molesworth – The Story of the Rippling Train Rudyard Kipling – At the End of the Passage Mrs. B. M. Croker – “To Let” Edith Nesbit – John Charrington’s Wedding Rosa Mulholland – The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly Jerome K. Jerome – The Man of Science M. R. James – Canon Alberic’s Scrap Book W. W. Jacobs – Jerry Bundler Bernard Capes – An Eddy on the Floor F. G. Loring – The Tomb of Sarah Barry Pain – The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit Mary E. Wilkins – The Shadows on the Wall Robert Hugh Benson – Father Macclesfield’s Tale Perceval Landon – Thurnley Abbey Algernon Blackwood – The Kit-Bag
Sources Select Chronological Conspectus of Ghost Stories: 1840-1910The original idea was to swing back and forth between this and Richard Dalby's Mammoth Book of Victorian & Edwardian Ghost Stories, but no matter how many times i've picked up Messrs. Cox & Gilbert's gorgeous volume, just couldn't get started on the surprisingly few stories unfamiliar from similar anthologies. Maybe posting this stub will act as a distress flare and some brave soul will step us through the hits & misses!
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Post by dem bones on Apr 6, 2013 11:09:34 GMT
Michael Cox & R. A. Gilbert - The Oxford Book Of Victorian Ghost Stories (OUP Paperback edition, 1992, reissued 2003) Cover photograph: @ Michael Waddsmith/Stone/Getty Images Blurb: A treat for all lovers of the traditional ghost story: here are thirty-five well-wrought tales of haunted houses, vengeful spirits, and spectral warnings from beyond the grave, each one of them guaranteed to generate 'the pleasurable shudder'.J. Y. Akerman – The Miniature: ( Legends Of Old London, 1853). Confession of an inmate of a lunatic asylum with a flair for the melodramatic. It begins when they finished college and Anon invites his inseparable friend, George S ----. to holiday at the family mansion. Unfortunately, while he's been away, cousin Maria D ---- has blossomed into the most beautiful woman ever to tread God's earth, etc, and our loved-up protagonist wishes George would remove himself to the colonies post haste. When George shows off the locket bearing Maria's portrait, he flies into a jealous rage, runs the swine through with his sword and conceals the corpse in the ruins of a Cistercian chapel. George refuses to take death lying down. Barry Pain – The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit: ( Stories In The Dark, 1901). Pyrwhit, a JP of Ellerdon House, Bucks, is married to a beautiful woman fifteen years his junior. Mrs. Pyrwhit is an outrageous flirt but he's a tolerant old duffer and the pair get along famously. Consequently, her death strikes hard, but his sorrow is as nothing to that of Williams the Butler who goes completely gaga. Telephone calls from beyond the grave rarely bear good news and this one is no exception. Jerome K. Jerome – The Man of Science: ( The Idler, Sept. 1892. AKA The Skeleton). The scientist procures a new human skeleton for his laboratory, blissfully unaware that it belonged to a bitter enemy sworn to kill him. If you think you know where this one's heading you're absolutely right, but it's the crushing inevitability of the outcome that makes it tick. Those who've read the Hugh Lamb-edited Stories In The Dark will be aware that JKJ was more than capable of bleak when inclined.
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Post by ripper on Apr 7, 2013 12:39:39 GMT
Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology was where I first came across Bernard Capes, F. G. Loring and Percival Landon, so I have a soft spot for it. In particular, I enjoyed the Loring and Landon tales, with the latter being truly frightening.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 8, 2013 20:06:05 GMT
May contain spoilers.
R. S. Hawker - The Bothanen Ghost: (All The Year Round, 18 May 1867). Cornwall, January 1665. Parson Rudall of Launceston parish versus Dorothy Dinglet, three years dead, who has taken to haunting surly teenager Master Bligh on his way to the village school. Dorothy is a harbinger of doom; much of what she tells the Parson is too appalling to print, but the gist is that before next Yuletide, a fearful pestilence will lay waste to the land. Rudall performs a successful exorcism, but that's the least of it. Six months later, the Black Death arrives in the British Isles.
Elizabeth Gaskell - The Old Nurses Story: (Household Words, Christmas 1852). On the death of her parents, little Rosamund is taken under the wing of Aunt, Grace Furnival, an elderly spinster of gloomy and bitter disposition who lives alone but for her servants in a remote Northumberland manor house. The services of Hester, the infant's doting nurse, are retained, and together they settle into their new surroundings. The nightly organ recitals in one of several locked rooms - Miss Furnival and her housekeeper, Mrs. Stark, dismiss them as the wind - are an early indication that there's something not quite right about Furnival Manor House. As Christmas approaches, Rosamund is lured onto the Cumberland Fells during a snowstorm by a phantom child, and, but for a passing shepherd who spotted her huddled form asleep under a holly bush, she'd have died of exposure. Rosamund insists that her little friend had taken her to see a beautiful woman sat alone in the snow. When a horrified Mrs. Stark hears of this, she almost reveals the gloriously miserable family secret. As it is, Hester will have to wait a little longer for the exact details.
