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Post by dem bones on Sept 6, 2015 17:56:42 GMT
James Doig (ed.)- Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology Of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction (Borgo Press, 2013: originally Equilibrium, 2011) James Doig - Introduction: The Colonial Ghost Story Ernest Favenc - Jerry Boake's Confession Ernest Favenc - The Track Of The Dead Ernest Favenc - Blood For Blood Ernest Favenc - In The Night Ernest favenc - A Strange Occurrence On Huckey's Creek William Sylvester Walker - The Wraith Of Tom Imrie J.A. Barry - Hulk No. 49 Rosa Praed - Miss Crosson's Familiar "Wanderer" - The Ghost Of Brigalow Road Edwin M. Merrall - The Spectre Of The Black Swamp: An Overlander's Story Patrick Shanahan - Chronicles Of Easyville H.B. Marriott Watson - Point Despair Robert Coutts Armour - A New Species Robert Coutts Armour - De Profundis Sophie Osmond - The Story Of the Stain Max Rittenberg - The Sorcerer Of Arjuzanx A.E. Martin - The Queer Case Of Christine Madrigal A.E. Martin - The Hollmsdale Horror Helen Simpson - The Pythoness Patience Tillyard - The Evil That Men Do
About The EditorBlurb: Twenty stories of horror, the supernatural, and ghostly hauntings. These tales show the way in which the Gothic form has been transposed to a new, alien environment--Australia! The outback, the desert, the bush are imbued with strange forces and beings that European explorers and fossickers must fathom and overcome. The colonists struggle to cope with the harsh landscape and climate, and are frequently claimed by it. The land itself seems almost a malignant force that exacts a terrible revenge on those who challenge it or wander thoughtlessly into its desert wastes. Thus, in many of the stories reprinted here, characters range across a landscape in which the supernatural can reach out and snatch the unwary at any time. Characters frequently fall victim to the bush; indeed, often it is the children, symbols of innocence and European naïveté, who fall victim to the evil "spirits" lurking just beyond human ken. Doig has resurrected these marvellous haunts from rare magazines and equally scarce collections, and has provided hard-to-find information about the authors and the times in which they lived. For any aficionado of the classic macabre tale, this anthology will be a treasure trove of chilling reading!Australian Ghost Stories remains among my very favourite Wordsworth Editions, a fascinating overview of vintage Aus supernatural and weird fiction by author's largely overlooked by Western anthologists and biographers, Hugh Lamb being one notable exception. You can bet I'm looking forward to renewing the acquaintance with guys like .... Ernest Favenc - Jerry Boake's Confession: ( The Bulletin, 8 March 1890). Inspector Frost unravels the mystery surrounding likeable miner Jack Walter's apparent suicide in the bush on his way to meet his fiancée. The guilty party remains tight lipped, so Frost has him chained to a tree at the murder spot overnight. As the title suggests, the terrifying experience soon loosens his tongue. Ernest Favenc - Track Of The Dead: ( The Bulletin, 23 April 1892). Skeletal footprints lead Alf to the bones of his dead twin brother whose spirit can't rest for the loneliness of the wilds. Alf sees to it that Jack is given a dignified burial, but the episode takes a heavy toll on his sanity. Ernest Favenc - Blood For Blood: ( The Bulletin: Christmas Edition, 17 Dec. 1892). The horrors of thirst. A craven act of treachery is repaid in kind on behalf of the victim. The weather pisses on the corpse of the betrayer as a final insult. I bet this one went down well amidst the festivities.
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Post by jamesdoig on Sept 6, 2015 20:38:37 GMT
Nice to see this in a thread - thanks Dem. Must have been one of the last books Rob Reginald worked on before he died.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 7, 2015 13:40:35 GMT
I'm thrilled to land a copy, James. The Introductory essay is a real eye-opener, perfectly compliments the one in the Wordsworth book. Am beginning to get more of a grasp on the evolution of the Aus supernatural story as a result.
