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Post by Dr Strange on Nov 11, 2009 19:09:58 GMT
Interesting you say that Dr Strange - I seem to remember reading a version of Schalken that made it more overt that the villain was a vampire - does that fit in with you or am I off in my own fantasy world yet again? No - I think you are spot on with that. It's a long time since I read either version, but I did once read them both quite close together and was struck by the differences. There is definitely one where the supernatural element is much more overt, and one where it is rather ambiguous.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Nov 11, 2009 19:25:21 GMT
I've only read a it of Fanu and what i read was superb. Thanks for the tips. i struggle with being a bit of a completist. Is there a definitive collection|?
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Post by dem bones on Nov 11, 2009 20:43:34 GMT
According to E. F. Bleiler, his pairing of Best Ghost Stories and Ghost Stories & Mysteries ( here) collects all of Le Fanu's short supernatural fiction, but the Wordsworth Collection Of Irish Ghost Stories matt mentions is close as dammit and great VFM at a fiver. As far as the Le Fanu content, it has all the Madam Crowl's Ghost and In A Glass Darkly stories plus Spectre Lovers, The Watcher, Passage In The Secret History Of An Irish Countess, Strange Event In The Life Of Shalken The Painter, The Fortunes Of Sir Robert Ardagh, The Dream and A Chapter In The History Of A Tyrone Family. And speaking of terrific deals, how about this, forthcoming from 'Wordsworth Mystery & The Supernatural' (early 2010, i think); Varney the Vampyre ISBN: 978-1-84022-639-3 Author : J. Rymer Total Pages: 1184 Price: £2.99
James Malcolm Rymer’s epic 220 chapter saga first appeared between 1845-7 in a series of ‘Penny Dreadfuls’. Telling the tale of the vampire Sir Francis Varney, it established many of the archetypal images of vampire fiction, and was a major influence on Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’. Edited and introduced by Dick Collins.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Nov 11, 2009 22:23:05 GMT
Thanks, now I've got to remember what I've read.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 11, 2009 22:36:32 GMT
Just ordered some Lefanu fromWordsworth, along with the other of their books I don't have! I saw Varney mentioned and thought it marvellous value. I can't wait to read it.
Nice to see a thread on the gothic kicking off, if you don't mind my saying. I'm fairly new to a lot of this 'classic' stuff myself (gasp!) but this and 'Reign of Terror' have been doing an excellent job in showing me what I've been missing.
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Post by jamesdoig on Nov 12, 2009 4:05:08 GMT
I've got that Wordsworth anthology of Irish Ghost Stories, and can vouch that it's HUGE. I think they've got another massive book of ghost or horror stories - same large format - that's amazing value - complete MR James etc. They're like those 1000 pagers of the 1930s.
It's worth remembering the Ash Tree le Fanu too - for Jim Rockhill's scholarly introductions to each volume, which add a lot of value.
James
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Post by andydecker on Nov 12, 2009 10:50:44 GMT
Speaking of Varney, here is the long out of print german edition from 1976. It is a abriged version, ending with 330 pages. As the editor wrote in a very informative afterword, an original version would have been a 2000 pages translation which nobody would have bought or read. I bought this in my "I have to read everything, so lets sample Castle of Otranto pahse", but I never could get into it and put it on the shelf. But it was - for its time - a very nice edition. They even included a lot of b/w illustrations. Here is a sample. I kind of like the cover. It is cheesy, but has certain charme. And at the time the publisher did most of his horror output with self-produced photo covers.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 12, 2009 15:12:34 GMT
Also, there are two (slightly different) versions of Schalken - I remember thinking one was a bit more subtle/ambiguous than the other, but I'm not sure which one is in the Wordsworth "Gothic Short Stories". Interesting you say that Dr Strange - I seem to remember reading a version of Schalken that made it more overt that the villain was a vampire - does that fit in with you or am I off in my own fantasy world yet again? No - I think you are spot on with that. It's a long time since I read either version, but I did once read them both quite close together and was struck by the differences. There is definitely one where the supernatural element is much more overt, and one where it is rather ambiguous. Shalken The Painter - and i had to put my lit git head on special for this. The story first appeared in the Dublin University Magazine in 1839 and was revived in his posthumously published collection The Purcell Papers as Strange Event In The Life Of Shalken The Painter. This version, according to E. F. Bleiler, is the more frequently anthologised (I just found it in the first book i checked, Fontana's The Vampire Lovers tie-in). It begins; "You will no doubt be surprised, my dear friend, at the subject of the following narrative ...." In 1851, Le Fanu privately printed his exceedingly rare Ghost Stories & Mysteries under the McGlashan imprint. This four story collection included a revised Shalken The Painter which begins: "There exists, at this moment, in good preservation, a remarkable work of Shalken's."Bearing in mind that Bleiler was writing in 1964, it's not impossible that the revised text is now more commonly reprinted than the original, but i'm guessing by the longer title that Wordsworth have run the original/ Purcell Papers version. If the demon lover isn't quite vampiric enough in that version, you can find the revised, 1851 Shalken The Painter in E. F. Bleiler's Best Ghost Stories of J. S. Le Fanu, Alan Hull Walton's The Open Grave and Michael Cox's Illustrated J. S. Le Fanu, probably more. Andy, thanks for sharing that triffic Varney ... cover! don't you think he looks a bit like our little gremlin friend from 3rd Pan Book of Horror Stories going through a laughing cavalier phase?
