|
Post by dem bones on Apr 4, 2018 11:04:58 GMT
Robert M. Price (ed.) Crypt Of Cthulhu #50: Ramsey Campbell's Ghostly Tales (Michaelmas 1987) Allen Koszowski Ramsey Campbell - Introduction: It Came from the Past
The Haunted Manor (verse) The Oak Chest The Hollow in the Woods Things from the Sea The Grave in the Desert Accident The Friend The Devil's Cart Tem Bashish The Whirlpool The Whispering Horror Bradmoor Hybrid The Tower Conversation in a Railway Carriage The Mask Premonition
Reviews: (All by Stefan Dziemianowicz) Robert Bloch 's American Gothic: R. Alain Everts The Death of a Gentleman: The Last Days of Howard Phillips Lovecraft: An Epistle to the Rt. Honble Maurice Winter Moe, Esq. by H. P. Lovecraft: An Epistle to Francis, Ld. Belknap by H. P. Lovecraft.
Letters: Mike D. Mason, Mike Ashley, Maryanne Snyder, Bruce Walker, Sean Branney, Robert Bloch, Tani Jantsang.Mr. Campbell's first book, written over 1957-1958, when he was just approaching his teenage years. We already had a small taster when Ramsey very kindly allowed us to include The Oak Chest, on our 2016 advent calendar. Unintentional hilarity abounds for sure - Things From The Sea being a laughter riot of almost Eat Them Alive proportion - but the same can be said of any number of early Weird Tales which never stopped me praising them to the skies. That these are all unashamed supernatural horror stories also goes in Ghostly Tales favour, The Hollow In The Woods, The Death Cart, and the pair from the casebooks of 'John Campbell psychic detective' (the first, Bradmoor, a Wheatley-esque Black Magic extravaganza) being particularly impressive. The Hollow in the Woods: "Come, John! Come! Life holds no attractions for you. You will be happy with us. Come to us!" A place of crawling dread on account of the Shuggoths - slimy, tentacled crawling trees with mouths all over their trunks - and the ghosts of their victims. John first fell foul of these evil spirits while investigating the murder of his friend, Hamilton. Now they've made away with his wife. In best early Weird Tales/ Not At Night tradition, the story is narrated by an inmate of a Lunatic Asylum. Things from the Sea: Ennis, a regular Bluebeard, has a novel means of disposing of his wives, as John discovers while powering a motor-boat around a lonesome rock in the sea ... Hybrid: "As he sat before a fire in the lounge, reading To the Devil—A Daughter, a book from Lupus's shelf, a slow realisation crept over him ...." Tom Dickson is plagued by the recurring nightmare of an encounter with a naked man with a wolf's head and bloody hands. His psychiatrist suggests Dickson book a fortnight's holiday in Cornwall, which he does. On the first day of his convalescence, Dickson explores the rocky coastline. A thick mist descends and, come nightfall, he finds himself hopelessly lost. A young stranger, Lupus, offers him food and shelter at his house on the cliff ... The Grave in the Desert: Reynolds, tomb-looter and child-murderer, desecrates one grave too many .... Accident: Blessed Death. Tranquillity eternal. St. Peter has allocated you a little corner of Heaven. Everything is rosy. And then, some interfering, do-gooder doctor shakes you awake to break the "good news" .... TBC
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Apr 4, 2018 20:15:12 GMT
The Whirlpool: Murderer Tom Bart has been warned by an old Egyptian that seven is his unlucky number. Bart now suffers a recurring nightmare in which disembodied faces revolve around him. Six are those of the people he killed in the woods and fed to the whirlpool. But whose is the seventh?
Bonus point for Ramsey's admission in the introduction that Bart's victims were named after his classmates.
The Mask: Featuring Richard P. Moorhead (R.I.P.), ghost story writer of The Prowling Horror of Woodville, and Eerie Stories repute. Fred Laird's Halloween prank on the Crampton villagers backfires, culminating in three murders and a genuine haunting.
