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Post by helrunar on Oct 14, 2018 14:54:32 GMT
Many thanks for that interesting review, Dr Strange! It's been years (decades?) since I last came across the name Huan Mee. A review of his (or rather, their) most popular book, A Diplomatic Woman (which sounds like a lot of fun) reveals: Huan Mee was the pseudonym for British journalists and brothers Walter E. and Charles H. Mansfield. Other works by Huan Mee include A Beauty Spot (London: Gale, 1894), Wheels within Wheels (London: Ward, 1901), Weaving the Web (London: Ward, 1902), and The Jewel of Death (London: Ward, 1905). Read complete entry here: elizabethfoxwell.blogspot.com/2009/02/fridays-forgotten-books-diplomatic.htmlIn a 1901 advert for Wheels within wheels, it is confidently stated: "The work of the two authors who call themselves Huan Mee is so immensely popular that the authors' name is the book's best possible advertisement." Charles Mansfield published short stories under his own name. The link to the complete list of Huan Mee's short stories provided in the "blog" entry leads only to the mystic numbers 404, alas. I did not know that the British Library had a publishing arm. Unless this is not THE British Library, but simply a UK firm that took that as its name since they're British and their volumes go into one's library? I'm wondering, with respect to this thread, if tales involving haunted courtrooms would also fall under this rubric. I always dread having to go for jury duty because courthouses, in my personal experience, are such sinkholes of all manner of nasty spiritual detritus. I'm only mildly psychic but it's like getting hit with a sledgehammer whenever I have to go into one of those things. cheers, Helrunar
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 14, 2018 15:29:15 GMT
The "Huan Mee" story is also one of the better ones so far, I'd say - two complete strangers meet in an art gallery, in front of a 100 year old painting that appears to show one of them killing the other. Mike Ashley has them producing "scores of stories", as well as librettos for light operas. Yes, it is The British Library. They've already had a big success with their "Crime Classics" series - bearalley.blogspot.com/2018/03/british-library-crime-classics.html
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Post by helrunar on Oct 15, 2018 0:54:59 GMT
Interesting about the Huan Mee story. I think that was filmed in a little known anthology film of the late 1940s or early 1950s. If I recall the title, I will post it. It was one episode of 3 or 4, of course.
cheers, Helrunar
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Post by dem bones on Oct 18, 2018 15:42:14 GMT
Thank you for alerting us to On The Embankment, Dr. Strange - that is just the sort of thing I was after. Got to read it on Sunday evening via Am*zon's 'look inside' feature, and am planning to get a copy of Glimpses ... purely on the strength of this one story. Will have to keep an eye on the "Tales of the Weird" series. Seems like the fifth book was published today with more titles to follow in 2019. Mike Ashley [ed] - From the Depths and Other Strange Tales of the Sea (July 2018) Haunted Houses: Two Novels by Charlotte Riddell (Aug 2018) Featuring An Uninhabited House and Fairy Water Mike Ashley [ed] - Glimpses of the Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories (Sept. 2018) Greg Buzwell [ed.] - Mortal Echoes: Encounters with the End (4. Oct 2018) Tanya Kirk [ed] - Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings (Oct. 18 2018)BL have published several other supernatural/ horror titles over recent years including: Eleanor Dobson [ed] Classic Werewolf Stories (Oct. 2017) Andrew Smith - [ed] Lost In A Pyramid & Other Classic Mummy Stories (Oct. 2016)Plus the inevitable HPL, MRJ selections. British Library Shop
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 19, 2018 10:53:03 GMT
Glad you enjoyed "On the Embankment", Dem. I've read a few more in the collection now, and it's a very mixed bag. Some of the stories are so conventional as to be instantly forgettable, and others have been too sentimental for my tastes, but "Haunted!" by Jack Edwards (1910) is another one that has stood out for me - it's more ambiguous and "psychological" than any of the others so far, and has a very creepy and down-beat pay-off at the end.
