Fontana, 1971.
The Dead Valley by Ralph Adams Cram: Nils and Olaf walk across the hills to buy a puppy. It’s a pleasant walk for two young boys; but on the way back, as night falls, the character of the land seems to change. A thick fog rises, filling the valley that they must pass through, and the dog becomes terrified so that Nils has to carry him. There is a sense of oppression and out of the dead silence of the valley comes a terrifying cry. At the moment of greatest terror, Olaf passes out but wakes to find himself safely back home. He wants to talk to Nils about their adventure.
But Nils denies that it ever happened.
Weeks later, Olaf returns to the valley. At its centre is a great dead tree, and as he draws near he sees sunlight glinting from pieces of white bone among its roots. But surely the valley can hold no menace in the light of day?
A very simple idea worked to good effect by Cram, who Robert Aickman describes in his introduction as a “builder of cathedrals and sponsor of the Gothic revival”.
The Visit to the Museum by Vladimir Nabokov: In the museum in the little town of Montisert a man sees a portrait of his grandfather, painted by Leroy. Learning that his friend the narrator plans to spend a few days there, he asks him to visit the museum to negotiate the possible purchase of the painting as his letters to this effect have gone unanswered. The narrator is not particularly enthusiastic about carrying out this errand, but finding himself in the locality with time on his hands, grudgingly goes in, sees the painting and seeks out the curator.
The curator says that no such painting exists. There is a painting by Leroy but it’s a rural landscape, ‘The Return of the Herd.’ After some argument, the two men go to the painting – where the curator has to admit the narrator is right...
Nabokov keeps up this exercise in literary masturbation for several more pages as his narrator travels through a series of increasingly dreamlike scenes. Complete tosh.
I suppose I should add that others will possibly read this trip down the rabbit hole as Nabokov’s visions of past and present:
“...I knew, irrevocably, where I was. Alas it was not the Russia I remembered, but the factual Russia of today, forbidden to me, hopelessly slavish, and hopelessly my own native land.” It all reminded me a little of some of the experimental writing of the ‘60s, where one fascinating page followed another, none of them actually combining to provide a coherent narrative. Possibly this piece is saying something about how a culture can influence our ability to dream and imagine, use poetry. And probably I'm completely wrong. I suppose you pay your money and take your choice.
Over an Absinthe Bottle by W C Morrow: Arthur Kimberlin is a stranger in San Francisco; broke and hungry on a cold and wet evening, he is close to despair. The pale-faced stranger in the restaurant doorway invites him to share a bottle of absinthe. The man has a lot of money and they share a closed booth where they play dice as they drink. Then the young man hears a conversation in the next booth where two detectives are discussing the whereabouts of a bank robber.
Levitation by Joseph Payne Brennan: The hypnotist at Morgan’s Wonder Carnival is incensed when a member of the audience hurls a scrap of litter and startles his subject out of a trance. His anger probably does no good to his blood pressure at all. Nonetheless the show must go on with a new subject.
Dearth’s Farm by Gerald Bullett: I find it fascinating how some authors lead into their stories through the most labyrinthine routes. The narrator opens by discussing London as a place of surprises, where today he has met Bailey, an old schoolfellow whose “highly coloured metaphysical theories of the universe” had probably proved his undoing. Bailey is down on his luck and asks to borrow a pound, and then begins to describe a place where he has stayed recently.
Dearth’s Farm is a lonely enough spot but his cousin Monica had been able to provide him with free bed and board there. She had made a poor marriage to the curiously long-faced James Dearth. Dearth watches Bailey and Monica jealously. But his only real interest seems to be his horses, particularly a great white stallion named Dandy. He has developed an extraordinary power over his horses, and Monica thinks that with his curious physiognomy he is actually beginning to look like one of them. Even more disturbing is the way that the great white stallion seems to look at her...
demonik:
Ha! No way would I have attempted to "review" the Vladimir Nabokov offering (it's bad enough trying to tackle an Aickman story), but it possibly contributed to the editor's alleged "unpopularity" at Fontana which saw him being replaced as editor of the series after vol. 8. To be fair, Aickman didn't think there were any more ghost stories worthy of the consideration "great", so there's no way it would have reached volume 20 with him at the helm.
