Peter Haining - GB Tales Of Terror

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Peter Haining (ed.) - Great British Tales Of Terror: Gothic Stories Of Horror And Romance 1765 - 1840 (Gollancz, 1972: Penguin, 1973, 1983)

Introduction - Peter Haining

Horace Walpole - Maddalena, or The Fate Of The Florentines
Mrs. Anne Letitia Barbauld - Sir Bertrand
Mrs. Ann Radcliffe - The Haunted Chamber
Dr. Natham Drake - The Abbey Of Clunedale
Matthew Gregory Lewis - The Anaconda
Anon - The Monk Of Horror, or The Conclave Of Corpses
William Beckford - The Nymph Of The Fountain
Anon - The Black Spider
Francis Lathom - The Water Spectre
William Child Green - Secrets Of Cabilism, or Ravenstone And Alice Of Huntingdon
Anne Of Swansea - The Unknown!, or The Knight Of The Blood-Red Plume
Anon - The Dance Of The Dead
Charles Maturin - Leixlip Castle
Dr. John Polidori - The Vampyre
Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Assassins
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - The Dream
Lord Byron - The Burial
Leigh Hunt - A Tale For A Chimney Corner
William Harrison Ainsworth - The Spectre Bride
Thomas De Quincey - The Dice
Anon - The Astrologers Prediction, or The Maniac's Fate
Lord Lytton - Glenallan
Sir Walter Scott - The Tale Of The Mysterious Mirror
Anon - The Magic Watch
Thomas Peckett Prest - The Demon Of The Hartz, or The Three Charcoal Burners
William Makepeace Thackeray - The Devil's Wager
James Hogg - The Expedition To Hell
Anon (William Mudford) - The Iron Shroud
J. S. Le Fanu - The Ghost And The Bonesetter
G. W. M. Reynolds - The Tribunal Of The Inquisition

About time we got around to some Gothic greats!

This one comes from what I consider to be Haining's golden decade, when his work - especially that for Gollancz - was truly top-notch, and the resulting books were works of beauty. Virtually all the plot lines of the stuff we read today are here (a good many of them swiped wholesale from German authors). Of course, some of the horrors in this particular volume seem pretty quaint today, but Mudford's story of that favourite torture device, the collapsing prison still packs an almighty wallop. Vampires, ghostly brides, maniacs, depraved Monks, gigantic snakes - all your favourite old friends are here and just dying to meet you.

The Penguin 1983 reprint: Cover illustration: Barbara Lofthouse

Penguin books have reissued this at least twice in paperback, i think the last time was this from 1984.

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Cover of the 1973 Penguin edition

We've met a few of these, including Sir Bertrand and the laugh out loud horrible The Spectre Bride, in David Blair's Gothic Short Stories.

Horace Walpole - Maddalena, or The Fate Of The Florentines: Pisa toward the close of the fifteenth century during a period of simmering tension with the Florentine invasion force. Maddalena, seventeen, beautiful, gentle, accomplished, etc., is the much lusted after daughter of a wealthy retired Florentine merchant, the widower Jacopo. Day after day, her home is besieged by lovestruck lute-players until she finally falls for a young cavalier, Borgiano. Unfortunately, her father knows nothing of this liaison and promises her in marriage to lecherous libertine Lanfranchi, a Pisan noble of some influence. Maddalena is having none of it, but when Charles VII's army liberates the city, Lanfranchi offers her an ultimatum. Either she weds him at midnight or he'll see to it that she and her father perish - in her case "worse, perhaps" - when the Pisans come to settle old scores. Sure enough, that same night a mob run rampage through the city, slaughtering the Florentines. Maddalena is rescued by a gallant leading her neighbours to safety, only for the party to be set upon and their heroic protector butchered. Maddelena, thrown into prison, loses her mind when a dying inmate takes hold of her and she is unable to free herself from his clutch until a guard helpfully severs the corpse's arm. She no longer recognises her father, who expires out of sheer distress. She no longer even recognises her lover, Borgiano, who, blaming Lanfranchi for this terrible turn of events, kills him in a sword fight, but is immediately captured, found guilty of murder and sentenced to be broken on the wheel. What a great moment for Maddelena, now released from her cell, to retain her sanity!

