Richard Dalby - Shivers For Christmas

[allthingshorror]

Micheal O' Mara (1995)


Bob Harvey


CONTENTS:

The Discovery of the Treasure Isles - Amelia Edwards
Asher's Last Hour - George Manville Fenn
The Christmas Banquet - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Wolves of Cernogratz - 'Saki'
Ganthony's Wife - E. Temple Thurston
Mr Huffman - Hugh Walpole
Jeremiah - Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Two Teturns - Terry Lamsley
Billy Drops In - Jill Drower
Sweet Chiming Bells - Roger Johnson
Fancy That! - Stephen Gallagher
Twenty Pence with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting - Terry Pratchett
The Bommie and the Drop-Off - Richard Adams
The Ferry - Joan Aiken
The Maid - Jane Beeson
It Will All Be Over By Christmas - Alan McMurray

[ripper]

I could never really warm to Terry Pratchett's novels. I know he was very popular but that kind of fiction has just never appealed to me at all. However, I have to say that Pratchett's story in this anthology really hooked me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A very unusual tale.

[dem bones]

Richard Dalby [ed.] - Shivers for Christmas (Michael O'Mara, 1995)

Bob Harvey

Amelia Edwards - The Discovery of the Treasure Isles
George Manville Fenn - Asher's Last Hour
Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Christmas Banquet
'Saki' - The Wolves of Cernogratz
E. Temple Thurston - Ganthony's Wife
Hugh Walpole - Mr Huffman
Jessica Amanda Salmonson - Jeremiah
Terry Lamsley - Two Returns
Jill Drower - Billy Drops In
Roger Johnson - Sweet Chiming Bells
Stephen Gallagher - Fancy That!
Terry Pratchett - Twenty Pence with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting
Richard Adams - The Bommie and the Drop-Off
Joan Aiken - The Ferry
Jane Beeson - The Maid
Alan McMurray - 'It Will All Be Over By Christmas'


Blurb:
Christmas is traditionally the season of carols, holly, mince pies and roaring log fires. It is the season of good will to all men. Gathered here, as an antidote to these heart-warming pleasures, is a selection of stories guaranteed to freeze you to the marrow. Ghosts, wolves, journeys into other dimensions, exorcism and rats are all set to transport you from the comfort of a warm hearth to a place where your bones will be chilled.

The stories in this collection range from classic tales by acknowledged masters of the macabre such as Saki, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Hugh Walpole to stories by modern masters such as Stephen Gallagher and Terry Pratchett. There are also stories which have been specially written for this collection. Notably, Richard Adams has written a spine-chiller, which tells the tale of a strange and alien encounter in the silent depths of the sea, and Stephen Gallagher reveals the perfect Christmas present to give a special friend.

You should also be prepared to be haunted by Joan Aiken's eerie tale of revenge set in bleak Ferry House, and to travel back in time, in Amelia B Edwards' Victorian tale, to a supernatural island. Allow Terry Pratchett to take you on a coach journey into his own nightmarish version of the Yuletide season, or be shocked by Jane Beeson's sinister tale set in the cold and unforgiving landscape of Dartmoor.
This collection of ghoulish delights is the perfect 'Christmas stocking' bulging with surprises, shocks and most important of all, shivers.

Near enough equally split between reprints and stories either very recent or original to this collection. Hugh Walpole's Mr. Huffman and E. Temple Thurston's Ganthony's Wife most recently saw revival in Lucy Evans & Tanya Kirk's Sunless Solstice: Strange Christmas Tales for the Longest Nights (British Library, Oct 2021).

Alan McMurray - 'It Will All Be Over By Christmas': Autumn, 1914. As he leaves to fight in France, Harry MacDonald reminds Isabella and twelve-year-old Tom that all the papers are agreed — this war is won before it's even fought. Never fear, he'll be back home driving his milk-float at Christmas.

Joan Aiken - The Ferry: Judith and Ken retire to a house on a Cornish riverside, from which once operated a ferry service. Local tradition has it that, one Christmas Eve a previous resident, Mother Poysey, was swum as a witch and drowned. Her ghost returns in winter to offer free transport across the water. Those who accept her kind offer will not be seeing in the new year.

Stephen Gallagher - Fancy That!: Christmas Eve, and white van man has been so rushed off his feet he's not had time to find a present for his Lucy. Then he spots the business sign. 'Fancy Rats for Sale.' A Godsend.

Richard Adams - The Bommie and the Drop-Off; He saved hard for this, but our narrator's dream scuba-dive off the coral reef turns to nightmare when, eighty feet beneath the waves, he finds a close relative of the Gill-man at his shoulder.

[dem bones]

Terry Lamsley - Two Returns: (Under the Crust: Supernatural Tales of Buxton, 1993). Mr. Rudge, 69, is returning home from an exhausting day's Christmas shopping. Sat on the station platform, the retired schoolteacher is aware of a tall, caped man glaring at him from the shadows before vanishing into the wall. On arriving at Buxton, Rudge glimpses the same figure in silhouette, rushing past him toward the exit, and again up ahead on the street. Home at last, he finds the discarded cape hanging on the coat-stand ....

Early best of book contender - a quiet-ish ghost story builds to a not altogether pleasant conclusion. It will take something exceptional among those not yet read to better it.

I enjoyed this next, too.

Jill Drower - Billy Drops In: Unfairly sacked from his job as a department store Santa on Christmas Eve, Billy 'squirrel' Squires realizes that going straight is a mugs game. Best to stick at what he's good at — burglary. And besides, it's not as if he's concerned about getting caught, as he misses his prison mates. A few pints in The Green Man, Tooting, and he's ready for action.