The ghost woman is Grace's sister, Maude, and the phantom keyboard wizard her late father. Lord Furnival was notoriously cruel, an insufferable snob who believed no man was good enough for his beautiful, haughty daughters - an opinion shared by them both - but his obsession with music would prove the downfall of them all. His Lordship would regularly invite a foreign minstrel to rehearse at the Hall. In no time the sisters were besotted with the guest who took full advantage. He and Maude wed in secret, but to allay suspicion (so he said), he kept up the pretence of courting Grace. The girls fell out, the Lothario got bored, returned to Europe. By now Maude had given birth to their illegitimate daughter who she initially hid in a barn but eventually sneaked into her room. Grace had Mrs Stark spy on her now detested sister, and when the housekeeper reported back, Grace went straight to her father. True to form, Lord Furnival flew into a violent rage and banished Maude and child from the Hall, dooming them to perish in the snow. Now their ghosts are back and out for vengeance ....
Rhoda Broughton - The Truth, The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth: (Temple Bar magazine, February 1868). Told in an exchange of letters between the well-heeled Elizabeth De Wint and her friend, Cecilia Montresor. Cecilia and her family are looking after Elizabeth's new house at 32 --------- Street, Mayfair, while she's away tending her sick child, and, like her friend, is astonished that such a dream home could be had at a paltry rent of £300 a year. The local Butcher informs Cecilia's maid, Sarah, that he wouldn't bet on her becoming a regular customer: number 32 is known locally as a haunted house and has changed hands so many times in the past four years that he's given up counting. The last tenant moved out after a single day. The Montresor's better that by three weeks.
Sarah is the first to encounter the whatever-it-is, an experience that sends her violently insane and necessitates her removal to a lunatic asylum. Dashing Ralph Gordon of the Hussars, who has been eyeing up Adela, comely daughter of the house, insists on spending a night in the supposedly haunted room and Cecilia is not one to deny a man in uniform. Armed with just a lantern and a stout poker in case of any funny business, he cheerfully bids them all a good evening and sets about his watch. This ghost will have to be made of terrifying stuff indeed if it is to reduce such a hale and hearty fellow to a babbling imbecile!
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Post by dem bones on May 25, 2013 11:08:11 GMT
Mary Louisa Molesworth – The Story of the Rippling Train: ( Longman's Magazine, Oct. 1887). Have read a number of Mrs. Molesworth's ghost stories in Hugh Lamb and Peter Haining anthologies, etc, but they've not really done it for me up until now. This one bucks the trend. Along with every other chap in the district, Paul Maischal is in love with Maud Bertramd the local beauty, and she, in turn is sweet on him. But at thirty, Paul is ten years her senior, and his finances are not yet healthy enough to support a wife, so he takes work overseas, Maud marries another and settles in India. A decade on and Paul, now on his uppers, is back in London. One night the ghost of Maud materialises before him wearing a gorgeous silk dress with a long silk train. The silent phantom will only allow him to see her in profile and Paul is struck that he's never seen her look so sad. What could have happened? A horrible tragedy is the answer to that one, but will not spoil it further should you wish to read it for yourself. Better still is Rosa Mullholland's The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly (1891, from the Hutchinson's collection of the same name), but that has already been commented upon in some detail on Lord P.'s lovely Reign Of Terror Vol 4 thread. Have had a juvenile ghost novel of Ms. Mulholland's knocking about for ages, but despite several false starts, have never got past P. 20., but might as well post the cover regardless. Rosa Mulholland - The Girls of Banshee Castle (Blackie 1896, 1903, 1909) John H. Bacon Charles Dickens - To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt: ( All The Year Round, Christmas 1865: KKA {i]The Trial For Murder[/i]). Eerie goings-on at the Old Bailey during a high profile murder trial when the twelve good men and true are joined by a thirteenth, spectral party. Dickens recognises him as the victim, having but recently witnessed a ghostly re-enactment of the prelude to the throat-slashing on Piccadilly. This is certainly one of Dickens' best ghost stories, with ome lovely lines - "Among our number was a vestryman - the densest idiot I have ever seen at large - who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby parochial parasites; all the three empanelled from a district so delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own trial for five hundred Murders." - and, title to the contrary, he relates it in sombre tones.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 25, 2013 16:49:26 GMT
I recently bought a copy of this book (the edition with the blurry photograph cover), so it's encouraging to see favorable reviews of the stories. I may not get to it soon, however, thanks to an impending addition to the Brewer clan.