Actually preferred this to The Castle Of Otranto. It's far less draggy and that neat Witchfinder General ending - everyone either dead, dying horribly or insane - is the kind of glorious excess i favour over the more thoughtful approach of the Anne Radcliffe school.

Anon - The Monk Of Horror, or The Conclave Of Corpses: A Monk who wishes to learn the secrets of the life hereafter sets out for the crypt beneath the Convent of Kreutzberg at midnight. He's in luck as this night the corpses of his predecessors have risen from their coffins. These ancients led sinful lives and now must endure intolerable misery until the day of judgement. The Monk decides on a life of saintly piety.

J. A. Cuddon chose this to open his The Penguin Book Of Horror Stories. There's little of it, merely the bare bones if you will, but the atmosphere has a fetching taint of morbidity and the cowled corpses are as sepulchral a bunch as you could wish to meet. Taken from an anonymous chapbook, Tales From The Crypt --- In The Style of The Monk' (1798), which, obviously, goes in its favour.

Anon - The Astrologers Prediction, or The Maniac's Fate: It is feared that the madness that afflicts the male line of the Di Venoni family is hereditary, which is bad news for young Reginald. After the death of his lunatic father, he passes his days in the gloomy chateau on the borders of the Black Forest, brooding on his unhappy lot. Eventually a dying hermit comes to live in the ruined tower of Rudstein. This wizened old man, an Astrologer, warns Reginald that we will perpetrate a terrible deed of blood before he is done with this life, unless he follows his instructions. "In three days return, and under the base of this ruin inter the corpse that you will find mouldering within."! Reginald keeps the first part of his promise, but the sight of the Astrologer's ghastly remains so unnerves him that he flees from the scene, his mission unfulfilled.

Years later, now settled in Venice, Reginald meets and marries the love of his life, Marcelia, the Doge's beautiful seventeen year old daughter. All is well until he receives word of his mother's illness and, together with his bride, returns to his former home to comfort her on her deathbed. Once again, he finds himself drawn to the crumbling tower ...

J. S. Le Fanu - The Ghost And The Bonesetter: An extract from the papers of Rev. Francis Purcell of Drumcoolagh in Southern Ireland. Squire Phelim's castle is haunted by possibly the most hard-drinking spectre of all time. Each night this thirsty spook steps out from his portrait to drain every bottle he can get his ghostly lips around. The involuntary watch for the night, Terry Neil, the bone-setter, is obliged to straighten the resident revenant's gammy leg. Haunting ceases when it drinks something it shouldn't have.

G. W. M. Reynolds - The Tribunal Of The Inquisition: Under the guidance of the monstrous hypocrite Peter Arbuez, the Grand Inquisitor of Seville, the Holy Council operate under a strictly no acquittals policy. Today's accused is a bit special: Count Manuel Argoso, a Catholic nobleman of unquestionable integrity stands before the tribunal on a trumped up charge of 'heresy', for having invited a Moorish into his home and granted this fellow his daughter's hand in marriage. Argoso is lead to the state of the art torture chamber where, it is hoped, a spell on the rack will help him realise that the accusations against him are true.

An extract from Mysteries Of The Inquisition whose author was not Reynolds but M. V. de Fereal.

Charles Maturin - Leixlip Castle: An Irish Family Legend: According to those who know these things, Maturin's only known short story. Leixlip Castle details the tragedies that befall the three daughters of Sir Redmond Blaney. As these include an abduction by an evil fairy woman (very creepy), an unforeseen wedding day massacre (the groom inexplicably goes gaga in the bridal chamber) and an ill-advised innocent dabble in witchcraft, it's certainly lively enough, even if it never quite matches the nastiness of Melmoth ...'s The Parricide's Tale. (see Gothic Short Stories).

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James Hogg - The Expedition To Hell: Edinburgh coachman George Dobson takes a fare from a lawyer and finds himself in HELL. So far, a very rough day, and honest George compounds matters by signing away his soul in return for another night on earth to see his wife and set his business in order. Next morning, and - what a horrible dream! At least, that's what friends and neighbours try to convince him, but George won't be placated. A twist ending sees to it that we get three deaths instead of one so you'll get no complaints from this reader. Wordsworth could get a decent bumper volume from Hogg's macabre folk legends and short psychological novel The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner.

Leigh Hunt -A Tale for a Chimney Corner:

A man who does not contribute his quota of grim story nowadays, seems hardly to be free of the republic of letters. He is bound to wear a death’s head as part of his insignia. If he does not frighten everybody, he is nobody. If he does not shock the ladies, what can be expected of him?

