GHOSTS & SCHOLARS 8 (1986)
Alan Koszowski: There Was A Man Dwelt By A ChurchyardEditor - Rosemary Pardoe
Assistant Editors - David Rowlands (Fiction) & Maureen Porter (Reviews)
A Haunted Library Publication
CONTENTS –
"Bishop Asgarth's Chantry" by Ron Weighell
Wilberforce Collins, an amateur antiquary, pries a little too closely into the dark recesses of an abandoned church once associated with a most disreputable "Bishop". Why does the cross on the pendant he finds in the altar resemble writhing serpents and what is it that he encounters in his hotel room at night?
I'm mainly familiar with Ron Weighell's work through some excellent Sherlock Holmes pastiches, including one in which Holmes is put on the scent of a mystery by none other than M.R. James (collected in "The Irregular Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, Calabash Press). The apparition in "Bishop Asgarth's Chantry" is terrific and there's a real jolt when it rears its head.
"The Hare" by 'B'
Magdalene College student Dick Bramwell finds his rooms have a somewhat sinister atmosphere and, when a strange animal apparition is seen, grows to realise that a small, bricked up doorway in the corner might conceal the reason.
From 1911 to 1914, Magdalene College Magazine published seven ghost stories by 'B' (whom the editor suggests is likely to have been A.C. Benson). The Haunted Library published five of these in "When The Door Is Shut". The current story wasn't among them but all seven can be found on the G&S website.
"The Godmother" by Tina Rath
When Sukey is taken to work with Mrs Paget, her godmother, who is housekeeper at a great country house, she isn't put to work as a maid and it seems that the master of the house has other plans for her. Can the master's strange requests be because he is so ill that he cannot even venture out by daylight? After all, why else would he require his housekeeper and her niece to join him in the grounds after midnight?
“Writers In The James Tradition No.5 – Cecil Binney” by Richard Dalby
Brief introduction to the old Etonian author of "The Saint and the Vicar" (born 1897, died 1966), who also published several books on legal matters, plus a number of lighter pieces under the pseudonym 'Ambrose Hoopington', a previously unpublished example of which follows.
“The Colonel's Tale" by 'Ambrose Hoopington' (Cecil Binney)
By a roaring fire, the Colonel tells the story of the pseudonymous 'Binks', and how he and his married friend, Christine, encountered an entity with particular views on the sanctity of marriage.
“An M.R. James Letter" by Jack Adrian
A 1928 letter from MRJ detailing his views on many works of weird and supernatural fiction, aided by a handy copy of "a disquisition of nearly 40 pages of double columns on Supernatural Horror in Literature by one H.P. Lovecraft, whose style is of the most offensive. He uses the word cosmic about 24 times."
While the letter is enormously interesting, Jack Adrian's story of how he came to possess a copy is equally intriguing, when a friend and fellow collector (who also happened to be one of the brothers who inspired the creation of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys) casually mentioned that he thought his copies of the various MRJ ghost story collections might just be signed by the man himself, he having been at Eton when MRJ was Provost and having corresponded with the great man since then.
Reviews -
"When Dusk Comes Creeping" by Lanyon Jones
"Hawksmoor" by Peter Ackroyd
"Night Voices" by Robert Aickman
"The Edge of the World" by John Gordon
"The Witch of Lagg" by Ann Cheetham
"The Ghosts in the Attic" by Betty Ren Wright
"Some Remarks on Ghost Stories" by M.R. James
"As We Were" by E.F. Benson
"The Devil's Looking Glass" by Simon Rees
"Catch Your death and Other Ghost Stories" by John Gordon
"After Midnight Tales" edited by Amy Myers
"Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories" edited by Roald Dahl
"A Warning To The Curious, Part One" by David Rowlands
Subtitled "A Critical Look at the James List", this series of articles was designed to serve as a guide to which books and authors G&S readers may wish to seek out if they were looking to collect other works in a Jamesian vein. If only the prices mentioned were still the same!
ILLUSTRATIONS-
Allen Koszowski (Front cover)
Alan Hunter
Colin Langeveld
Nick Maloret
Tony Patrick
Jim Pitts
Dave Carson