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Post by dem bones on May 30, 2019 7:02:08 GMT
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Post by humgoo on Jun 26, 2019 16:24:19 GMT
I'm wondering, with respect to this thread, if tales involving haunted courtrooms would also fall under this rubric. I always dread having to go for jury duty because courthouses, in my personal experience, are such sinkholes of all manner of nasty spiritual detritus. Do you know any goods ones, Steve? I can only remember: Charles Dickens - To be Taken with a Grain of Salt: ( All the Year Round, Christmas Number, 1865). "I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In short, I made them one too many. I touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I whispered to him, 'Oblige me by counting us.' He looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and counted. 'Why,' says he, suddenly, 'We are Thirt――; but no, it’s not possible. No. We are twelve.' According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in the gross we were always one too many. There was no appearance—no figure—to account for it; but I had now an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming." M. R. James - Martin's Close: (More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Edward Arnold, 1911). "I cannot refrain from observing that the prisoner during all the time of the trial seemed to be more uneasy than is commonly the case even in capital causes: that, for example, he was looking narrowly among the people and often turning round very sharply, as if some person might be at his ear. It was also very noticeable at this trial what a silence the people kept, and further (though this might not be otherwise than natural in that season of the year), what a darkness and obscurity there was in the court room, lights being brought in not long after two o'clock in the day, and yet no fog in the town."
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Post by dem bones on Jan 14, 2020 16:01:15 GMT
The Sun, May 12th 1968, reprinted in Peter Haining's The Satanists
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Post by andydecker on Jan 15, 2020 8:49:34 GMT
The Sun, May 12th 1968, reprinted in Peter Haining's The Satanists Those were the days.
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 9, 2020 23:48:27 GMT
The Man In the Park - William A. Lees (London Mystery Selection #65 June 1965)
Our narrator, Mr. Armstrong, meets a man in an old brown jacket on a park bench. He tells Armstrong that it's a coincidence that he, a mystery writer, is sitting on the same spot often occupied by a murderer. As the man walks away, he says the murderer's "name was Harry Spence, he killed his wife and nobody knows why". Armstrong leaves to go home and hope he can work better sitting before a warm fire. He arrives at the park just as an attendant is closing the gates. Apparently it's a private park but "His Lordship opens it to the public, most days." The narrator apologizes for staying so late, mentioning that he was sitting on the bench and didn't notice the time. The attendant tells him there is no bench that he knows of, but perhaps His Lordship has had it put back and he didn't notice.
At home, Armstrong is able to write easily and is surprised to find dawn breaking as he's finishing his story. Before sending it in, he decides to show it to the man in the park. As you do. After tea he returns to the park and meets the park-keeper from the previous night. He politely advises the writer not to stay too long as he's going to close the gates soon. Armstrong promises not to, but asks if he's seen anyone sitting on the bench. The attendant says he still can't recall seeing any bench, and it's a small park. Mr. A. continues along the path and turns the corner, to see the man on the bench. The man says to him "If you expect me to read your story, give it to me quickly. I haven't much time". Naturally the author wonders how he knew he wanted him to read it. The verdict of the brown-jacketed man? "It's a load of rubbish". Apparently, he shouldn't write about a murder when he's never committed one. He hands the writer back his manuscript and walks away. The park-keeper is a little annoyed at how close to closing time the writer has left it, and insists nobody else has left the park. Armstrong sends off his story twice, but it's rejected as unsuitable both times.
About two months later, he visits the park again and meets the man. He says it's no good writing about things he doesn't understand, "you can't put "life" into your story. He suggests they write a story together. Or at least, the man will tell him a story. Armstrong has excellent shorthand, but has difficulty keeping up with the man's dictation. Of course it's the story of Harry Spencer. The man leaves & suddenly Armstrong notices he's been writing just fine without natural light, despite it being dark. He feels terror as the darkness seems to close around him. For some reason he can't fathom, he knocks the bench over just as it happened in the man's story. He runs to the park gate, finds it locked, and climbs over, tearing his jacket and trousers as he falls. He runs all the way home to his digs.
"Despite the lateness of the hour, I felt something urging me to begin typing the story, and as soon as I began working I had the peculiar sensation that the man in the brown jacket was standing beside me." He sleeps until noon, then goes for a stroll in the park. He notices "his" bench is gone, nor is there any other. When he apologizes to the park-keeper for breaking the bench, the keeper (naturally) assumes he's a little crazy, which doesn't sit well with Armstrong.