We confess we think very cheaply of these stories in general. A story, merely horrible or even awful, which contains no sentiment elevating to the human heart and its hopes, is a mere appeal to the least judicious, least healthy, and least masculine of our passions—fear. They whose attention can be gravely arrested by it, are in a fit state to receive any absurdity with respect; and, this is the reason why less talents are required to enforce it, than in any other species of composition.

Mr. Hunt continues in this vein for five pages before giving us the story of Otto, a jolly Bavarian businessman, who is so distraught at his wife's death that he turns his back on society. Otto used to shout at Bertha for the sake of it, and now he realises his temper may have hastened her demise. Bertha writes him - the letter is delivered by a ghostly messenger - insisting he change his miserable ways, return to the cheery, party-loving Otto of old. He complies, and it works a treat. Bertha returns from the grave and they pick up where they left off. All is well for two years until Otto again grows complacent.

There's a neat, mildly disturbing sequence as Bertha prepares to exit this world for a second and final time, but otherwise it is a case of come back when you've written somethiing as magnificent as The Monk, Mr. Lit-critic!

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Peter Haining (ed.) – Great Tales Of Terror From Europe And America (Gollancz, 1972: Penguin, 1973, 1984)

Barbara Lofthouse

Introduction – Peter Haining

Europe

Germany

Johann von Goethe – The New Melusina
J. F. von Schiller – The Ghost-Seer or, The Apparitionist
Karl Theodore Korner – The Harp
Gottfried August Burger – The Wild Huntsman! or, The Demon’s Skeleton Chase
‘Johannes Ludwig Tieck’ – The Bride Of The Grave
Baron de la Motte Fouque – The Field Of Blood
Johann Karl August Musaus – The Bottle-Imp
Anon – The Spectre Barber
E. T. A. Hoffman – The Cremona Violin
Johann August Appel – The Fatal Marksman
Alois Wilhelm Schreiber – The Devil’s Ladder
Professor von Kramer – The Hall Of Blood

France

Francois Baculard D’Arnaud – The Witch Of Eye
Charles Pigault-Lebrun – The Unholy Compact Abjured
Eugene Sue – The Wandering Jew’s Sentence
Anon – The Parricide Punished

The Rest Of Europe

Anon – Louise, or The Living Spectre
Anon – Jan Shalken’s Three Wishes
Anon – Maredata And Gulio, or The Ocean Spirit
Anon – Valdrwulf, or The Fiend Of The Moor

America

Anon – Rip Van Winkle: A Legend
Charles Brockden Brown – Memoires Of Carwin, The Biloquist
Wahington Irving – The Adventure Of The German Student
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Christmas Banquet
Anon – The Strange Guests
Sutherland Menzies – Hugues, The Wer-Wolf
Anon – The Possessed One
Charles Hoffman – Ben Blower’s Story
Edgar Allan Poe – The Cask Of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe – Shadow: A Parable

Cover design by Peter Fluck

Blurb:

Following the spectacular success of Great British Tales of Terror, this second volume of Gothic stories of horror and romance is made up of some thirty splendid stories from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy and America.
Among the authors represented are Goethe, Schiller, Eugene Sue, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.

A bumper volume of stories, unsurpassed for readability and pace.

Uneven companion volume to the above, Peter utilizing his creative flair to the full in supplying attributions of authorship, and possibly, on occasion, even country of origin. To get us started, will just shamelessly rehash a couple of entries that were nothing to write home about in the first place.

Charles Pigault-Lebrun – The Unholy Compact Abjured: According to Haining, the first English translation, which appeared in weekly publication The French Novelist c. 1825.

A churchyard in Salins. A young soldier, St. Armand, traveling to a reunion with beloved cousin Ninette, asks directions of a crone who, smiling nastily answers "Turn where thou wilt, thy road is sure - it leads to death!". Armand takes his leave of the mad old bat as a storm breaks, and takes shelter inside a convenient, seemingly uninhabited magnificent chateau.

The door slams shut behind him as if by black sorcery, and for all his efforts, he is unable to reopen it!

Overcome with fatigue, Armand sinks into a deep, troubled sleep.

