Ghosts & Scholars 43

[Michael Connolly]

Ghosts & Scholars 43: Announced on Twitter on 8th November to arrive this week.

[andydecker]

Looking good. Great work. Congratulation.

[helrunar]

Cool cover. It looks like an homage to that old Spanish movie Tomb of the Blind Dead.

H.

[piglingbland]

Lovely piece of artwork from Jim Pitts!

[dem bones]

Out now ....

Helen Grant [ed] - Ghosts & Scholars #43 (Haunted Library, Nov. 2022)


Jim Pitts Rats (Back cover). Candles (Front)

Helen Grant - Editorial
Jamesian News
Rick Kennett - Jamesian Podcasts 16
Rosemary Pardoe - Lady Wardrop's Notes
Carl Lavoie - Lady Wardrop, 1859 (Illustration)
Jim Bryant - In the Tracks of M.R.James 6: The Travelling Tutor

Fiction
F.K. Young - To the Unclean Spirits
David Longhorn - Knocky Nine Doors
Steve Duffy - Notes Towards a History of Frastonare

Michael Connolly - The (only?) American reviewers of R.H. Malden's Nine Ghosts
Gail-Nina Anderson - Some thoughts on 'A Neighbour's Landmark'
James Doig - A Short History of a Book: MRJ's Copy of Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery

Notes & Queries
Nick Connell - Newspaper Report on Benson's House
Helen Grant - Casting the Runes: A Thought

Reviews
Norman Darwen, on Elly Griffiths, The Stranger Diaries
James Doig, on Rick Kennett's The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Rosemary Pardoe - The Old Man on the Hill: English Hill Figures in Supernatural Fiction (Haunted Library, Nov. 2022)



Front cover: Jim Pitts
Back: Richard Doyle (from Thomas Hughes' The Scouring of the White Horse, 1859. Scanned image by George P. Landow for The Victorian Web.

Rosemary Pardoe - The Old Man on the Hill: English Hill Figures in Supernatural Fiction
Sources

[helrunar]

I'm intrigued by Rosemary's new essay. I wonder if she included Rosemary Sutcliff's novella Sun Horse, Moon Horse, her version of how the White Horse of Uffington was first created. I would doubt that she would have regarded that book as within her bailiwick, but I read it last year and it was beautiful and compelling. Technically "young adult" but this elderly reader found much to ponder in the themes of that story. It felt like an intensely realized psychic vision of a past so remote that only a very skilled artist, such as Ms. Sutcliff, could make it comprehensible for a person of our own day.

I presume this issue is already sold out--so I appreciate the scans and notes about it.

H.

[dem bones]

Read most of #43 on the day it arrived. The fiction, as ever, is outstanding. I get so bored writing the same thing, as to almost welcome it were the issue's caretaker editor to include a story I dislike, but the standard never dips.

F.K. Young - To the Unclean Spirits: Cassie is already grown disillusioned with their relationship when Robin unearths papers relating to his father's illegal excavation of a site near Hadrian's wall. It seems Dad, an archaeologist of repute, unearthed a Roman altar with the curious dedication, "you will perform a vow to the unclean spirits." Robin persuades a reluctant Cassie to help him locate the site, and perhaps solve the mystery surrounding his father's disappearance ....

David Longhorn - Knocky Nine Doors: Set in the North East during the early seventies (glam & prog rock years). Schoolkids Baz, Denise, Mark and our narrator get a kick from antagonizing local eccentric Mr. Woodruff, a cadaverous, black clad "miserable old bugger" whose private life is the subject of much ghoulish speculation. One silly prank upsets the old man so that his weak heart gives out. When the police search of the dead man's premises, they discover human remains and grimoires ....

Steve Duffy - Notes Towards a History of Frastonare: Report compiled from written reports, fragments and ephemera spanning eleven centuries to the present day makes a strong case — Farnsworth Wright to the contrary — for the Italian city as the model for Lovecraft's fictional Innsmouth. Dossier also sheds light on the 1962 disappearance of Isabella 'Isy' Geraldi, a young Italian actress of great promise, who vanished in a boat accident while filming in and around the harbour.

[humgoo]

Have missed out on the issue? No problem, as Mr. Longhorn reads to you two of the stories:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbiIvtUFuAI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_x6_g4INb4