Ernest Favenc - In The Night: (The Bulletin: Christmas Edition, 17 Dec. 1892). From the same jolly issue of The Bulletin as Blood For Blood, which, it transpires, was just the author warming up. The grisliest and, for me, best of the Favenc vignettes. A brutal clash between two Colonials and four Aborigines leaves all dead save for a badly injured white. A passing rancher offers to ride for help, leaving the wounded man to guard his pal's corpse, the worry being that, as is their custom, the blacks will return after dark to mutilate it. At first, the invalid is fairly comfortable with the situation, but the Bush at night can do a terrible thing to a man's sanity ...
Ernest Favenc - A Strange Occurrence On Huckey's Creek: (The Bulletin , 11 Dec. 1897). After the sudden death of her husband, our stranded heroine braves the searing heat to walk fifteen miles across the plain without water. Tom Devlin and his pals at the inn set off to retrieve the body, only to encounter a mailman who insists he's seen the fellow - albeit that he looks like "a death's head" - riding in search of his wife. It's an uneasy party arrive at the creek.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 8, 2015 10:34:13 GMT
William Sylvester Walker - The Wraith Of Tom Imrie: ( Land Of The Wombat, 1899). Ripping yarn with a Wild West feel. A game of cards in a notoriously brutal Bush stopover culminates in cold blooded murder. Tom Imrie rides off in pursuit of the killer, shoots him dead, then, inexplicably, turns the rifle on himself. Turns out he'd gunned down his estranged brother and all round bad guy, 'Flash Jack.' McIlwaine the squatter sees to it that Tom's bones are given decent burial, adopts his faithful mutt, Joker, travels to Sydney to inform the suicide's sister, and takes a sheep-herding job on way home. Stranded in the Outback, McIlwaine is bitten by a deadly snake, and it's a question of whether the poison or thirst will kill him first - until Tom's grateful ghost leads him to water. As a rule, benevolent spectres don't sit well with me, but there's plenty of violence and treachery - like Favenc, Walker is of a mind that "darkies" can't be trusted - to compensate. J.A. Barry - Hulk No. 49: ( The Queenslander, Dec. 1893). Rest assured, there's nothing remotely magnanimous about the protagonist of this winning seafaring yarn. The Carlisle is horribly haunted by the soggy, corpse-reeking ghost of a "Jimmy Ducks" (general dogsbody), beaten to death and thrown overboard by a mob for neglecting to light the fo'c's'le lamp. Even an extensive overhaul and change of name can't deter our spectral stowaway. With his hard-nut crew reduced to quivering big girls blouses, the captain ill-advisedly braves the fumes and takes the fight to the murderous phantom. Barry's claustrophobic conte cruel, The Red Warder Of The Reef (Hugh Lamb [ed.], Victorian Tales Of Terror), is also very worth seeking out.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 10, 2015 11:15:02 GMT
This next is a stormer!
Rosa Praed - Miss Crosson's Familiar: (Stubble Before The Wind, 1908). Old Miss Crosson's villa is one of two haunted properties in Elchester, the other being 'The House of Ill-Omen' which stars in a previous story by same author. Eccentric and unsociable, Miss Crosson takes an inordinate satisfaction from the pet cemetery at bottom of her garden and fusses about it all day long between arguments with a presence only she - and a young psychic - can see. Finally, her visiting niece, Margery cracks, and reveals to narrator that the old girl has been luring stray cats and dogs into her home and torturing them to death. It's all the fault of the butler she dismissed for animal cruelty who has demoniacally possessed her. Recently, the sinister servant has taken to nagging the poor women to butcher humans, too.
"Wanderer" - The Ghost Of Brigalow Road: (Western Mail, 16 Dec. 1898). The narrator, a cattle-farmer is sent in search of an errant bull on Christmas Eve. Despite the well-intended warning of his boss, he vows to spend the night in a shack allegedly haunted by the evil ghost of Old Lanty Moore, a fearsome ex-con with a reputation for knife play. Fortunately, our man doesn't believe in spooks, far less fear them, and has a bottle of whiskey to see him through the night. Chetwynd-Hayes veterans have every reason to be suspicious of the "humorous" interlude, but this one is less painful than many.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 12, 2015 18:00:21 GMT
Edwin M. Merrall - The Spectre Of The Black Swamp: An Overlander's Story: (The Australian Journal, 1 Nov. 1875). A full-on supernatural horror story, likely inspired by Washington Irving's The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow but far nastier. Much-loved overseer John Warsfield goes missing in swampland while herding cattle with unpopular stocksman, 'Mike.' The Box Station rumour-mill has it that there was bad blood between the two on account of Warsfield planning to elope with Mike's flighty wife, but the latter conducts himself so diligently during the fruitless search as to deflect all suspicion. Years afterwards, Mike is among a party of drovers who make camp on the same swamp, which has since acquired an eerie reputation on account of its resident spooks, the Headless Horseman and his bald-faced nag. No need to worry, lads, because the Super's given the matter some thought, and there ain't nothing more sinister abroad in these parts than the will-o'-the-wisp ....
