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Post by dem on Nov 22, 2009 10:10:37 GMT
R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) - The 15th Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories (1979)  Alan Lee
W. Somerset Maugham - The Man From Glasgow
Peter A. Hough - Master Of Hounds
Anonymous - The Dead Man Of Varley Grange
Daphne Froome - Christmas Entertainment
E. Nesbit - John Charrington's Wedding
Margaret Chilvers Cooper - The Primrose Connection
Sir Richard Burton - The Saving Of A Soul
Rosemary Timperley - No Living Man So Tall ...
'Sapper' - The House By The Headland
W. MacQueen-Pope - Drury Lane Ghost
Sydney J. Bounds - The Night Walkers
Vincent O'Sullivan - The Business Of Madame Jahn
James Fisher - Here Today ...
David E. Rose - White Christmas
Frances Stephens - Only Child
Fritz Hopman - The Bearer Of The Message
Meg Buxton - The Herb Garden
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Hanging Tree'Sapper' - The House By The Headland: ( The Sovereign Magazine, March 1920): Our pub-crawling narrator in Harris Tweeds is caught in a fierce thunderstorm on the South Western moors and seeks shelter in a remote, seemingly derelict house. It's a splendidly gloomy place - all cobwebs, dust and darkness - and the same might be said of the cadaverous host, Rupert Carlingham, who creeps up on him as if from nowhere. Carlingham, clearly mad, has come home early to catch his far younger, pretty wife Mary at it with her lover, John Trelawnay. Our narrator is powerless to intervene as an afternoon of real-life melodrama, murder and suicide is replayed before his horrified eyes ... Sydney J. Bounds – The Night Walkers: Two years into their marriage and with disillusion setting in on both sides – he drinks too much, she’s no longer a dolly-bird – Roger and Jan take a holiday on the canal. It doesn’t help any. The locals at The Swan urge them to avoid Dead Man’s Loch on account of its dreadful reputation locally. Several people have drowned at the spot and their ghosts – the Night Walkers – “like company”. So, naturally, Rog steers the Sister Rose straight toward it. Anonymous – The Dead Man Of Varley Grange: Westernshire. When young Henderson takes over the Grange, he unwisely invites eight friends to spend the Christmas holiday with him. Prior to his arrival the property had remained vacant for years due to the dreadful family curse as it is reputed that, some centuries ago, Captain Varley murdered his sister after she fled the Convent and ran off with her lover. Now their phantoms stalk the Grange and if you’re unfortunate enough to see the dead nun’s face you die within the year! Daphne Froome – Christmas Entertainment: Fusty old Professor Harold Conway is imposed upon to give over his cottage to host the Christmas party for the children of the college staff. By way of entertainment, he settles on giving the youngsters a thrill with a spectre fashioned from a dummy and mirrors. He models his “ghost” on the cottage’s previous owner, his old sparring partner Sir Arthur Stanbrock with whom he fell out over their conflicting beliefs toward the supernatural. The illusion is rather more successful than he’d prepared for and unleashes a vicious poltergeist. R. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Hanging Tree: Christmas with the Fortesque family and friends, and the young, romantically inclined Movita is busy spinning fantasies around the family ghost, that of a young man who killed his lover then hung himself from a tree in the garden during the previous century. Her insistence that she’s seen him has the household despairing for her sanity, all save Miss Mansfield who realised Movita is psychic and inadvisedly intervenes on her behalf. E. Nesbit – John Charrington’s Wedding: Brixham. The village belle May Forster, finally gives in to the persistent John Charrington and accepts his marriage proposal. It is clear to all the villagers that she’s loved him all along, and as for John, “My dear, I believe I should come back from the grave if you wanted me.” Which, as it turns out … Come the wedding day and, while the best man kicks his heels at the station awaiting Charrington’s return from a mercy dash to a sick relative, the wedding goes ahead and a terrified May is hustled into the carriage by her corpse groom as the bells sound the death knell … Rosemary Timperley – No Living Man So Tall … : When the firm went bust, Alan lost his direction and now, unemployed and isolated, he’s drowning himself in drink. The last thing he needs is this stranger, “Blackbeard” to sidle up to him in the pub and launch into a tirade about social security “scroungers”. Walking along the riverside – for all Alan’s being a drain on decent tax-paying folk Blackbeard insists on tagging along with him – the rage and frustration builds up inside our man and he commits his first act of violence: he pushes the arrogant bigot into the water and walks on. Its only later that he wonders if Blackbeard got out safely … ‘
