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Post by dem bones on Sept 20, 2012 10:44:54 GMT
. A quick look over the contents of vols 1 &3 (as listed here: freepages.pavilion.net/tartarus/a18.htm) shows that volume 1 contains the stupendously good Villa Desiree (May Sinclair), LP Hartley's A Visitor from Down Under (Hartley is always good), Hugh Walpole's "Mrs Lunt" and Walter de la Mare's A Recluse. Blackwood's A Chemical has a really great opening but doesn't sustain itself throughout the tale. Machen and Onions unfortunately are not at their best. I can't call to mind many of the other entries, but I do remember thinking the collection was very solid when I read it. - Chris I can't believe we've not had a thread for this (we have for the The Second and Third volumes) but that seems to be the case, so: Lady Cynthia Asquith (ed) – The Ghost Book (Hutchinson, 1926) May Sinclair – The Villa Desiree
Algernon Blackwood – Chemical
Mrs. Belloc Lowndes – The Duenna
L. P. Hartley – A Visitor From Down Under
Denis Mackail – The Lost Tragedy
Clemence Dane – Spinsters’ Rest
Hugh Walpole – Mrs. Lunt
Arthur Machen – Munitions Of War
D. H. Lawrence – The Rocking-Horse Winner
Walter De La Mare – “A Recluse”
C. L. Ray (Cynthia Asquith) – The Corner Shop
Oliver Onions – Two Trifles: The Ether Hogs: The Mortal
Charles Whibley – Twelve O’Clock
Enid Bagnold – The Amorous Ghost
Mary Webb – Mr. Tallent’s Ghost
Desmond MacCarthy – Pargiton And HarbyL. P. Hartley - A Visitor From Down Under: Mr. Rumbold returns from Australia a millionaire and takes a room at Rossall's Hotel in Carrick Street, Soho, a modest establishment for a man of his means but he's popular with the staff and it's the nearest thing he has to a home. Also arriving from Aus at the same time, a filthy bundle of rags who causes quite a stir on the top deck of the bus: the conductor has him down as a cripple, obviously very ill, but there's no excuse for surliness! Retired to his room, Rumbold can hear what sounds like a children's party in progress on the other side of the wall. They don't sound particularly happy but their rendition of Oranges And Lemons brings a tear to his eye, reminiscent as it is of his own youth, although he's never liked the "here comes a candle to light you to bed/ and here comes a chopper to chop off your head" line less than he does tonight and, either he's mishearing things, or those are nothing like the right words to Nuts In May ... When a stranger telephones the hotel requesting a room on this foul night, Rumbold, the worse for drink, invites him to share. Our ghastly friend from the bus arrives at the hotel ..... Charles Whibley – Twelve O’Clock: "I dreamt that I was dead, and was hurried away to the infernal regions, which appeared as a dark room, at the end of which was seated Mrs. Brownrigg, who told me it was appointed to her to pour red-hot bullets down my throat for a thousand years."The death of Thomas, "Wicked Lord Lyttleton", Peer of the realm, in 1799, was preceded by the above nightmare and a no less disturbing visitation at his Epson home. The ghost of a woman he'd wronged - in his younger years, Lyttleton "practised with much success those vices in which Whiggish ministers in his day had full licence to excel" - solemnly informs him he will die in three days time. The business badly effects Lyttleton to the point where his friends set the clock forward fifteen minutes, hoping that, once he realises he's survived beyond midnight, he'll forget all this nonsense and return to savaging the Tories. Elizabeth Brownrigg also guest stars in Kenneth Myer's Ghost Of Fluers-De-Lis Court (John Gawsworth's Masterpiece Of Thrills), as featured on the Vault Advent Calendar for 2011Arthur Machen – Munitions Of War: My mistake with Machen was reading The Great God Pan, Novel Of The White Powder and Novel Of The Black Seal and expecting everything else he wrote to be in similar macabre vein. The bulk of his work really isn't! Machen travels to the busy northern city of 'Westport' to see how the natives are faring in the lead up to war. Much to his surprise, the streets are deserted but for the occasional clusters of frightened stragglers huddled in shop doorways. He takes a room for the night at The Pineapple on Middle Quay, where the landlord advises him to pay no attention to any noise he might here outside his window during the night. Machen's inquisitiveness gets the better of him and he's rewarded by the a marvellous spectacle. The ghosts of those lost at the Battle of Trafalgar are readying themselves for the impending conflict. Oliver Onions - Two Trifles: 1. The Ether Hogs: Ghosts launch a campaign versus man's obsession with the radio, as the continual broadcasts are disturbing their peace. 2. The Mortal: In the ultimate test of a ghost's courage, Sir Edward the Dauntless must appear before a terrifying human. Edith Bagnold - The Amorous Ghost: While his wife is away, two of the maids hand in their notice after discovering a woman’s underclothes in the master’s room. That night, he watches transfixed as a figure half-materialises in a chair with her back to him, slowly slipping out of her clothes. It’s with great relief he hears his wife return, undress and slip into bed beside him. It must be freezing outside because she’s cold enough to chill the entire room …. |
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Post by dem bones on Oct 1, 2012 21:24:44 GMT
Lady Cynthia Asquith (ed.) - The Ghost Book (Pan, 1970) Blurb: 'the face and the body, flesh and yet not flesh, they were the essence made manifest of untold, unearthly abominations ...'