I love the Gerald Bullett story, it's like a well-written Creeps contribution and Dearth himself is terrifying in horsey mode. Brennan's story is so obvious you think somebody must have thought of the simple plot earlier than the 'fifties (I'm sure you'll inform me if they did), but it's very effective and one of his finest. Yes, alas, if only they were still around, we'd have been able to show them where they were going wrong, I'm sure.
Where the Woodbine Twineth by Davis Grubb: Grubb wrote
The Night of the Hunter which was filmed by Charles Laughton, starring Robert Michum. He also wrote
The Horsehair Trunk which appeared in
The 4th Pan Book of Horror Stories and
The Crest of Thirty-Six in Kirby Macauley’s
Dark Forces.
Usually with American deep south backgrounds his stories are very evocative, although the writing has a slight vagueness as a result of his not using speech marks, so that dialogue and narrative tend to blur. This one is about Eva, who likes to play with her friends Mr Peppercorn, Sam and Mingo, who live under the davenport and tell her stories. One day Nell frightens Eva’s friends away, and her life becomes miserable until her Grandfather the Captain arrives one day in the steamboat and gives her a new doll in a cardboard box.
Eva says she has been expecting Numa to arrive because Mr Peppercorn had come back one day and told her. She plays happily with Numa, but Nell grows worried when Eva says that when she plays with Numa, sometimes Numa puts her in the box.
The Cicerones by Robert Aickman: James Trant enters the Cathedral of Saint Bavon in Belgium at 11:30 in the morning, aware that if the traditions of other cathedrals are followed, he might have only half an hour to explore it before the staff push everyone out and close the doors on them for lunch. He’s disconcerted by the sight of a priest wearing bright robes, slumped over a preacher’s cushion with a nimbus of spiky hair. A young man reassures him, and Trant goes on to view some paintings. He meets other ‘cicerones’ and sees some increasingly grisly art depicting the martyrdom of the saints. At the end, he’s encircled by his guides and a young man tells him he must leave. He protests, but no one hears him, especially after they start singing. I’ve read this one a few times over the years. I’m not really sure why.
Gone Away by A E Coppard: John Lavenham and his wife Mary are travelling through France in a fast car with their morose and argumentative friend Anson. The day is bright and the view almost unnaturally clear and apart from Anson seeming to be in the depths of depression and wanting a copy of The Times, it could be the perfect day for touring the French countryside; then they reach The Bridge of the Hump-backed Donkey, and in the distance they see someone letting off fireworks in the mid-day heat. A little way past the sign, John notices that the milometer has gone wrong; it’s recorded 9000 miles that morning, and keeps going even when the car has stopped. The mile stones are rather strange, too, telling them that they’re "1000 miles from there", without indicating where "there" might be. Eventually they come to a town where Anson knows a shop where they can get the newspaper he wants. He ends up getting out of the car, and it will come as no surprise that he doesn’t come back. This story wends its quiet way to a predictable but mildly effective end.
Esmeralda by John Keir Cross: Felix Broome has grown to hate his wife Nancy. They live over his small, bright tobacconist shop, and he loves to sample the dolly mixtures and read the stories in
Peg’s Companion. His is a life that would be the envy of any small boy or girl; and that is precisely what’s missing, he believes. He and Nancy have never had a child. If only they could have had a little girl like the one that Felix saw onstage years before – pink and pretty, smiling, dressed in a diaphanous gown. A child like Esmeralda. Then Felix snaps and he realises that finally he’s free to begin his life over again, to live it as he’s dreamed. But very quickly he realises that another dream has also come true.
I thought this one was worth reading if only for the description of the tobacconist shop, which is a real delight. As a horror story it works well, too.
Governor Manco and the Soldier by Washington Irving: A soldier appears on The Mountain of the Sun near Granada, and is soon ushered into the presence of Governor Manco. The soldier has a bag of gold and fabulous jewels on him, and Manco demands to know where he got it. The general suspicion is that the soldier has been looting churches. The soldier tells a story of making camp one night by a ruined tower and being surprised by a horseman in Moorish garb. The man invites the soldier to ride with him, and soon they are entering a cavern with hordes of other Moorish soldiers; there the soldier learns that the warlord Boabdil is preparing to emerge from the mountain at the head of an army to wipe out Manco’s command. It’s an elegantly told little piece, but I don’t think it’s of much interest to most readers of ghost stories.