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Post by dem on Nov 23, 2009 17:44:22 GMT
Peter A. Hough - Master Of Hounds: Twenty years ago, Dover House was a thriving concern, the centre of the Norfolk hunting community, but now Colonel Mandersby can barely keep the place going and, where once he had an army of servants to do this bidding, now there is only the faithful Anderson, once field-master to his Master of Hounds. Local hack Paul Garner of The Echo approaches the Colonel about a piece on stately homes, how the rich lived, etc, although what he's really after is sensationalism. Mandersby obliges him with the story of his favourite foxhound, Thor, the undisputed leader of the pack who, after an unjust beating from the Colonel, lead the hounds into Dingle Wood Swamp. The look of hatred in Thor's eyes as he went under suggested to Mandersby that the dog had counted on his master following them all into the death trap. Ever since that wretched Autumn day, bad fortune and impending ruination are not the only things to have haunted Colonel Mandersby . Garner, needless to say, takes him for a senile old git - whoever heard of a dog committing suicide? - but is forced to revise his opinion on his next visit to the house .... Peter Hough would go on to write for various small press titles - Dark Dreams, Fantasy Tales, Eldritch Tales - but he's probably now best known for his several non-fiction ghost and mystery books, often in collaboration with Jenny Randles, including Supernatural Lancashire, Strange But True, World's Best True UFO Stories, Spontaneous Human Combustion, The Truth About Alien Abductions, etc. Vincent O'Sullivan - The Business Of Madame Jahn: Events leading to the suicide by hanging of bank clerk Gustave Herbout only a week after he inherited the considerable wealth and property of his despised, pious aunt, Madame Jahn. Everyone is shocked. Gustave had been very poor at the time of her murder, having lost heavily at the racetrack, and now, with everything to look forward to, he takes his life! Perhaps it was that he was overwhelmed with grief. It's not as if he stabbed the old biddy because she wouldn't die quickly enough for his liking, as a pair of servants are already on their way to the guillotine for that one. O'Sullivan did very well in the Which Authors Would You Most Like To See Published In The Wordsworth Mystery & Supernatural Series? poll with ten votes and a 'Mystery & the Supernatural' selection would be a treat! David E. Rose - White Christmas: Short, sad mood piece. After a long illness, Louise at last feels well again just in time to enjoy Christmas Day and all its lovely surprises. Cut to a snowbound churchyard where a funeral is in progress .... Somerset Maugham - The Man From Glasgow: When the narrator meets Robert Morrison he finds him contagiously jumpy and takes him for a chronic alcoholic. Morrison is returning home after spending "too long" in Spain where he's been managing an olive grove. In the centre of the grove stands a derelict house and it is the sound of dreadful laughter and screams emanating from this place which haunt him. A madman had his throat slit within that house twenty years earlier, and the murder is reenacted on nights of the full moon. Morrison hopes that by putting an ocean between himself and San Lorenzo, he will no longer hear the lunatic laughter ... Fritz Hopman - The Bearer Of The Message: Moscow, 1869 and a young French doctor is called away from a Congress of Medicine at the palace by a beautiful young woman who implores him to attend a dangerously ill relative. After a seemingly endless coach journey, they arrive at a country inn whereupon his companion promptly vanishes! The girl who answers his knock is as perplexed as he. She and her father live alone and neither are ill. But later that night, the father's heart gives out. The doctor recognises his mysterious companion from her portrait on the wall. It is the girl's mother who died in childbirth.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 15, 2009 19:32:22 GMT
The cover's nicely painted, but hardly terrifying, is it? I can just see one of those pesky pooches strapping on a flying helmet and sitting on his kennel, ready to take on the Red Baron.
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