John Keir Cross (ed) – Best Black Magic Stories

[dem bones]

By special request ...

John Keir Cross (ed) – Best Black Magic Stories (Faber, 1960, 1963)

Introduction – John Keir Cross

Margaret Irwin – The Earlier Service
John Collier – The Lady on the Grey
Richard Barham – A Room in Leyden
John Keir Cross – Mothering Sunday
Dennis Wheatley – The Snake
R. Ellis Roberts – The Hill
M.R. James – Casting The Runes,
John Wyndham – More Spinned Against . . .
Lord Lytton – The Haunted and the Haunters
Ray Bradbury – Homecoming
D.K. Broster – Couching at the Door
Theodore Sturgeon – A Way of Thinking
Joris-Karl Huysmans – The Black Mass

Envoi – John Keir Cross

Apr 18, 2017 4:25:56 GMT helrunar said:

Hey Dem, tonight in between feverish bouts of finishing my income tax forms, I read John Keir Cross's account of his invocation of Old Nick on the air (or rather, how he arranged for an actor who "volunteered" to read a mediaeval conjuration of the Evil One as part of a Halloween broadcast in a Glasgow studio--it is implied that this happened sometime in the 1950s).  I've been looking to see if there's already a thread for JKC's delightful little volume Best Black Magic Stories.  I have the Faber paperback edition, dated I think 1960.  Have not been able to find an existing thread for this.

The invocation was followed by 2 minutes of on air silence, but some people at home reported alarums and manifestations.  JKC's own son was attacked by a peculiarly large and vicious rat later that night in a bedroom with no sign of any rat-hole, or means of ingress.  A religious friend who was visiting blamed the appearance of the vermin and the subsequent assault upon JKC's foolish whim to call up Powers of whose true nature he had no concept.  I have to admit I shivered.

JKC's own tale "Mothering Sunday" might be the most unusual piece in the volume, which includes classics from the Ingoldsby Legends and the canons of Bulwer-Lytton and MR James...

cheers, H.

[helrunar]

Awesome!  Thanks, Dem!

This book is one of the (thankfully) few that arrived from an online vendor smelling of mothballs.  I finally located a "stinky book box" procedure last weekend to rid books like this of their horrid chemical effluvia, and had kept the book separate so it wouldn't contaminate others.  However, I was desperate for diversion at some point on Sunday and found myself starting in on the damned thing.  Once I finish the story currently in progress, however, into the vault it will have to go.

cheers, H.

[dem bones]

Blimey. You'd adore the fragrance exuding from lamentable dem & dem "library" for sure. Sheer essence of decomposed roadkill.

Thanks for the account of the Devil-raising. Am familiar with most of the Best Black Magic selection via other anthologies but missing the essential Keir Cross content. His weird fiction is always worth reading (creepy revenge psycho-drama "Music When Soft Voices Die ... being a particular favourite). Maybe my guardian paperback angel will shine on me again at the pulp fair ...

[helrunar]

Dem, I am an unabashed fan of organic old book smells.  Mothballs are another matter altogether and must be banished from the Helrunar sanctum.  Also don't care at all for the notion of inserting laundry dryer sheets (not sure what you call these in the UK--they are artificially perfumed nappie-ettes that keep static cling from developing in the dryer) between books, another method recommended on the interwebs for chemical smells.  That must leave one's treasures reeking like those twee little thingumajigs some folks hang up in their cars. No thanks.

All kidding aside I do not know that "Mothering Sunday," the JKC tale in that book, would be at all your flagon of ale.  I'm afraid it is guilty of exactly the charge Christine Campbell Thomson levels at "literary" horror writers--the entire tale is made up of bits of word painting and razor-sharp salvos of artfully aimed deflation.  This passage from an early scene gives you the style:

"Two days later," said Mrs. Carpenter, leaning forward portentously and lowering her voice, "--two days later, Mr. Bell, that man was arrested for a singularly brutal murder.  It was one of those trunk cases, in Notting Hill or Paddington--as they always are, of course: I can hardly ever bear to set out on a journey from Paddington--certainly, if ever I must, I avoid the left-luggage office."

It would be really unfair to offer a synopsis.  And perhaps a trifle cruel, but I will say that the central conceit of the little tale made me think of a Satanist redaction upon Frosty the Snowman.

cheers, H.

[dem bones]

Apr 18, 2017 22:49:58 GMT helrunar said:

All kidding aside I do not know that "Mothering Sunday," the JKC tale in that book, would be at all your flagon of ale.  I'm afraid it is guilty of exactly the charge Christine Campbell Thomson levels at "literary" horror writers--the entire tale is made up of bits of word painting and razor-sharp salvos of artfully aimed deflation.

