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Post by dem bones on Sept 22, 2024 6:25:35 GMT
Elizabeth Dearnley [ed.] - Deadly Dolls: Haunting Tales of the Uncanny (British Library, May 2024) Elizabeth Dearnley - Introduction
Acknowledgements
A Note from the Publisher
Dancing Dolls
E. T. A. Hoffman - The Sandman
Jerome K Jerome - The Dancing Partner
Troublesome Toys
Joan Aiken - Crespian and Clairan
Adèle Geras - The Doll Maker
Brian Aldiss - Supertoys Last All Summer Long
Doll Lovers
Vernon Lee - The Doll
Daphne Du Maurier- The Doll
Possessing Puppets
Frederick E Smith - The Devil Doll
Angela Carter - The Loves of Lady Purple
Fashion Dolls
Agatha Christie - The Dressmakers Doll
Isabelle Cheung - Patchwork Dolls
Doll's Houses
M. R. James - The Haunted Dolls' House
Robert Aickman - The Inner Room
Camilla Grudova - The Mouse Queen Blurb 'The doll wasn’t lying on the floor of the cage, but was standing against the padlocked door. And as the curtains parted it turned its face sharply towards me ….'
As mannequins, automata, effigies and dummies, dolls have haunted our imagination since ancient times, invoked throughout the years in literature and film as quintessential symbols of the uncanny.
In this collection of fourteen tales harking from 1817 to 2022, Elizabeth Dearnley presents a sinister troupe of unsettling playthings from the minds of E. T. A. Hoffmann, Daphne du Maurier, Angela Carter, Agatha Christie, Robert Aickman, Camilla Grudova and many more.
Including possessed puppets, artificial suitors and figures that blur the lines between human and doll, fresh nightmares await when the doors of the dolls’ house swing open and its denizens come out to play.The theme of one of our first DIY imaginary anthologies way back on Vault MK I, reprised as Malevolent dolls & Puppets. Not sure we've (m)any stories in common with Elizabeth Dearnley's class selection. Joan Aiken - Crespian and Clairan: (Anon [Anne Finnis] [ed.], Haunting Christmas Tales, 1991). John, ten, an unwanted child, neglected by his parents, is annually packed off to the Yorkshire moors to spend Christmas with Uncle Simon, Aunt Nesta, and their soppy asthmatic daughter, Becky, who always gets better presents. This year, the spoilt girl's godfather has outdone himself, gifting her a pair of battery-operated skating dolls she names Crespian and Clairan. John, mad with envy, determines to steal them. The boy has a unique party piece - he can rattle his eyeballs from side to side - a talent which so unnerves his cousin, she generally does what he says. On Boxing Day, John suggests they visit the frozen pond to try out the skaters on real ice ... Adèle Geras - The Dollmaker: (Jean Russell [ed.], The Methuen Book of Sinister Stories, 1982, as 'The Dollmaker.') 'Auntie' Avril Clay pilfers the loveliest limbs, hair and eyes from dolls the Burton Bridge schoolgirls bring to her for repair, more than enough to assemble a surrogate daughter. Had she loved him? She did not tell me that at once. But gradually I became aware that in a deep, inarticulate way she had really cared for him more than he cared for her. She did not know what answer to make to his easy, overflowing, garrulous, demonstrative affection; he could not be silent about his love for two minutes, and she could never find a word to express hers, painfully though she longed to do so. Not that he wanted it; he was a brilliant, will-less, lyrical sort of person, who knew nothing of the feelings of others and cared only to welter and dissolve in his own. In those two years of ecstatic, talkative, all-absorbing love for her he not only forswore all society and utterly neglected his affairs, but he never made an attempt to train this raw young creature into a companion, or showed any curiosity as to whether his idol might have a mind or a character of her own. This indifference she explained by her own stupid, inconceivable incapacity for expressing her feelings; how should he guess at her longing to know, to understand, when she could not even tell him how much she loved him? At last the spell seemed broken: the words and the power of saying them came; but it was on her death-bed. The poor young creature died in child-birth, scarcely more than a child herself. Vernon Lee - The Doll Lovers: ( For Maurice: Five Unlikely Stories, 1927, as 'The Doll.' Originally The Cornhill, May 1896 as 'The Image') The narrator, a globe-trotting antique-hunter, visits a seventeenth century palace at Foligna in the heart of Italy. Propped up in a chair in the library, the unnerving life-size replica of Louis, the first wife of the present Count Ormond grandfather, who died young in childbirth. The bereaved Count installed the doll in Louis's boudoir, treating it as his bride until he fell for a laundress. Thereafter, the doll was consigned to a closet, sustaining a hole in her cardboard head. The collector feels compelled to purchase the doll, not as an investment, but to cremate, finally releasing the anguished soul trapped within. Three outstanding stories.