THE GHOST BOOK
Ghosts gentle ... malignant ... amorous . . . patriotic ... murderous ... literary and courageous assume shapes more real than the living and send shuddering reason flying to the unknown- -haunts of fear ...
The stories include The Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence which made its first appearance in print with the original publication of The Ghost Book.
Now reprinted in its entirety for the first time since 1926, this volume of stories by such distinguished authors as Hugh Walpole, Mary Webb, Clemence Dane, and L. P. Hartley remains unequalled in its power to chill your dreaming nights.May Sinclair -The Villa Désirée: Much to the concern of her friends Rolf and Martha Dering, Mildred Eve is to marry Louis Carson, a man with a chequered history where the ladies are concerned whose first wife "died in some sort of fit" on their wedding night. Louis insists that Eve spends the days prior to her big day at the Villa Désirée, and the Denings are horrified when caretakers Narcisee and Armandine insist she stay in the room where Mrs. Carson Mk. 1 met her death. Sure enough, Mildred is visited by a spectre - not that of her predecessor, but the half-formed apparition of her evil intended, his face contorted in agony. It is enough to decide her against the wedding even before Rolf confides that Carson once used the Villa as his private bordello.
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Post by cw67q on Oct 2, 2012 7:45:02 GMT
This is a great story, one of my all time favourites. Like Sinclair's well known "Where their Thirst is not Quenched" this is another sexually charged tale. I don't think it is coincidence that the title can easily be corrupted into "the Vile Desire". - Chris May Sinclair -The Villa Désirée: Much to the concern of her friends Rolf and Martha Dering, Mildred Eve is to marry Louis Carson, a man with a chequered history where the ladies are concerned whose first wife "died in some sort of fit" on their wedding night. Louis insists that Eve spends the days prior to her big day at the Villa Désirée, and the Denings are horrified when caretakers Narcisee and Armandine insist she stay in the room where Mrs. Carson Mk. 1 met her death. Sure enough, Mildred is visited by a spectre - not that of her predecessor, but the half-formed apparition of her evil intended, his face contorted in agony. It is enough to decide her against the wedding even before Rolf confides that Carson once used the Villa as his private bordello. |
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Post by dem bones on Oct 3, 2012 6:07:13 GMT
This is a great story, one of my all time favourites. Like Sinclair's well known "Where their Thirst is not Quenched" this is another sexually charged tale. I don't think it is coincidence that the title can easily be corrupted into "the Vile Desire". - Chris It's a great choice of opener and no mistake. The Armandine character adds a nasty edge, as good as shoving Mildred into the dead girl's room when she must have a shrewd idea what will happen. I love May Sinclair's supernatural sex comedy, The Nature Of The Evidence, too. Of those read/ re-read to date, the L. P. Hartley, Edith Bagnold and Charles Whibley's are my picks. |
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Post by dem bones on Jul 5, 2018 10:56:36 GMT
D. H. Lawrence - The Rocking-Horse Winner: (Harper's Bazaar, July 1926). Recently caught the 1949 film version on Talking Pictures, realised it had been centuries since I'd read Lawrence's original.
Hester, unhappily married with three children, disillusioned with a husband who has no luck with money. To Hester's way of thinking, everyone knows her family are vastly superior to all others, so why hasn't she the riches to show for it?
"And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time, though nobody said it aloud."
Son Paul is desperate to bring a change in the family fortunes so his mother will love him. He demands his rocking horse take him where luck lives so all her financial worries will be resolved. The horse complies by dispensing racing tips which Paul passes on to Bassett the gammy-legged gardener, who places the bets. Between them, they raise a fortune. Uncle Oscar gets wind of the racket, helps Paul transfer £5000 to Hester as a mystery birthday present.
It isn't enough. The voices become more demanding. Paul hits a losing streak. His exertions in coaxing the rocking-horse to identify the Derby winner take such a toll on his health that he's retired to his death bed. Hester inherits his £80, 000 winnings, but, with husband and the sisters out of the picture, seems to this reader that it's just Bassett and Oscar genuinely grieve the boy's loss. Author leaves reader to decide whether or not someone as grasping as Hester would be the least unhappy at how things turned out.
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Post by ripper on Jul 9, 2018 15:11:03 GMT
Mrs Lunt by Hugh Walpole is probably my pick from Lady Cynthia's first Ghost Book. There is so much going on in that story that I can read it time after time and not become bored with it. Great setting and when the apparitian of Mrs Lunt appears in the narrator's bedroom it always sends a little chill through me.
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