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 27, 2009 20:28:54 GMT
So to finish off this volume:
The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell - I've done this one on the Reign of Terror thread. A good creepy Christmas ghost story with a snow-bound house, a scary ghost child and a good ending
The Body Snatcher by R L Stevenson. Brilliant, and it reminded me that I must try & get hold of the out of print Tartarus Press edition of his stories as he really could write could the lad
Death of Halpyn Fraser - Ambrose Bierce. I really can't get along with Bierce which is odd as I feel I should. I've read this story three times - here, in the Wordsworth collection and the Tartarus collection & I'm still not entirely sure what's going on.
Canon Alberic's Scrapbook - M R James. Nowhere near as good as I remember it. The monster is still very scary but our hero doesn't really suffer that much, does he?
No 252 Rue M le Prince - Ralph Adams Cram. Unremarkable haunted room shenanigans
The Lame Priest - S Carleton. He's a werewolf. And that's not really a spoiler.
Luella Miller - Mary Wilkins Freeman. Another undiscovered gem! I loved this. Luella Miller is your typical helpless female who can't lift a finger to help herself. Just as well then that the rest of the community are falling over themselves to help her....right up to the point where they die.
The Bird in the Garden - Richard Middleton. Short and sharp - the men from the Bedlam are coming!
The Room in the Tower - E F Benson. What you need to finish this book is a haunted room, an evil painting, a moldering corpse and a coffin full of blood - go for it, EF!
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Post by Steve on Nov 28, 2009 16:04:38 GMT
The Body Snatcher by R L Stevenson. Brilliant, and it reminded me that I must try & get hold of the out of print Tartarus Press edition of his stories as he really could write could the lad Growing up, I'd always just assumed that Stevenson was one of those 'literary giants' that I heard people talking about - after all, he wrote Treasure Island and stuff, didn't he? They made his books into films. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, they're classics surely? Only later did I learn that for years following his death the literary establishment had pretty much ignored him - as they tend to do with authors who write horror stories, kids' books, and, you know, all that kind of second-rate stuff that 'proper' writers wouldn't bother with. For a long time, about the biggest (back-handed) compliment anybody would pay him was that he was a 'popular' author. The truth of the matter is, as our Lord Probert points out above, that the lad could really write. An extremely gifted storyteller and no mistake. In fact, even though Stevenson has subsequently become the subject of a long overdue re-evaluation of his true talents, it surprises me (unless I've missed something) that there doesn't seem to be a reasonably priced collection of his short stories widely available. Wordsworth do a Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that also includes most (possibly all - I don't have it handy just now) of the stories from The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables ('Markheim', 'Thrawn Janet', and the like) but there's so much other truly classic stuff which just doesn't seem to be readily available.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 29, 2009 7:16:30 GMT
No 252 Rue M le Prince - Ralph Adams Cram. Unremarkable haunted room shenanigans He'll probably getting a thread soon for his very short (six story) collection, Black Spirits And White (1895) from which No 252 Rue M le Prince is taken. I think he's great, personally, though perhaps the insanely over the top In Kropfsberg Keep might have been more suited to this volume: A mad Count locks all his debauched guests in the ballroom then sets fire to the Castle before hanging himself in a suit of armour. Sister Madellena is another classic - or maybe I've just got a thing about walled-up-nuns - which, I admit, does read a little schmaltzy in part, but the horrible bit is worth the effort and a brilliant cameo from the inevitable sadistic Mother Superior. Needless to say, am looking forward to a rematch with No 252 Rue M le