I'll confess that I sometimes confuse "Mrs. [Mary Louisa] Molesworth" and "Mrs. [Margaret] Oliphant" for one another. I thought I'd recently read and liked a story ("The Open Door") by the former, but it turns out that it was written by the latter.
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Post by jamesdoig on May 25, 2013 22:39:19 GMT
Have had a juvenile ghost novel of Ms. Mulholland's knocking about for ages, but despite several false starts, have never got past P. 20., but might as well post the cover regardless. Rosa Mulholland - The Girls of Banshee Castle (Blackie 1896, 1903, 1909) John H. Bacon Here's the Blackie Colonial Edition 1896, called just Banshee Castle:
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Post by dem bones on May 26, 2013 9:16:30 GMT
Have you read Banshee Castle, James? As mentioned, have made many a false start - it seems to take an age to get going. Initially, Victorian Ghiost Stories struck me as a little disappointing in comparison to Cox & Gilbert's earlier Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, as so many of the selections are ... perhaps a little over-familiar, but I guess they had to include the likes of Canon Alberic's Scrapbook, John Charrington's Wedding, The Tomb Of Sarah, The Body-Snatcher, The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes et al to chart the development of the form. Also, the day comes when you realise you've not read any of the above for a decade or more! C.B., I believe it was the Mrs. Oliphant novella you recently enjoyed (in Virago Book Of Ghost Stories). Charlotte Ridell's story shares the same title, is all. Of far greater importance, my every kind wish to you and Mrs. Brewer. How soon is "impending"?
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 26, 2013 12:19:24 GMT
Initially, Victorian Ghost Stories struck me as a little disappointing in comparison to Cox & Gilbert's earlier Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, as so many of the selections are ... perhaps a little over-familiar, but I guess they had to include the likes of Canon Alberic's Scrapbook, John Charrington's Wedding, The Tomb Of Sarah, The Body-Snatcher, The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes et al to chart the development of the form. Also, the day comes when you realise you've not read any of the above for a decade or more! Fortunately, I got a copy of The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories in the same batch of books from Oxford University Press--I reviewed a book manuscript for them and they "paid" me with free books. That also netted me copies of The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, Late Victorian Gothic Tales, Vathek, The Monk, The Woman in White, and Jojo's beloved Armadale (which, at more than 800 pages, may take me a while to read). Of far greater importance, my every kind wish to you and Mrs. Brewer. How soon is "impending"? Thank you! "Impending" is around a week. I've been saving some anthologies of mostly-10-pages-or-fewer stories to read in the sleep-deprived weeks to come: Weinberg et al.'s 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories, Grant's Shadows 3 and Shadows 7, Coffey's Modern Masters of Horror, and Lamb's A Bottomless Grave.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on May 26, 2013 13:27:31 GMT
Jojo's beloved Armadale (which, at more than 800 pages, may take me a while to read). Trust me, if you are used to reading the Victorians, ARMADALE is a page-turner. As, indeed, seems to be the case with all of Collins.
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Post by dem bones on May 26, 2013 18:29:17 GMT
Algernon Blackwood - The Kit-bag: Pall Mall, Dec. 1908). "I'm glad it's over because I've seen the last of that man's dreadful face. It positively haunted me. That white skin, with the black hair brushed low over the forehead, is a thing I shall never forget, and the description of the way the dismembered body was crammed and packed with lime into that ..." After a ten day trial at the Old Bailey, John Turk is found not guilty of murder on the grounds of insanity. There is no celebration on the part of the defense, both William Willbraham, "the great criminal KC,"and his junior, Johnson, believing their client deserved to swing. Once the verdict is pronounced, Johnson readies himself for a Christmas vacation in the Swiss Alps. The haunting begins even before he's set foot outside of his Bloomsbury flat. In a certain light, the kit-bag he borrowed from Willbraham takes on an uncanny resemblance to a human face - one in particular. Didn't really get along with The Magic Mirror, Jack Adrian's compilation of Blackwood's "Lost Supernatural & Mystery Stories" (Equation, 1989), but The Kit-bag was an exception (awarded it a red asterisk denoting 'good' during tragic marking phase), and am pleased that it still does it for me, even if Johnson's unpleasant experience is the result of a convenient unlikely mix-up. Needless to say, it's not one of his nature rambles. You'll also find it in Richard Dalby's Ghosts for Christmas (O'Mara, 1988: Headline, 1989) and Robert Westall's Ghost Stories (Kingfisher, 1993, 2004).
