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Post by weirdmonger on Aug 24, 2022 15:49:43 GMT
There seems to be something transcending about the above A.C. Benson work, a story unread by me till today. Something I was not expecting.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 24, 2022 16:16:17 GMT
There seems to be something transcending about the above A.C. Benson work, a story unread by me till today. Something I was not expecting. Actually, I had this idea first! Or at least before I read Benson's story.
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Post by weirdmonger on Aug 28, 2022 16:19:18 GMT
THE SLYPE HOUSE by A.C. Benson “…the silence of emptiness, but such silence as may be heard when unseen things are crowding quietly to a closed door, expecting it to be opened, and as it were holding each other back.” …and that in the context evoked a huge frisson, if a frisson can indeed be huge. We learn of Anthony’s dark backstory, his reputation in the community, his making of mechanical toys, including ‘a puppet that moved its arms and laughed’, his oriel casement in Slype House overlooking the local church with a vantage point upon what the priest handles on the altar, and of Anthony’s own secret locked room with a different altar, where, one night, in a dark mood, using instruments of ritual, he tries to summon his beloved mother, with descriptions implying perhaps he was a bit of what some people may call a mummy’s boy, I guess, but instead he is sent on a narrow journey where two forces fight over him. He recovers back in his bed in Slype with what the doctor deems to have been a stroke, but whether a stroke of luck or otherwise, I felt as uncertain as Anthony also seems to feel by a sense of whatever did still “dwell by him” at the end, as he “awaited his end.” That casement conveying two words of something that felt like a hopeless spyhole, both these words being within ‘Slype House’, I spy.
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Post by helrunar on Aug 28, 2022 20:57:18 GMT
Intriguing about the Slype House anagrams. Gorgeous page. You just don't see fonts of that calibre very often in books nowadays.
H.
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Post by weirdmonger on Aug 29, 2022 7:40:38 GMT
Intriguing about the Slype House anagrams. Gorgeous page. You just don't see fonts of that calibre very often in books nowadays. H. And, as well as a spiritual spyhole, a premonition of Skype as horrible modern spyhole, too! Perhaps!
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Post by dorisvsutherland on Jul 29, 2023 7:07:51 GMT
The Benson brothers are a current research project of mine, and I recently did some detective work on the publication history of the stories in R. H. Benson's 1907 collection A Mirror of Shalott: isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?444371The usually-reliable ISFDB gives no earlier publication details for any of the stories included, indicating that each one made its debut in 1907. However, Benson’s introduction mentions that most of the stories had previously been published in the Ecclesiastical Review. I could find no further details on this matter — until I started looking up individual issues of the Ecclesiastical Review at Archive.org (where it’s listed under the longer title of the American Ecclesiastical Review): archive.org/details/pub_american-ecclesiastical-reviewSo, for the benefit of anyone who might happen to be interested, here’s the publication history of the stories: Ecclesiastical Review April 1906 (vol 34 no 4) 1: Monsignor Maxwell’s Story Ecclesiastical Review May 1906 (vol 34 no 5) 2: Father Meuron’s Tale… Ecclesiastical Review June 1906 (vol 34 no 6) 3: Father Brent’s Tale Ecclesiastical Review July 1906 (vol 35 no 1) 4: The Father Rector’s Story Ecclesiastical Review August 1906 (vol 35 no 2) 5: Father Bianchi’s Story 6: Father Jenks’s Tale Ecclesiastical Review September 1906 (vol 35 no 3) 7: Father Martin’s Tale Ecclesiastical Review October 1906 (vol 35 no 4) 8: Father Macclesfield’s Tale Ecclesiastical Review November 1906 (vol 35 no 6) 9: Father Stein’s Tale 10: Mr. Percival’s Tale Ecclesiastical Review December 1906 (vol 35 no 7) 11: My Own Tale The collected edition adds three additional stories: Father Gridlestone’s Tale, Mr. Bosanquet’s Tale and Father Maddox’s Tale; I’m not clear on the history of these pieces. In his introduction, Benson mentions that one of the stories ran in a publication called the Catholic Fireside, but that can be a research topic for another day. A couple of minor details I noticed: while the titles of the stories sometimes used “Story” rather than “Tale”, the Kindle edition of A Mirror for Shallot that I own standardises them to “Tale” (although the listing on ISFDB uses the tale/story mixture, so I'm not sure when the change was made). Meanwhile, the collection splits off the early portion of the first story into a prologue. Are the stories any good? Don’t ask me — I’ve spent so much time digging into their publication history that I haven’t been able to read them yet.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 29, 2023 16:28:07 GMT
Thanks for sharing this, Doris.
Have read, and enjoyed, four of the above in various shared anthologies, where I'd imagine they work best. Think I attempted the Dennis Wheatley Occult Library edition of The Necromancers too, but can't remember anything about it other than finding the thing a slog. Good luck with your various projects.
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Post by helrunar on Jul 30, 2023 17:02:11 GMT
Nice work. The stories sound like Catholic propaganda but then, that's true of so many horror films and older exemplars of a certain vein of horror fiction.
I did read some heavily "Cathy Catholicka, in the box from three to four" (to quote a certain once-upon-a-time Scots Laird) in the "Rev." Summers Supernatural Omnibus, and even with some ridiculous bits of window-dressing, the tales were far more entertaining than I would have imagined. I forget the author's name now--one of the stories involved some sort of gazing-globe that had been an altar object in a "diabolical" Pagan rite somewhere in Renaissance Italy. It was just a bit of fun.
So anyhow perhaps I should try Father Benson's stories out sometime. I've heard they're rather bland but who knows.
Hel.
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