Ah, but it was not unknown for CCT to stray from the righteous path and embrace something a little more "literate.". Relieved of Not At Night's duties she acknowledged Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James (this despite his disparaging the series as "merely nauseating, and it is very easy to be nauseating" and "American"), E. F. Benson and, uh, Dennis Wheatley as "masters of the craft of making the flesh creep without the piling up of common horrors."

Faber published several supernatural horror anthologies though I'm not sure they ever linked them as a series. Titles include Anne Ridler's Best Ghost Stories, Edmund Crispen's Best Tales Of Terror, Basil Davenport's Tales To Be Told In The Dark, John Keir Cross's Best Horror Stories and Best Horror Stories 2, and Alex Hamilton's Best Horror Stories 3 (need a thread for that one if anybody can oblige)

Mothering Sunday sounds fine by me.

[helrunar]

Finally back to reading this book. (For anyone following along at home, the "stinky book box," a "tupperware" plastic bin with a hermetic seal, worked like a charm in removing the mothball odor--I lined it with the contents of a small packet of baking soda and placed the books on the white powder. [Novel of the White Powder--get it??]  After a week I turned the books so that the other side was face down on the baking soda.  This will supposedly take care of a problem after about a week, but I left the books in there for a full month or longer. The books now have a neutral odor but did require careful dusting to remove bits of baking soda.)

Some notes:

Margaret Irwin, "The Earlier Service"--this one had foreshadowings of Shirley Jackson and elements of M. R. James, particularly with the mediaeval church setting, and the young university student with his rubbings and Latinity. The kernel of the story grows from this sentence a little more than halfway through: "Cloud Martin has always been a terrible bad parish for witches," said Jane, proudly.  This story led me to another by Margaret Irwin, "The Book," a creepy little exercise in suburban depravity, distinguished like "The Earlier Service" by the author's flair for psychological insight and plausibly composed portraits of middle-class English self-absorption.

John Collier, "The Lady on the Grey"   Like a number of the selections in this book, this tale is not really about black magic in the technical sense, though there's a whiff of the ancient legends of Circe from the Homeric epic in the events chronicled.  The story is in the vein of numerous old Irish legends about the Queen of Elphame and what becomes of mortal males who have the fortune, or misfortune, to cross Her path.  In this instance the Queen is also a guardian of the sanctity and substance of Eire.

R. Ellis Roberts, "The Hill"  An atmospheric evocation of an unexpected encounter with Satanic evil. Like other work by Roberts I have been able to read, this story springs from the idea that the old gods may live on in their groves and high places in rural England.  This particular example had a muted but undeniable thread of the homoerotic which surprised me almost as much as the author's apparent view that Pan, Apollo and Priapus are all names for the Devil.  I wonder if Richard Carpenter had read this story. The manifestation of the Devil in Carpenter's marvelous screenplay "The Swords of Wayland" which was a two part episode in the Robin of Sherwood series seems as if it was adapted from a key passage in this tale: Then as the light grew, in the centre of it there appeared a figure, and yet not so much a figure as a face, not so much a face as a presence.  It had the same beauty, that intolerable and sinful beauty which the boy had; or rather, it seemed to be that beauty. ... 

John Wyndham, "More spinned against..."  A bit of fun from the author of Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos.  A suburban matron attempts to cope with her unconquerable distaste for her gangly, perpetually ill-accoutred husband's hobby.  Lydia entered Edward's spider-room about once a week, partly to tidy and dust it, and partly to enjoy detesting its inhabitants in a pleasantly masochistic fashion. ... This week's excursion brings an unexpected meeting with the most remarkable specimen Edward has ever collected... more remarkable than even he realizes... and yet another instance of ancient Greek myth finding an epiphany in a modern setting.  The ending almost made me laugh out loud.  

H.

[Michael Connolly]

Aug 13, 2017 14:08:02 GMT helrunar said:

Finally back to reading this book. (For anyone following along at home, the "stinky book box," a "tupperware" plastic bin with a hermetic seal, worked like a charm in removing the mothball odor--I lined it with the contents of a small packet of baking soda and placed the books on the white powder. [Novel of the White Powder--get it??]  After a week I turned the books so that the other side was face down on the baking soda.  This will supposedly take care of a problem after about a week, but I left the books in there for a full month or longer. The books now have a neutral odor but did require careful dusting to remove bits of baking soda.)