Conversation in a Railway Carriage: Jim Grant is still congratulating himself on committing the perfect murder most ghastly when the mystery woman boards the train, takes the seat opposite, and begins arguing with her newspaper ...
|
|
|
Post by ropardoe on Apr 5, 2018 8:28:45 GMT
How did this one pass me by? It looks be full of intriguing stories I'm unfamiliar with.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Apr 6, 2018 9:37:52 GMT
"Have you ever been in a pentacle on Walpurgis night? Believe me, it's not a thing to be experienced by anyone with a nervous temperament." Bradmoor: The first of two from the casebook of John Campbell, private psychic investigator (retired), is a Black Sorcery epic in the lurid tradition of Dennis Wheatley and Gregory Pendennis. John pays a mercy dash to an old friend's country residence in response to an urgent appeal. Back in his Cambridge days, Frank Bardell was persuaded to sell his soul for £10 to a man "who called himself de Ville." Now this de Ville has returned to torment him to the grave - and the fiery pit beyond! After a series of adventures - the house is exuberantly haunted - the pair take refuge within John's meticulously chalked pentagram where they come under attack from multiple evil manifestations including a huge purple face, a disembodied skeletal hand, the Hound of Hell and a multi-legged jellyfish with a cycloptic eye. Meanwhile, in the cellar, the local Satanic Coven are staging the Grand Sabbat replete with human sacrifice. Fair to say the young author puts his everything into this one. John R. Campbell, The Devil's Cart The Devil's Cart: A skeleton-driven cart arrives at the Castle to carry away Count Slavus, the Scandinavian lord. Slavus is not best pleased when a busybody reminds him that none of this would be happening had he only steered clear of the Black Arts! The Friend: OK, this one is on the rudimentary side, I'll grant you. A stranger approaches narrator in a cafe after the pubs have shut and pours out his tale of woe.
|
|
|
Post by ramseycampbell on Apr 6, 2018 10:54:15 GMT
Even then a tenner for a soul was pretty cheap, I'd say. But the dread secret is out - I modelled myself on Dennis Wheatley...
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Apr 7, 2018 10:10:33 GMT
Hi Ramsey, hoping you don't mind a few questions ....
Were you already making use of Liverpool locations? Am thinking The Hollow In The Woods, Bradmoor, the cafe sat alongside a pub in The Friend, etc.
Were your Shuggoths inspired by Robert Bloch's version in Notebook Found In A Deserted House (or, at least, Matt Fox's striking depiction of same in WT, May 1951 )?
Something that comes across is you were big on premonitions at the time. Easy to read too much into the stories, but the line used by the ghosts to torment the narrator in Hollow ... - "Come, John! Come! Life holds no attractions for you. You will be happy with us. Come to us!" - struck a nerve.
|
|
|
Post by ramseycampbell on Apr 9, 2018 11:11:19 GMT
No Liverpool in there, I fear - all the settings are pretty generalised, not based on anywhere real.
Indeed yes, the shoggoth comes from Bob's tale, which I'd read as "Them Ones" in Screen Chills and Macabre Stories (a reprint Bob never know about).
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Apr 9, 2018 21:46:34 GMT
Many thanks, Ramsey. Indeed yes, the shoggoth comes from Bob's tale, which I'd read as "Them Ones" in Screen Chills and Macabre Stories (a reprint Bob never know about). It's a wonderful tribute and I'm glad he got to read it! Mail-Call of Cthulhu, Crypt Of Cthulhu #52, Yuletide 1987. It was only recently we were wondering if Mr. Bloch knew of The Tchen-Lam's Vengeance reprint in New Witchcraft #4? Somehow I doubt it.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Apr 10, 2018 18:18:07 GMT
Lightweight.
It Came From The Past: Engaging introduction, incorporating one of the loveliest rejection letters of all time.
Tem Bashish: Two brothers conquer the mountain, but only one returns. When Tem makes a solo attempt on the peak, the murdered Basish lies in wait. Now a third party nears the summit ...
The Haunted Manor: Verse. A suicide's ghost.
Premonition: There's a bolt of lightening with his name on, just biding its time ....
The Whispering Horror : "It is nice to be dead. Why don't you commit suicide?" Furious at her husband's infidelity, Puol Eripmav "(she was a foreigner)" resorts to Black Magic. Unfortunately for Puol, her familiar works to it's own agenda. This one is screaming out for comic strip adaptation.
Which leaves a stormer to finish on:
The Tower: The second and final case for John Campbell, psychic investigator, brings him to a notorious suicide hot-spot. The Asta Tower was built by a sixteenth century Black Sorcerer and vampire-raiser, and as John feared, Franz Asta and his familiars exert their evil influence to the present day. As if he'd not suffered enough at Bradmoor, John now faces the prospect of losing his soul and joining "that ghastly league, the Vampires, the Un-Dead."
After all he's been through, who could blame John for jacking in the Phantom fighting to take a boring job as a bank clerk?
|
|