His sleep was soon disturbed by a frightful dream: he heard all at once, the sound of a knell, mingled with the cries of bats, and owls, and a hollow voice, murmured in his ear, “Woe to those who trouble the repose of the dead!” He started on his feet, but what a sight met his eyes! The hall was partially illuminated by flashes of sulphurous fire; on the pavement was laid the body of a man newly slain, and covered with innumerable wounds, from which, a band of unearthly forms, whose fearful occupation, proclaimed the hellish origin, were draining the yet warm blood.

St Armand uttered a shriek of terror, and was in an instant surrounded by the fiends: already were their fangs, from which the remains of their horrid feast still dripped, extended to grasp him, when he hastily made the sign of the cross, and sank senseless upon the ground.

Armand regains consciousness to find a wizened old man crouching over him. This mysterious being says he can save Armand from the vampires, but in return he must vow on oath to slay the next person to embrace him. St. Armand agrees, only to find himself transported to the chamber of Ninette. Forgetting his pledge, he falls into her arms, whereupon the old magician appears at his side. "Wretch! ... Pierce her heart! She is the dove that thou must instantly sacrifice if thou wilt not become a feast for the vampires!"
"Sacrifice her? Never! Never!"
"Then thou art my prey!"

What I like about a Gothic is that, even at this crucial stage you can't be absolutely certain how it will turn out as some of the authors could be right sadistic fiends when they put their mind to it. As it happens Monsieur Pigault-Lebrun (or whoever) isn't one of them but you at least get a good groan out of his ludicrous resolution.

C. F. Hoffman - Ben Blower's Story: After a fierce night's drinking, Ben Blower staggers back aboard The Flame, lifts the cover from the boiler and climbs inside to grab some sleep. The heavy lid slams down. Entombed alive, And him a claustrophobic! Things can't get any worse, so obviously they do.

[Jojo Lapin X]

I believe the Charles Brockden Brown story is a sequel to his most famous work, the novel WIELAND, which I recently read. "Kooky" is the description that springs to mind.

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Aug 9, 2012 14:36:46 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

I believe the Charles Brockden Brown story is a sequel to his most famous work, the novel WIELAND, which I recently read. "Kooky" is the description that springs to mind.

That seems to be the case, JoJo. Have to say, both Weiland and this unfinished prequel were a disappointing grind for me when i read them back in the late 'eighties, but that was likely because i was still expecting the all action, wall-to-wall morbid titillation of The Monk or it's brainy younger brother Melmoth The Wanderer every time. Weiland and James Hogg's The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner required more effort than then me was prepared to put in. That saiid, i'm in no rush to re-read Carwin ... which, like much of this volume, came as a let-down after the heady highs of the Great British Tales Of Terror selection.

Anon - Jan Shalken’s Three Wishes: Scandinavia. Kindly peasant and his wife are awarded the three wishes for their hospitality toward a stranger who'd been turned away from all the rich folks' homes. The Shalken's use them to lead Death a merry dance, finally accompanying him to the grave 150 years after their check in date. No blood, no squishy entrails, of no great use to me, but "nicely told."

Anon - The Parricide Punished: This is more like it. A wedding guest, spending the night in the old tower, finds he's sharing his room with a skeletal old man in chains. The forgotten prisoner has been locked away for twenty years, his son Vildac, the bride's father, having grown impatient at getting his hands on the family fortune. The guest vows to expose this scandal to the authorities, but the old timer won't hear of it. In his youth, he too committed a dreadful crime against his own father and is despicable to mankind! God, but I love it when a character goes insane in a Gothic!

[Jojo Lapin X]

Aug 10, 2012 18:39:17 GMT dem said:

That seems to be the case, JoJo. Have to say, both Weiland and this unfinished prequel were a disappointing grind for me when i read them back in the late 'eighties

Well, WIELAND certainly starts off with a bang---an utterly gratuitous episode of spontaneous human combustion. The plot, which (spoiler!) hinges on a misconceived notion of the powers of ventriloquists, was apparently widely derided as completely preposterous immediately upon the novel's publication, and, as you say, the author's style is quite heavy-handed. Given that this is now celebrated as "the first American novel," one can only wonder what the competition must have been like.