Some notes:

Margaret Irwin, "The Earlier Service"--this one had foreshadowings of Shirley Jackson and elements of M. R. James, particularly with the mediaeval church setting, and the young university student with his rubbings and Latinity. The kernel of the story grows from this sentence a little more than halfway through: "Cloud Martin has always been a terrible bad parish for witches," said Jane, proudly.  This story led me to another by Margaret Irwin, "The Book," a creepy little exercise in suburban depravity, distinguished like "The Earlier Service" by the author's flair for psychological insight and plausibly composed portraits of middle-class English self-absorption.

John Collier, "The Lady on the Grey"   Like a number of the selections in this book, this tale is not really about black magic in the technical sense, though there's a whiff of the ancient legends of Circe from the Homeric epic in the events chronicled.  The story is in the vein of numerous old Irish legends about the Queen of Elphame and what becomes of mortal males who have the fortune, or misfortune, to cross Her path.  In this instance the Queen is also a guardian of the sanctity and substance of Eire.

R. Ellis Roberts, "The Hill"  An atmospheric evocation of an unexpected encounter with Satanic evil. Like other work by Roberts I have been able to read, this story springs from the idea that the old gods may live on in their groves and high places in rural England.  This particular example had a muted but undeniable thread of the homoerotic which surprised me almost as much as the author's apparent view that Pan, Apollo and Priapus are all names for the Devil.  I wonder if Richard Carpenter had read this story. The manifestation of the Devil in Carpenter's marvelous screenplay "The Swords of Wayland" which was a two part episode in the Robin of Sherwood series seems as if it was adapted from a key passage in this tale: Then as the light grew, in the centre of it there appeared a figure, and yet not so much a figure as a face, not so much a face as a presence.  It had the same beauty, that intolerable and sinful beauty which the boy had; or rather, it seemed to be that beauty. ... 

John Wyndham, "More spinned against..."  A bit of fun from the author of Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos.  A suburban matron attempts to cope with her unconquerable distaste for her gangly, perpetually ill-accoutred husband's hobby.  Lydia entered Edward's spider-room about once a week, partly to tidy and dust it, and partly to enjoy detesting its inhabitants in a pleasantly masochistic fashion. ... This week's excursion brings an unexpected meeting with the most remarkable specimen Edward has ever collected... more remarkable than even he realizes... and yet another instance of ancient Greek myth finding an epiphany in a modern setting.  The ending almost made me laugh out loud.  

H.

As I used to have a copy of Best Black Magic Stories, I must have read "The Earlier Service".  While I can't remember anything about it, I'd like to read it again but, unlike "The Book" (among others at www.unz.org/Author/IrwinMargaret ), I can't find it online.

[helrunar]

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, "The Haunted and the Haunters" -- I have a really vague memory of having read, or attempted to read, this story around age 13.  The memory is so blurred I can't recall if I was actually able to finish the story.  It was one of many that fascinated me in this enormous tome which I checked out from the library several times as a teenager:

www.npr.org/2013/02/24/172709795/these-great-tales-of-terror-live-up-to-their-promise

Lord Lytton's tale is often printed in an edited form, as the author himself reissued the yarn minus the final portion of the story in later editions. This was due to his having developed the incidents and themes of the denouement at greater length in a subsequent work, A Strange Story.  The version printed here is the original full-length tale, and it runs to about 40 pages.  The story falls broadly into two parts, of which the second makes reference to the old legends of the Comte de St Germain who also shows up in Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades" and various other works.  Though "The Haunted and the Haunters," also known under the title "The House and the Brain," is often credited as "inventing" the classic haunted house story, it is also legitimately a tale of black magic.  An element of the story that may present difficulties to some readers is that the author uses certain sections of his narrative as a kind of podium for an exposition of his own theory of ritual magic and how it works.  These bits are significant in that Aleister Crowley's concept of Will and its role in magical training and practice may well have been inspired from this story, in part.  I would say that if you find the occult of intrinsic interest and fascination, this story will hold your attention and make you think, particularly if you have an interest in the historical background of occult practices and ideas that are a well-known part of the landscape for today's practitioners.  People who lack an interest in the occult might be happier reading the shorter version of the story.  The way the hauntings are described is very vivid and unusual.  

This story has been dramatized on radio a couple of times, notably (for those in my generation) on "The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre" in the 1970s.  There was also a TV movie (shot on video) called "The House and the Brain" starring Hurd Hatfield.  I watched this at the time (circa 1975) but maddeningly recall very little of it.  It seems to be one of the productions of that period that have been left to rot in the vaults of a prominent American television network.  The two line synopsis that is available suggests that a LOT was added to the original story in the film version.