He sends the manuscript to a magazine publisher, who accepts it. Another two months later, he gets a copy and is about to leave home to show it to the man on the bench when two plain-clothes officers knock on his door. They ask him where he's going and, refusing to say why they're there, insist on accompanying him. They arrive at the spot where the bench was, and one of the officers asks why. He tells him he hoped to meet somebody there. The officer says "Come, come, Mr. Armstrong, you know quite well there wouldn't be anyone there. Tell us the truth.". Armstrong insists he is telling the truth. It seems his story described a murder that took place at that spot less than a year ago, including details that only the murderer(s) would know and a motive. The overturned bench was a ploy by the murderer to make the killing look like suicide, but wasn't mentioned in the press reports. Apparently Mrs. Spence was a big woman and Harry a small man, so they found it hard to believe he was able to lift her body unaided and hang it from the tree above the bench.
The other officer continues "No, we didn't know that Agnes Spence had had a lover, or that her husband and her lover had tired of her and conspired together to murder her." Armstrong insists he wasn't involved, and tells them he wrote the story down as the man they really want told it. They ask him to describe the man. Yes, the short, red-haired, limping man in the brown jacket was Harry Spence, who they hanged ten months ago. Not exactly hard to guess but entertaining to find out what Lees does with the premise.
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Post by humgoo on Jun 2, 2020 19:07:28 GMT
Just for the sake of completeness:
Robert Hichens - How Love Came to Professor Guildea: "I merely saw some blackish object on the bench, rising into view above the level of the back of the seat. I couldn't say it was man, woman or child. But something there was, and I found that I was looking at it."
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 1, 2020 12:16:34 GMT
I recently bought Glimpses Of The Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories (2018, British Library: Tales Of The Weird) and the first story in the collection is about a haunted bench. It's called "On The Embankment" and is by Hugh Esterel Wright (1919). This is him: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_E._Wright. According to Mike Ashley's introduction, "he wrote a few horror stories". This haunted bench is situated on the Embankment, "midway between the Avenue and Westminster Bridge". ... I've read the first six and the last two stories now. "On the Embankment" is probably the best of those... I've just started Glimpses of the Unknown and agree that "On the Embankment" makes for a solid opener. I appreciate Ashley's focus on stories that haven't been previously reprinted; I think every tale in this book will be new to me.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 3, 2020 21:29:20 GMT
I've read the first six and the last two stories now. "On the Embankment" is probably the best of those; most of the others were OK, but very much "of their type"; a couple were a bit tedious, viz "The Wraith of the Rapier" (haunted antique sword) and "The Soul of Maddalina Tonelli" (haunted Stradivari violin). Amongst the better ones, "The Missing Word" has a ghostly telegraph message identifying a murderer, and "The Treasure of the Tombs" involves three British ex-soldiers doing some tomb-raiding in Iraq just after World War 1 - it has a bit of a Weird Tales vibe to it, but was published in The Strand in 1921. I'm working my way through Glimpses Of The Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories, and this sounds about right so far. Along with "On the Embankment," I've read "The Mystery of the Gables" (Elsie Norris), "The Missing Word" (Austin Philips), "Phantom Death" (Huan Mee), and "The Wraith of the Rapier" (Firth Scott). The latter four fall into the "readable but forgettable" category for me. They feature a house haunted by the victims of a vivisectionist, a telegram that delivers supernatural justice, a painting that serves as the medium for vengeance, and a wrathful rapier-wielding wraith, respectively. "The Treasure of the Tombs" sounds like my sort of thing, so I'm looking forward to that.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 7, 2020 18:01:44 GMT
Angela Barrett Leon Garfield - Laughter in the Dark: (Susan Hill [ed.], Walker Book of Ghost Stories, 1990). "I like the snow. I like the crunch of it underfoot. It makes me think of treading on babies and eyeballs. Mr. Toby, a blind, 90 year-old misanthrope, is pondering his will. Who can he trust to use his fortune to cause maximum damage and upset to mankind? It goes without saying that his faithful carers, the Courtney's, won't see a penny of it - still, there's no harm in constantly reminding the struggling couple they'll die in poverty. Mr. Toby could enjoy contemplating all our misery were he not haunted by an interfering busy-body. Who is this despicable do-gooder insists on helping him across the road for his daily visit to Clissold Park? David J. Howe - Moses: (Paul Finch [ed.], Terror Tales of the Home Counties, 2020). The Tolworth super vagrant, protecting his public from dark subterranean forces.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 16, 2020 19:22:21 GMT
An Oak Hill Park bench, 16 July 2017. Photo Philafrenzy, to whom many thanks.
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