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'Johann Ludwig Tieck' - The Bride Of The Grave: The vampire classic known to the rest of the planet as Wake Not The Dead, but Mr. Haining always was a man for an alternative title. Burghundy, France. Walter realises that he will never love beautiful second wife, Swanhilda with the same intensity as he didthe late Brunhilda, so he engages a necromancer to return the dear departed from her grave. This accomplished, Swanhilda is unceremoniously evicted from the Castle for the living dead woman to rule in her place. However, Brunhilda, who relies on a constant supply of blood to survive, preys on the local children until she's entirely decimated the supply. Now she turns her attentions to her husband. Walter may love her but he doesn't fancy becoming her victim and has her banished back to where she came from with more powerful spells. But the necromancer warns him that, should he ever again remember his corpse bride with any fondness, she will return to claim him. 'No worries of that!', thinks Walter.

A mysterious, black clad woman arrives in the vicinity and Walter invites she and her entourage to dine with him. Much gaiety ensues when milady accepts his marriage proposal, but delight turns to horror when, once they're alone in the bridal chamber, she reveals her true identity. It would be cruel to leak the ending, but it's as horrific as it is abrupt.

This story, whatever the experts tell you, is almost certainly not the work of Tieck, but it is a high watermark of Goth and no mistake.

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Anonymous - The Black Spider: Rudolpho de Burkart, MAD ANATOMIST, grave-robber, wannabe alchemist, etc., falls madly in love with the fair Leonora and - joy of joys! - his feelings are reciprocated. Alas, Baron Von Stickmeheart despises Rudolpho as his social inferior and bans Leonora from having anything to do with the impoverished young madman. Besides which, he has already promised his obstinate daughter to their neighbour, Count Von Attenburg. A distraught Rudolpho enlists the aid of a conniving spider-demon. Body exchange, murder, infanticide, treachery and rank poetry (try Chorus Of Imps) ensue.

M. G. Lewis - The Anaconda: An East Indian Tale: Ceylon. When Mr. Seafield is trapped inside a small pavilion hut at the mercy of a monstrous, supremely patient snake, Everard Brooke and Zadi, the faithful old manservant, disguise themselves as thickets to launch a heroic rescue attempt. Tragically, Psyche, the cute little greyhound, is caught in the crossfire, as is an innocent bull. The anaconda is so devastating an adversary that even it's venomous breath is lethal. Other main players include Seafield's wife, the fair Louis, mistress of the "death-like swoon," and various yellow-bellied natives. While not in the same league as The Monk - what is? - The Anaconda does not lack suspense and the morbid coda reminds us that, even should we momentarily triumph against all odds, we are merely postponing our appointment with Death.

G. W. M. Reynolds - The Tribunal Of The Inquisition: Don Manuel Argoso, the Governor of Seville, is dragged before the Grand Inquisitor and his equally despicable henchman to answer spurious allegations of "heresy." Can a surprise witness prevent his being torn apart on the rack? As with William Mudford's fabulously grim The Iron Shroud, this story, which was not penned by Reynolds, might be sub-titled "The Torture Of No Hope Whatsoever."

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William Makepeace Thackeray - The Devil's Wager: Despite a life of thorough wickedness, Sir Roger de Rollo is within one piffling "Ave" of ascension to Heaven when his sister, the Abbess of St. Mary's, dies mid-prayer. As the demon Mercurius gleefully whisks him away to the fiery pit, Sir Roger proposes a wager. If he can persuade one from his brother, niece or nephew to pray for his soul this night, he will be spared his date with the Devil. Mercurius accepts, safe in the knowledge that the brother - an Abbot - is a black magician, the nephew a lush and the "virginal" niece a teenage nympho.

Author not to be confused with William Codpeace Thwackery of Fifty Shades Of Mr. Darcy ill-repute, though this blackly comic piss-take of M. G.Lewis et al is still very funny.

Francis Lathom - The Water Spectre: Murchardus, the bogus Thane of Dungivan, has designs on the fair Lady Catharine, but her heart belongs to another, namely the peasant Donald. At this point, little do any of them realise that Donald is the rightful heir to Dungivan, Murchardus having murdered his father and forged a will in his own dastardly favour. As far as the fake Thane is concerned, Donald was drowned in infancy on his orders. Our hero now falls in with the Three Weird Women who have been protecting him since childhood. All roads lead to Fingal's Cave for an almighty showdown. Murder, cot death, drowning, imprisonment,witchcraft, a proper ghost plus an extraordinary show of feistiness on the part of Lady Catharine. And you thought Die Hard was "action packed."