Ray Bradbury, "Homecoming" -- I think this may be my favorite of all the tales in the volume--discounting M. R. James's classic "Casting the Runes," which I have of course read many times and is on its own niveau of the sublime.  The Bradbury tale is almost a prose poem with a few elements of story and characterization to align his exquisitely evocative phrases and images into a coherent whole . A very unusual clan gathers for an All Hallows' Eve festival.  Timothy, the odd child out, doesn't really like the darkness, can't drink blood, and try as he might, can't turn into a bat.  But the love the family offers him is plangent and palpable.

D. K. Broster, "Couching at the Door" -- John Keir Cross states in the introduction that this tale was originally published in 1933.  It is something of an homage to the culte for the Black Mass and Satanic reveries of the "Decadents" of the 1880s and 1890s.  At times the story reads like a pastiche of Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray or Huysmans'  La-bas (a chapter of which is the finale to this volume). The central character, a gentleman I personally found hard to take seriously, presents the spectacle of black magic as the exotic flower of a rather tiresomely fetishistic narcissism.  The "spook" has a Jamesian flavor to it but I'm not sure that Rosemary Pardoe would regard the author as among the ranks of those worthy of consideration under the mantle of the Master.  I did enjoy the story very much.  And to revert again to the theme of the Seventies, it would have made a good episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery series.

H.

[helrunar]

I looked up D. K. Broster on Wikipedia.  She was born in Liverpool in 1877.  Like Margaret Irwin, she was a historical novelist.  The author of the entry notes:

"Broster also wrote several short horror stories, collected in "A Fire of Driftwood" and Couching at the Door. The title story of "Couching at the Door" involves an artist haunted by a mysterious entity. Other supernatural tales include "Clairvoyance", (1932) about a psychic girl, "Juggernaut" (1935) about a haunted chair, and "The Pestering", (1932) focusing on a couple tormented by supernatural entity.
Broster avoided personal publicity. During her lifetime, many of her readers wrongly assumed she was both male and Scottish. She died in Bexhill hospital on 7 February 1950, aged 73."

H.

[ropardoe]

Aug 15, 2017 15:10:10 GMT helrunar said:

D. K. Broster, "Couching at the Door" -- John Keir Cross states in the introduction that this tale was originally published in 1933.  It is something of an homage to the culte for the Black Mass and Satanic reveries of the "Decadents" of the 1880s and 1890s.  At times the story reads like a pastiche of Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray or Huysmans'  La-bas (a chapter of which is the finale to this volume). The central character, a gentleman I personally found hard to take seriously, presents the spectacle of black magic as the exotic flower of a rather tiresomely fetishistic narcissism.  The "spook" has a Jamesian flavor to it but I'm not sure that Rosemary Pardoe would regard the author as among the ranks of those worthy of consideration under the mantle of the Master.  I did enjoy the story very much.  And to revert again to the theme of the Seventies, it would have made a good episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery series.

H.

You misjudge me!!  D.K. Broster in on the James List for a couple of her stories including "Couching at the Door", which I consider to be a classic.  None of her other tales are quite up to the same standard but several are pretty good.

[helrunar]

Thanks, Ro!  I think that I surmised that Broster's stylistic ingenuities might involve too fondly cherished a level of frou-frou, and a too precious and polished degree of tone, for the sober temperament of Ghosts and Scholars.  Of course, I have yet to lay hands upon even a single issue of your eminent publication so no doubt, I was once again simply making unwarranted assumptions.

I'd never heard of Broster.  And I have to say I admire John Keir Cross's taste in fiction.

Best, H.

[Swampirella]

There's an audio version of "Crouching At The Door" on Youtube, which I hope to listen to in the next day or two....

[helrunar]

Miss Scarlett, I listened to a hilarious 1940s adaptation of "The House and the Brain" done for a thriller radio series, Weird Circle.  It was sort of like "Nick and Nora Charles spook out in Victorian London." 

A lot of the audiobook versions of classic literature aren't at all my cup of tea.  Read in a bland voice with no inflection or attempt at characterization.  Hope the one for "Couching at the Door" does justice to this story.  Literary style and atmosphere is such an essential element of that one.

H.

[Swampirella]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one; I don't even know if I'll like it enough to listen for 50 whole minutes If I can find "The House and The Brain", I'll give it a listen; thanks for the recommendation!

S.

[helrunar]

I got kind of a kick out of that Weird Circle show because I enjoy "old time radio."  I may have to listen again to try to understand something the wife kept saying.  It sounded as if she kept referring to herself or her husband as "chubby cheeks."

The most absurd lines were when the husband, whose character seemed to be that of a wisecracking 1940s newspaper reporter, had to tell the other people in the story of his advanced studies in the occult arts.  I may have guffawed.  Once or twice.

H.