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Post by jamesdoig on May 26, 2013 21:16:31 GMT
Have you read Banshee Castle, James? As mentioned, have made many a false start - it seems to take an age to get going. No, I haven't read it - I blew a cloud of dust off it when I took it off the shelves yesterday. I think I was put off because it's classed as a juvenile ghostly.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 8, 2013 18:52:17 GMT
Suzanne Perkins (from Stephanie Dowrick (ed.) Classic Tales of Horror, Book Club, 1976) Henry James - The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes: ( Atlantic Monthly, Feb 1868). When Bernard Wingrave, 24, completes his University education, he returns home to New England and his widowed mother. Much to the delight of sisters Rosalind and Perdita, he brings with him a friend from Oxford, Mr. Arthur Lloyd. The girls are smitten, and Arthur has his work cut out deciding which of these beauties he loves the most. Eventually, he settles on the younger Perdita, by which time jealousy has already caused a rift between the once harmonious Miss Wingraves. When Rosalind - who has a flair for such things - designs her little sister's wedding gown, their mother interpretates the gesture as magnanimity in defeat, but not a bit of it. After the ceremony, and thinking the happy couple already set off on honeymoon, Rosalind tries on Perdita bridal veil and string of pearls, admires herself in the mirror. Perdita walks in, makes to rip the veil from her, thinks better of it, and departs with a curt: "Farewell, sweetheart. You might at least have waited till I had got out of the house." A year on. Perdita dies in childbirth. Knowing Rosalind for what she is, Perdita swears her husband to a promise that he'll keep her gowns and jewels locked away in a trunk, for they are "an inheritance for my daughter when she grows into a young woman." Arthur tearfully gives his word. When, inevitably, after a discreet interval, he remarries, Rosalind sets quickly to work on him. Arthur's finances are not what they were, and she complains bitterly of the paucity of her wardrobe while all that finery rots in the attic. In a moment of weakness, he hands her the key .... Been so long since last I read this, or any of James' ghost stories, had clean forgotten the delightful ending. Amazing that we don't seem to have has a thread for The Turn Of The Screw, so might revisit that in the not too distant.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 12, 2013 7:53:33 GMT
M. R. James - Canon Alberic's Scrapbook: (National Review, March 1895). Completely pointless, me commenting on James' work. It's all been said a thousand times over by capable people who can actually write. So, purely for own records, will note that the setting is St. Bertrand de Comminges church near Toulouse during the Spring of 1883, the antiquarian is identified as 'Dennistoun' (not his real name), and the scrapbook the terrified old verger is so keen to be rid of is a compilation of impossibly rare religious manuscripts, pilfered from the church library at close of the seventeenth century. Among the 150 precious leaves, an incongruous and extremely disturbing depiction of King Solomon in dispute with a fanged, hairy human spider, yellow eyes a study in sheer malevolence. The verger names his price: a mere 250 francs. Dennistoun argues that it's worth a fortune, but the verger has no mind for profiteering. As the Cambridge man leaves with the find of a lifetime, the sacristan's daughter presses a silver crucifix and chain upon him, insisting he does not remove it. Back at the hotel and engrossed in his purchase, Dennistoun is made uncomfortably aware that he is not alone ....
B. M [Bithia Mary] Croker - 'To Let': (London Society, Christmas 1890). "This house belonged to an old retired colonel and his wife. They and his niece lived here. These were all their belongings. They died within a short time of one another, and the old man left a queer will, to say that the house was to remain precisely as they left it for twenty years, and at the end of that time it was to be sold and all the property dispersed. Mrs Starkey says she is sure that he never intended it to be let, but the heir-at- law insists on that, and is furious at the terms of the will."
With property in Kantia especially hard to come by during the monsoon season, Mrs. Aggie Shandon can hardly believe her luck at landing Briarwood, a spacious, furnished bungalow, and at an absurdly low rent! Mrs Starkey - a ghastly old gasbag who makes it her business to know everybody else's - can't wait to let on why it's so cheap, that it would raise double the rent without the "delicious verandah." Of course, Aggie pooh-poohs the very idea of ghosts - until she hears the gallop of phantom hooves and the most ear-splitting shriek every evening for a fortnight. E. F. Bleiler dismisses this as "undistinguished commercial fiction," but i've read far, far worse and the parrot cawing after "Poor, pretty Lucy" is used to good effect.
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Post by ripper on Jun 19, 2014 17:58:48 GMT
Re: To Let by B.M. Croker. I enjoyed this one. Yes, it's not very original, but I found it entertaining, and short enough not to outstay its welcome.
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