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Post by dem bones on Sept 14, 2015 5:27:00 GMT
The more I read, the more I'm inclined to recommend this collection as the ideal companion to Hugh Lamb's Victorian anthologies.
Patrick Shanahan - Chronicles Of Easyville: (Australian Journal, 1 March 1875, 1 Oct. 1875). Manuscript concealed in the wall of a hotel room contains accounts of the several uncanny experiences of Anonymous, including: The Strange Unknown. Narrator makes the acquaintance of a demon artist whose work includes the morbid study, The Love Test. The meeting bodes ill for his fledgling romance with Miss C-----. The Haunted House: Moreton Hall is the des res in question, Harry Greville, "the young profligate roué" whose spirit cannot rest until he's shared his ghastly secret.
H.B. Marriott Watson - Point Despair: (By Creek And Gully, 1899). The Devil Of The Marsh man (or "Ethel" if you're Peter Haining) provides the book's grimmest offering to date. Narrator Johnny reflects on events at his home settlement of thirty years ago when, as an eight year old child, he returned home following an afternoon's play to find every man, woman, and child butchered by a Maori raiding party. Reminiscent of the accounts of Injun slaughter sprees in Ambrose Bierce's horribly brilliant Chickamauga and Harriet Prescott Spofford's Circumstance.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 17, 2015 8:07:50 GMT
A cryptozoological interlude.
Robert Coutts Armour - A New Species (The Red Magazine, June 1921). Old Porter's hopes for nine weeks interrupted bird watching on the desolate Hebrides island of Eiarn are shattered with the coming of a huge man-seal hybrid from out of the sea. He later learns that his furtive visitor is but but one of several such creatures to haunt the coastline. Hostile to man, they've been known to sink ships and their teeth are so powerful as to bite through timber.
Robert Coutts Armour - De Profundis (The Red Magazine, Nov. 1914). A new strain of super-intelligent, venomous ants invade Fleet Street, devouring all in their path including a bus-load of passengers. Watching horrified from an office window, Henry Mayence , Mr. Vidal and narrator Ben douse themselves in petrol as a deterrent, but how long can they hold out against an army of billions? With Central London ablaze and ringed in a cordon of poison, it transpires that the attacks have spread countrywide. "It's a conquest, an arranged business, I tell you" warns Vidal the wood engraver, who's seen it all before in Venezuela. "Perhaps some of us will be kept as slaves" though that seems unlikely, the mood F. Horribilis are in. Can it be true? Is mankind really facing death by doom (again)? An absolute treasure!
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Post by dem bones on Sept 21, 2015 5:51:17 GMT
Sophie Osmond - The Story Of the Stain: (Phil May's Annual, Winter, 1901): It's those ghastly Abos up to no good as usual *! The Crosland family are bemused by an indelible bloodstain on the floor of the shanty adjoining their new, recently renovated homestead. One night, narrator Bess lays her rug across it for a dare and dreams of a ferocious attack on the premises by blood-thirsty black hordes. A mortally wounded white implores her, "Find it! Find it! For God's sake! Send it to her! She's been waiting all these years!" A consultation of local records reveals the dead man as George Elwyn, whose bones won't rest until his widow back home in England has been forwarded the title deed that will rescue her from poverty. A search beneath the boards reveals a bag of letters, among them the document.
