Twelve Tales of the Supernatural - Michael Cox

[jonathan122]

Twelve Tales of the Supernatural - ed. Michael Cox (OUP 1997)

Introduction
Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling - J. S. Le Fanu
A Terrible Vengeance - Mrs. J. H. Riddell
Number 13 - M. R. James
Railhead - Perceval Landon
The Toll-House - W. W. Jacobs
The Face - E. F. Benson
The Tool - W. F. Harvey
"Look Up There" - H. Russell Wakefield
The Last Bouquet - Marjorie Bowen
In Due Course - Sir Andrew Caldecott
A Christmas Game - A. N. L. Munby
Florinda - Shamus Frazer

Very sad to hear about the death of Michael Cox last week. I haven't read either of his novels, but he published some fine anthologies, including this and its companion volume, Twelve Victorian Ghost Stories. (Richard Dalby also published Twelve Gothic Stories, in the same series.)

[ripper]

Just thumbing through this one last night and read a couple of tales for the first time.

Railhead by Perceval Landon: Being a fan of Landon's 'Thurnley Abbey' I was hoping for something as good. Well, I have to say I was a little disappointed. A story of a friend of a friend's experience of being saved from being robbed by a telegram machine that shouldn't be able to work. This, I thought, was only so-so. Rather bland and forgettable.

The Last Bouquet by Marjorie Bowen: Two twin sisters who detest each other. One is a prematurely-aged 'gentlewoman' of impeccable reputation, who stayed at home to look after her parents and is now mistress of a large, English country house. The other ran away at 16 with an army officer and ended up on the stage in Paris (the hussy!), and uses lots of make-up, hair-tint and expensive clothes to maintain an impression of youth, though is fighting a losing battle to keep her acting roles and admirers. The sisters meet in a Paris hotel and all the old bitterness quickly surfaces, and they part with mutual hopes of not ever meeting again. But they are two sides of the same coin and their fates are inextricably interwoven. A sad tale, with each sister hating the other but secretly yearning for a little of what the other has, and not being able to come to terms with it. This is more of a character study with supernatural elements tacked on and I thought it would have worked equally without them.

[dem bones]

Mrs Rivers's Journal, reprinted in Hugh Lamb's Gaslit Nightmares II, is a decent murder melodrama, but the general consensus of those who've read Perceval Landon's ultra-rare collection, Raw Edges, is that Thurnley Abbey is head and shoulders above everything else he wrote. David G. Rowlands, for example, appraising Raw Edges in Part 4 of his regular Warning To The Curious column in Ghosts & Scholars, advised that, with the possible exception of Mrs. Rivers' Journal, the little supernatural content contained therein pales against his one great moment and is not worth the considerable outlay.

Don't have a copy of Twelve Tales Of The Supernatural, but have read all the stories bar Langdon's, and it looks a strong selection, even if the LeFanu, EFB and, especially M.R. James stories have been over-anthologised. Florinda is brilliant!

[ripper]

I can see why 'Thurnley Abbey' is the most anthologised of Landon's tales if 'Railhead' is more representative of his work. A pity he couldn't reproduce the quality of 'Thurnley Abbey' more often.