Old Mrs Jones by Mrs Riddell: Here’s where I have to admit that I simply couldn’t read a story. Aickman says that Riddell was one of the Victorian ladies “’who lived by their pen’ in no uncertain, and certainly no effortless way”. The story is certainly a social document with its descriptions of life then; the observations of a woman’s life in a home in a small village, spent hard at work cleaning, polishing and blacking seem taken from first-hand experience. It’s the story of young Richard Tippens who proudly takes possession of old Dr Jones’ house. Tippens is a good enough man, sometimes generous, with a pretty wife; his one fault it that he’s a bit too fond of another ‘go’ of rum. But before long their handyman, Michael, warns Mrs Tippens about old Mrs Jones:
“She troubles everybody that tried to live in the house you’re so set up with. Why, the last people did not stop a fortnight. It’s well-known she walks the place over, from the second floor down; and if you take my advice, you won’t go into the back-cellar alone after night.” Maybe I was just in the wrong mood to read this piece.
My personal favourites here are Cram’s
The Dead Valley, W C Morrow’s
Over an Absinthe Bottle and Grubb’s
Where the Woodbine Twineth. The stories by Gerald Bullett and John Keir Cross are also worth looking at. I've enjoyed Aickman's stories and anthologies; but this anthology does feel like a weak one, and if Aickman was an unpopular editor, this certainly helps to explain it – this anthology certainly has pieces that haven’t worn too well with the years – but for me, those three stories make it a book well worth owning.
Paisley Cravat:
Hello. I've just started reading this one, and I thought I'd let you have some of my thoughts on it as I go along.
I love the cover. Presumably it's meant to depict the titular Mrs Jones of Charlotte Riddell's story, but I haven't got to that one yet. That is a seriously creepy bug-eyed old lady. She reminds me of one who tried to strike up a conversation with me once in a launderette.
Levitation - Pretty much a masterclass in the very short horror story. A scary idea presented with great economy and not a wasted word.
Dearth's Farm - I absolutely love this story. Bullett's chatty style is sheer joy to read. I can't vouch for how Creeps-like it is, having never encountered any of that series, but it struck me as very Bensonesque, which is one of the highest compliments I can give. By the way, I read in the Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror & the Supernatural that Bullett only wrote one other supernatural tale, 'The Elder'. Does anybody know of any anthology appearances it might have made?demonik:
Hi Paisley. Sadly it looks as though The Elder has been overlooked by anthologists in favour of the excellent Dearth's Farm. From the Penguin Encyclopedia ... entry - "an eerie piece set in a deserted village where the central character is slowly revealed to be the ghost of a mass murderer" - you get the feeling that Hugh Lamb would have used it eventually if only he was still active in the field.
You probably have met with some stories from the Creeps, especially if you've read The 3rd Pan Book Of Horror Stories which, as mentioned before (to the point of tedium 
) is like a starter pack for the series.Paisley Cravat:
My main memory of Pan 3 is the story about the man with the octopus inside him - 'The Shifting Growth', I think it was called -is that an old Creeps tale?
Anyway, on with Fontana 7:
Esmeralda: A marvellously depressing tale of conjugal disenchantment. It doesn't really go anywhere shocking, but as with Aickman's own stories, it's the mood that's the important thing rather than anything as straightforward as plot.
The Dead Valley: It starts like a jolly fairy tale, but you know from the moment the little dog appears that it will meet some grisly fate. The increasingly oppressive and slightly illogical nature of this story makes it feel more like a nightmare than pretty much anything else I've read.
The Visit to the Museum: I enjoyed the slightly sinister absurdity of this story, but it's doubtful that a writer less respected than Nabokov would have been able to get away with such a downright odd ending.demonik:
The Shifting Growth is a Thrill, same era ('thirties) as The Creeps, the common consensus being that the Thrills are of literary merit. I like both series' but prefer Creeps, probably because I'm illiterate but mainly because the Thrills are a mixture of Horror, Supernatural, Crime and Detection whereas the Creeps concentrate on horror.
John Keir Cross's Esmeralda is also a favourite and his The Other Passenger collection is more of the same, slightly skewed, surreal horror. He reputedly tried to summon the Devil on a BBC radio show once - I keep hoping one of the Old Time Radio sites will exhume that as an mp3.
) is like a starter pack for the series.