Four decades on, and, just moved in to a detached house around the corner from the pub, Robert readies the lovely old fireplace as a present for wife Sarah.

Jane Beeson - The Maid: A small headstone at a crossroads near Hedge Barton on Dartmoor commemorates 'Jay', an unmarried mother who hung herself in an outbuilding on Canna farm. The barn is haunted by her baby's cry.

[dem bones]

Allen Koszowski Jeremiah, Harmless Ghosts, 1990).

Jessica Amanda Salmonson - Jeremiah: (Harmless Ghosts, 1990). A dying Alzheimer's victim, who misinterprets his wife's final act of compassion as murder, returns to haunt her throughout every Christmas for fifteen years. Mrs Gretta Adamson confides in Miss Penelope Pettiweather, occult investigator, who is moved to intervene, only to woefully underestimate the all-consuming malevolence of her adversary. As told by Penelope in a letter to her friend and fellow ghost finder, Jane Bradshawe, church restorer (see Ro Pardoe & Mary Anne Allen's The Angry Dead).

Roger Johnson - Sweet Chiming Bells : "You must treat the bells with respect, or they could turn against you." Death late on Christmas Eve in the bell tower of a Yorkshire parish church, the recently arrived young priest felled by a fatal heart attack while "ringing the Old Lad's passing bell" to keep the Devil in his grave another year. The ritual requires that an exact number of strokes - approaching two thousand - be rung by midnight. Distracted by the tragedy, the team have lost count!

The late Father Edward's widow leaves the district, consumed by guilt that she ever ridiculed the tradition. An unseen companion haunts her to an early grave within a year.

[dem bones]

George Manville Fenn - Asher's Last Hour: (Christmas Penny Readings, 1867). Christmas Eve, and Asher Skurge, the parish clerk, is threatening to evict the widow Bond and starving nippers unless she comes up with the rent by 4pm. Fortunately for all, by mid-afternoon, Skurge is the worst for a pint of his disgusting hallucinogenic home brew. Winding the church clock, the heartless skinflint is set upon and bound by gloating invisible pixies, who advise that his skull will be smashed by the huge iron bell in precisely 60 minutes.

Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Christmas Banquet: (United States Magazine & Democratic Review, Dec, 1843). An indoor Olympics for misanthropes. A skeleton hosts a festive feast of ill-cheer in honour of the ten most miserable people on earth. As met in Peter Haining's Great Tales of Terror from Europe & America.

'Saki' - The Wolves of Cernogratz: (The Morning Post, 7 Jan. 1913). When a member of the Cernogratz family dies, it is said that the wolves come down from the hills to mourn them and a great tree falls in the forest. The insufferable Countess and her equally arrogant brother don’t believe the legend, nor their governess, Amalie’s insistence that she is the last of the bloodline.

[helrunar]

Thanks for these, Dem. This morning I read "The Wolves of Cernogratz," a Saki tale that had somehow eluded me in the past. Though a rather minor entry, I thought it had some very deftly accomplished moments.

How awful that he died in that stupid, massively wasteful war. "Put out that damned cigarette!" or something along those lines were reportedly his last words.

H.

[andydecker]

May 17, 2022 17:07:26 GMT helrunar said:

Thanks for these, Dem. This morning I read "The Wolves of Cernogratz," a Saki tale that had somehow eluded me in the past. Though a rather minor entry, I thought it had some very deftly accomplished moments.

How awful that he died in that stupid, massively wasteful war. "Put out that damned cigarette!" or something along those lines were reportedly his last words.

H.

Hope Hodgson also comes to mind.

[dem bones]

Amelia Edwards - The Discovery of the Treasure Isles: (Every Boy’s Magazine, March 1864). 26th October 1760. Trading schooner The Mary Jane sets sail from Bristol to Jamaica. It's Captain William Burton's first command, and he's determined to impress ... until an encounter in ghostly mist with a large brig, The Adventure, turns his head. Burton's counterpart aboard The Adventure informs him that his ship is returning from the Treasure Isles — unclaimed, uncharted, uninhabited — with enough gold, silver and monster jewels to see each of the crew through an eternity of lifetimes. Unmoved by the ghastly laughter of the eerie captain and crew, Burton changes course for the mystery island. The first mate doesn't like it — "I have sailed in these latitudes these past fifteen years, your honour, and I'll take my Bible oath there are no such islands." Burton, alas, is beyond reason. He lowers a boat and, accompanied by a loyal seaman, rows for the shore. His companion is lost when the small craft is wrecked on the breakers. Washed up on land, Burton ransacks the first ruin he reaches, returns to the rock with his treasure, only to find The Mary Jane a slimy, mouldering derelict! And then, he captures a reflection in the water ....

Terry Pratchett - Twenty Pence with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting: (Time Out, 16. Dec 1987). December 24th 1843. The London mail carriage is lost in a snow blizzard at Silbury, Wiltshire, passes through a portal into a nightmare world of sinister stringed lights, gigantic wineglasses, beribboned cats, a monstrous robin and strange, painted placards bearing verse of "menacing banality" from 'Snugglebottom, 'your little Willy,' and 'all at the office.' He who lives to tell the tale — the coachman — does so at the expense of his sanity. Even as Dr. Thos. Lunn files his report, news reaches the local press of strange and terrible happenings across the South West. Christmas is coming to kill us all.

After giving it a miss for years, I enjoyed Shivers almost as much as Ghosts for Christmas and Chillers for Christmas. Personal stand-outs, Two Returns, Billy Drops In and the rematch with Jeremiah.