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Anonymous - The Dance Of The Dead: Essentially a corpsed-up version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, relocated to a small Silesian village. To spite the tyrannical Mayor of Neisse, the late Master Willibrand, the man with the magic bag-pipes, raises every corpse in the churchyard to spread plague amongst the community. Sub-plot involves his favourite, Wido the painter, a lovesick oaf who moons over the Mayor's daughter, the fair Emma. Far less weedy than I misremembered it, and enlivened by some sparkling dialogue ("Thou art an idiot ...," etc.), but not a patch on ....

.... Anne Of Swansea - The Unknown!, or The Knight Of The Blood-Red Plume:

"And does Erilda pity me?" he returned, rising, and assuming a seat by her side. " Oh, welcome, ye sorrows! for, henceforward, mingled with your bitter tears, ye convey a pleasure in the thought, that she whom all the world adores, feels for my sufferings; the scalding tear shall no longer flow without its balm - the arrow of anguish, while it wounds, shall, on its poison-tipped point, convey a healing balsam to my soul."

" But say, Sir Knight why is your fate involved in mystery? Lend me your confidence - make me the mistress of your secret - my bosom shall be its prison house; and so tenacious will I be in retaining it, that even to myself I will not dare to whisper it."

The good Sir Rhyswick of Rhuddlan Castle has brought peace and prosperity to his people, while his daughter, Erilda, is the most beloved young woman in the kingdom. How lucky for Morven, the future King of Wales, that she is soon to be his bride! The problem is, Erilda's pretty head has been turned by the mysterious Wertwrold, the warrior Knight Of The Blood-Red Plume, who plunged in to save our heroine when her boat capsized on the river. Alas, the man of the hour is not quite as chivalrous as he seems! On the eve of her wedding to Morven:

Erilda dreamed that her father, overpowered by his affection for her, and her entreaties, yielded his consent to her union with Wertwrold, and placed her hand in his. Transported with joy, she threw her arms around her lover's neck; and at this juncture awaking, she found the Knight clasped in her embrace. Recoiling with terror from his arms, and recovering her senses, that were at first bewildered, " Away," she cried, in a tone of terror ; "perfidious Knight, leave me; your conduct calls for my indignation. Oh, Wertwrold ! was it possible for me to imagine you would thus repay the hospitality you have here experienced, by invading, in the midnight hour, the chamber of the defenceless? " Begone," she added, with a contemptuous frown, "ere I call my attendants, and expose the serpent who repays the favour of Rhuddlan's lord with abusing his confidence."

Wertwrold extricates himself from this tight spot by explaining that tomorrow he and his broken heart are away for ever. But Erilda cannot face the prospect of losing him - surely there must be another way? Unfortunately for her, Wertwrold offers a drastic solution to "their" problem ....

Time was - circa late 'eighties - when I considered this the single greatest supernatural horror story ever written. Truth is, it's a micro-Monk, save on this occasion the demon adopts gallant guise to waylay a pious and unutterably beautiful young maiden. But, once you get into the swing, it is still brilliant.

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Thomas De Quincey - The Dice: Three young German soldiers face a court martial for mutiny. While there is some sympathy for their actions, the authorities decide that one must be made an example of. The trio must throw lots to decide which of them is to die. Rudolph Schroll, recently married, is approached by a MYSTERIOUS STRANGER who offers him a set of lucky dice, that he may live to see his children grow up. Initially Schroll, who is a decent chap, doesn't want to know, but wife Charlotte prevails upon him to accept. As the reader his already figured, our Good Samaritan is anything but - Rudolph has sold his soul to the Devil!

The dice allow Rudolph to amass a fortune at the gaming table, but his life and those of his dysfunctional family are blighted by tragedy. Story further enhanced by a Demon with a sense of theatre (he adopts grave-digger fancy dress for business meetings) and some terrific ghosts.

Leigh Hunt - A Tale For A Chimney Corner: "... Many of the tales written by such authors as the late Mr Lewis, who wanted sentiment to give him the heart of truth, are quite puerile. When his spectral nuns go about bleeding, we think they ought in decency to have applied to some ghost of a surgeon. His little Grey Men, who sit munching hearts, are of a piece with fellows that eat cats for a wager."