The battle scene is effectively drawn but a nauseating Little House On The Prairie vibe permeates the story, with the righteous Crosland family standing in for the Waltons. No matter, we're soon back on track with:
Max Rittenberg - The Sorcerer Of Arjuzanx: (The Blue Book Magazine, Nov 1911). French setting. A case of demoniac possession for Dr. Wycherley, the psychic psychologist. When even a visit to Lourdes fails to rid young Jeanne Dorthez of her devils, Wycherley endures a nerve-shredding nocturnal journey across treacherous marshland to reach the hut of evil-eyed Osper Camargo, whose nose was flattened when a pine tree fell on his face (!). Camargo, a Satanist, has never forgiven Jeanne's mother for rejecting his advances and now seeks to send the innocent girl to the infernal pit. Wycherley soon learns him the error of his ways. God also makes his displeasure known in uncompromising fashion.
* As James notes in his introduction, The Story Of The Stain is but one of several stories from the period in which "the casual and often brutal racism of many colonial writers is starkly apparent."
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Post by dem bones on Sept 24, 2015 15:44:15 GMT
A.E. Martin - The Queer Case Of Christine Madrigal: (The Shudder Show, 194?). Christine's involuntary purchase of a grimoire in a dusty second-hand bookshop, draws her into the sinister world of Arthesus, "the master of evil," an improbably long-lived medieval spiritualist, who claims her as the bride of Satan! Hooded monks, human sacrifice, blood-drinking, and much misery. Reads like an even pulpier Frederick Cowles.
A.E. Martin - The Hollmsdale Horror: (The Shudder Show, 194?). Each night, George Jenner is plagued by the same hideous dream, and it is taking a toll on his marriage. Jenner confides in Dent, a contemporary from his schooldays, who he's not seen in thirty years. Dent finds the atmosphere in the Jenner household so poisonous that he is glad to get away from the man. Some months later, Dent visits the Chamber Of Horrors at a new waxwork museum, in a building identical to that featured in Jenner's "dream" ....
Helen Simpson - The Pythoness: (Lovat Dickson's Magazine, Jan. 1934). Goodbye the Outback, we've gone all upmarket - Knightsbridge and Chelsea to be precise. Just three months after his wife Aileen's death, Lance Mortimer is stepping out with his favourite almost-genuine medium, Mrs. Ruby Bain. When Mrs. Bain eventually accepts his marriage proposal, she calls together her circle for one last celebratory seance. But the session attracts a vengeful gatecrasher - Aileen's ghost.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 26, 2015 6:11:41 GMT
Patience Tillyard - The Evil That Men Do: (Australian National Review, Feb. 1939). Julia Thorpe, the bank manager's formidable wife, is a hard-nosed sceptic in most things, and particularly where matters of the "supernatural" are concerned. But a major rethink is required when the timely intervention of a phantom is instrumental in saving her husband from becoming the latest victim of Black Randolphe, the notorious bank manager killer.
A disappointingly low-key ending to a fascinating, varied and absorbing anthology. Particularly enjoyed the contributions of Favenc, Praed, Marriott Watson, Barry, Merrall, Martin, Simpson, and Robert Coutts Armour.
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Post by ripper on Dec 23, 2015 16:10:14 GMT
I have been quite negligent in seeking out supernatural/horror tales from Australia, but having enjoyed those included in this year's calendar, it is something I am going to rectify in the new year. Dem's descriptions of the stories in this collection make me feel sure that I would enjoy it.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 23, 2015 17:58:00 GMT
I have been quite negligent in seeking out supernatural/horror tales from Australia, but having enjoyed those included in this year's calendar, it is something I am going to rectify in the new year. Dem's descriptions of the stories in this collection make me feel sure that I would enjoy it. I think you - being a fan of Hugh Lamb and Richard Dalby's Victorian/ Edwardian books - would enjoy James' anthologies a great deal. Wordsworth Editions' Australian Ghost Stories should still be available, and at £2.99 (or less) that is the best place to start.
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Post by ripper on Dec 23, 2015 19:19:53 GMT
I was having a peek at James's 'Australian Ghost Stories' and it looks very interesting. I have come across Mary Fortune, Guy Boothby and one or two others in that collection before, but hadn't realised several were Australians, and most were new names to me. I shall certainly be making a purchase after Christmas. As you say, Dem, with the Wordsworth's, they are pretty widely available and darned good VFM.
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 24, 2015 10:00:30 GMT
Thanks Ripper - check out Marcus Clarke's long story 'The Mystery of Major Molineux'. I reckon it's a minor classic - unjustly neglected.
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