Prince and The Dead Valley now. One criticism I've seen thrown at The Body-Snatcher is the 'supernatural' ending is both forced and unnecessary, though can't say I agree. To me, it adds another layer of creepiness to what is already a deliciously uncomfortable story. Stevenson was slaughtered by one of Dr. Knox's outraged former pupils in The Pall Mall Gazette when the story was first run. How dare he libel this great man, etc? As far as RLS's ghost and horror fiction goes, Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde, Markheim and Thrawn Janet are almost unanimously regarded higher than this piece of "hackwork" but i prefer it over all of them.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 29, 2009 8:34:39 GMT
Well one of the nice things about the ending of The Body Snatcheris that as it could also be a psychological horror climax instead of a supernatural one.
I've not read any other RLS (shame I hear you cry) but I'll correct that when the Tartarus book arrives.
Dem - after your blisteringly tempting summary of the Cram I must say I'd like to read that book now!
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Post by Dr Strange on Nov 30, 2009 15:49:29 GMT
I'm quite a big fan of RLS's supernatural stuff - it's a pity he didn't write more of it. When I eventually got round to reading some of the "classics" (Frankenstein, Dracula, Dorian Gray, Jekyll & Hyde), long after I thought I knew the stories from film and TV, Jekyll & Hyde was the only one that really surprised me - every single film I have seen has altered the story in some pretty important (I think) ways. For example, the actual physical description of Hyde (he is smaller than Jekyll, not some big lumbering brute), and the almost total absence of any females in the story (which raises some interesting questions about Dr Jekyll's private life, and what Hyde represents). The only other thing I would say regarding RLS's short stories is that a few are written is Scots dialect. "Thrawn Janet" is a good example - one of my favourite stories, but maybe a bit of a challenge if you don't like (or don't know) the dialect. Though if you managed to read all of Trainspotting, you shouldn't have any problems.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 30, 2009 22:08:19 GMT
I've just received The Suicide Club and Other Dark Adventures and even though being a Tartarus Press book it hardly qualifies as a paerback I may do a review for Vault as just looking at some of the tales I love Mr Stevenson's style
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Post by dem bones on Feb 18, 2010 19:34:50 GMT
Made a start on this last night. There's a note advising you leave Mr. Davis's introduction until last, so once I read that and the Notes on authors & Stories ("He died after going on a bender in Baltimore in 1849"), time at last, to get stuck in.
Anonymous - Extracts from Gosschen's Diary: No. 1: From his dungeon, the shackled lunatic von Richterstein describes his frenzied, utterly senseless assault on wife Maria and explains why it's all God's fault for afflicting his family with the murder gene. There's more than a suggestion of necrophilia about this one as the killer sure spends a long time bidding his loved one's bosom a fond fairwell.
Natham Drake & Anonymous - Captive Of The Banditti: The gallant Henry de Montmorency and his men meet a dying knight on a mountain ridge, get jumped by the rotters who did for him. i'm very fond of Drake's portion of the tale, particularly when the evil banditti start lobbing their helpless prisoners over the cliff edge, but it all turns to slush once bloody anonymous takes over.
Ralph Adams Cram - No. 252 Rue M. le Prince: Cram's reworking of Bulwer-Lytton's The Haunted and the Haunters which he relocates to a sinister hotel in Paris. Features a truly horrible, slimy succubus which attempts to smother the narrator. David Davies writes in his introduction, "in Cram's story, as in H. R. Giger's art-designs for Alien, a Gothic of the female body seems to be pathologically embedded in a way that goes beyond traditional misogyny and the traditional repertoire of Gothic anxieties." Will most likely come back to this when Cram's collection gets a thread to itself.
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