Mr. Hunt does not think highly of Goth lit. As far as he is concerned, the genre is unspeakably vulgar. What these louts of letters should be writing is really boring ghost stories , hence this, his own modest offering. Otto, who has become a cheerless recluse since the death of wife Bertha, wills the loved one back from the grave. Their neighbours accept that she must have been buried by mistake, and for two years all is well until a complacent Otto recovers his bad temper of old. Bavarian setting. Moral: be nice.

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Eric Critchley (Dent, 1973).

Mrs. Ann Radcliffe - The Haunted Chamber: An extract from The Mysteries Of Udolpho[/color]: Ludovigo volunteers to spend a night alone on the upper floor of a haunted château and rid it of resident spectres. When the Count, nervous at strange noises in the night, checks to see if he's in distress, Ludovigo is nowhere to be found. Incorporates short ghost story, The Provencal Tale, concerning the doings of a mysterious knight returned from the Crusade, which Ludovigo perhaps unwisely selects for late night reading. Apparent haunting rationalised, which is always a drag.

In a similar vein;

Dr. Natham Drake - The Abbey Of Clunedale: August, 1587. On his return from war in Flanders, Edward de Courtenay pays a nocturnal visit to the reputedly spook-infested Abbey. Creeping inside the chapel, he watches a thoroughly miserable, ghastly faced old man at prayer. This wretched fellow seems set to do away with himself until a ghostly burst of celestial harp music sets him at ease. When a beautiful young woman, clearly some companion of the tortured soul, emerges from the choir stall, Edward steps from the shadows to introduce himself. Only then does he recognise his comrade in arms, Clifford, prematurely aged by some terrible catastrophe!

Clifford confesses to the cold blooded murder of an innocent man. On learning that, while he was away soldiering,Bertha, his beloved wife, was regularly seen in the company of another, Clifford surprised the pair at the Abbey and ran the poor chap through with his sword in a fit of jealousy. Too late Bertha explained the terrible truth that the dead man was her brother! Now it is only the love of his sister, Caroline, keeps Clifford from joining both in the grave. This is decent, doom-laden stuff until Dr. Drake inexplicably ruins all his good work in the final paragraph.

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The Devil, up to his old tricks again. E. F. Bleiler disputes Mr. Haining's attributions of authorship.

'Raphael' - The Magic Watch: Set in 1793, which almost qualifies this chilling account as an on the spot report. Once again, the DEVIL adopts harmless old-timer guise to lure a young hothead into his clutches. As two students are making their way home for the night, they are approached by a pedlar keen to offload a magnificent watch. On learning that Theophan is to wed, the kindly stranger presses the to-die-for timepiece upon him as a present. What a top bloke! But terms and conditions apply. For one year, the clock must be wound every night before sunset. Should Theodore neglect this duty, he will die within six hours. Needless to say, the evening arrives when Theo is so engrossed with his bride-to-be, he fails to meet his obligation .....

Thomas Peckett Prest - The Demon Of The Hartz, or The Three Charcoal Burners: Martin Walback, an impoverished young forester, openly mocks tales of a hairy giant wreathed in oak leaves whose favours invariably bring ruin upon their foolish recipients. If only the Demon would bestow riches upon him, he would live like a Lord and hang the consequences! Comes the night Martin disturbs the fearsome spectre and his coven during a ritual in the woods. He returns to his fire to find three gold nuggets (he and his brothers recognise them as such immediately, as "most of the peasants in the Hartz are practiced mineralogists"). Martin lives the dream, buys himself castle and title, and systematically alienates prince and pauper alike. Murder, amputation, death by doom, eternal damnation, etc., must surely follow.

[dem]

Frank T. Merrill

Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Christmas Banquet: (United States Magazine & Democratic Review, January 1844). By the terms of his will, the founder's skeleton will annually preside over a festive banquet for the ten persons closest to his own heart - specifically, the ten most miserable persons alive. It is the arduous job of two trustees to identify these gloomiest of souls from the world's misanthropes, hypochondriacs, likeliest suicides, Goths, me, etc. The event proves a ghastly success, and yet, the doubts persist. Is there an imposter in the ranks? On the surface at least, the solitary ever-present, Mr. Gervayse Hastings, appears too jolly by far to grace so joyless an occasion. What's his story, anyhow?

Another old favourite (first read it circa 1985!) I've resisted revisiting in fear that it may no longer live up to my fond memories of same. Needn't have worried!