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Post by ripper on Sept 22, 2024 9:39:21 GMT
I like the sound of this collection. I'm familiar with several of the stories, but there's enough that I haven't read to make it onto my 'wanted' list.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 26, 2024 11:26:54 GMT
I like the sound of this collection. I'm familiar with several of the stories, but there's enough that I haven't read to make it onto my 'wanted' list. The hooks for me were the Joan Aiken and Fred C. Smith stories, also the temptation to revisit The Sandman which I loved on first acquaintance and have not dared reread for fear of a crushing let down. Sometimes it's better not to go back. Brian Aldiss - Super-Toys Last All Summer Long: ( Harper’s Bazaar, Dec. 1969). Adapted for the screen as A.I. Artificial Intelligence. It is THE FUTURE. In a hopelessly overpopulated world, couples must now obtain permission from the Ministry to have a child. Monica and Henry Swinton are among the fortunate, affluent quarter who can afford to invest in a synthetic son — except Monica can't warm to him. David, a soulful and deeply sensitive android, is hurt by his mother's lack of affection. It is as though she cares more for his mechanical teddy bear. Now Henry Swinton arrives home from a successful Synthank board meeting — the company is to mass produce super-improved robot kids — to be greeted by a jubilant Monica. They've won the baby lottery! A free pass to birth a real child! David can be packed off back to the factory for repair. Piece of junk never did work properly. Frederick C. Smith - The Devil Doll: ( London Mystery Magazine #23, Jan. 1955). Marilyn pesters her fiancé, Blake, to hire a popular stage hypnotist and ventriloquist for her birthday party. Vorelli performs with a truly terrifying dummy, Hugo, which he locks in a cage between performances. There are nasty rumours that the magician has somehow trapped the soul of his late partner, Gardeni, inside the doll — hence its attempt to stab him — but then some people love to believe the worst of others. |
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Post by ripper on Sept 27, 2024 13:02:47 GMT
The Aldiss story sounds similar to the plot of the 1972 film Z.P.G. in which overpopulation results in a worldwide ban on childbirth for 30 years, and couples are encouraged to 'adopt' robotic children. The film was inspired by the 1968 book The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. I wonder if Aldiss's tale was also inspired by it?
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Post by andydecker on Sept 27, 2024 14:43:39 GMT
The Aldiss story sounds similar to the plot of the 1972 film Z.P.G. in which overpopulation results in a worldwide ban on childbirth for 30 years, and couples are encouraged to 'adopt' robotic children. The film was inspired by the 1968 book The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. I wonder if Aldiss's tale was also inspired by it? I guess nearly every sf-writer of this time did his over-population story. Ballard wrote a creepy one called Billennium in 1961. There is Harrison's Make Room Make Room from 1966 and Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar from 1968. Funny how this nightmare scenario came and went. I still wait for my flying car or my rocket-suit. |
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Post by ripper on Sept 28, 2024 9:57:27 GMT
The Aldiss story sounds similar to the plot of the 1972 film Z.P.G. in which overpopulation results in a worldwide ban on childbirth for 30 years, and couples are encouraged to 'adopt' robotic children. The film was inspired by the 1968 book The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. I wonder if Aldiss's tale was also inspired by it? I guess nearly every sf-writer of this time did his over-population story. Ballard wrote a creepy one called Billennium in 1961. There is Harrison's Make Room Make Room from 1966 and Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar from 1968. Funny how this nightmare scenario came and went. I still wait for my flying car or my rocket-suit. The early 70s was certainly a time when SF cinema was pretty downbeat with bleak futures, but the overpopulation worry does seem to have declined now, though my understanding is that there have been warnings for several hundred years of its danger, and maybe it will be in fashion again one day. In the UK, the Sun newspaper serialised Z.P.G. when the film was released. I remember asking my dad to buy it for me as I wanted to read it and was too young to see the film. |
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