Richard Dalby – Victorian & Edwardian Ghosts

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Richard Dalby (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories (Robinson, 1995)

Introduction – Richard Dalby

Anon – Ghosts (verse)
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu – Schalken the Painter
Dinah Maria Mulock – M. Anastius
Fitz-James O’Brien – The Lost Room
Charles Dickens – No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman
Anon – Haunted
Henry James – The Romance of Certain Old Clothes
Mary E. Braddon – John Granger
Harriet Beecher Stowe – The Ghost in the Mill
Harriet Beecher Stowe – The Ghost in the Cap’n Brown House
Rhoda Broughton – Poor Pretty Bobby
Amelia B. Edwards – The New Pass
Erckmann-Chatrian – The White And The Black
John Berwick Harwood – The Underground Ghost
Frank Cowper – Christmas Eve On A Haunted Hulk
Theo Gift – Dog or Demon?
J. E. P. Muddock – A Ghost From The Sea
Richard Marsh – A Set of Chessmen
Bram Stoker – The Judge’s House
Grant Allen – Pallinghurst Barrow
E. Nesbit – The Mystery of the Semi-Detached
Ralph Adams Cram – Sister Maddelena
Lettice Galbraith – The Trainer’s Ghost
W. C. Morrow – An Original Revenge
Alice Perrin – Caulfield’s Crime
Robert W. Chambers – The Bridal Pair
Robert Benson – The Watcher
Thomas Nelson Page – The Spectre In The Cart
Sabine Baring-Gould – H. P.
Lafcadio Hearn – Yuki-Onna
M. R. James – The Ash-Tree
Allen Upward – The Story of the Green House, Wallington
A. C. Benson – The Slype House
Bernard Capes – A Ghost-Child
Alice Perrin – The Bead Necklace
Clive Pemberton – A Dead Man’s Bargain
Tom Gallon – The House That Was Lost
Henry James – The Jolly Corner
F. Marion Crawford – The Doll’s Ghost
Ambrose Bierce – The Moonlit Road
Alexander Harvey – The Forbidden Floor
E. Nesbit – The Shadow
William Hope Hodgson – The Gateway of the Monster

Includes;

Ralph Adams Cram – Sister Maddelena: Sta Catarina, a cliff-top mansion in Sicily, once served as home to a convent of Carmelite nuns. It is haunted by Sister Maddelena who only ever appears to guests, and even then, once she's informed them "I cannot sleep", vanishes to trouble them no more. What's her story? Well, she was originally Rosalie, promised, against her wishes, to the Kings's son, and betrayed by a servant as she was about to elope with the young military officer Michel Biscari. Her tyrant of a father, furious that she would dare stand in the way of his social climbing, had her imprisoned at Toledo for a year before finally accepting she wasn't going to change her mind. What else to do but put it about that she was dead and pack her off to a convent? Rosalie didn't care much by this point, believing her maniacal father's lie that Michel had been slain in battle, but all that was soon to change! The faithful Michel tracked her to the convent and, just as they were about to elope (again) the Mother Superior thwarted them. The spiteful old nun offered the young woman a choice; her life for Michel's. And that's how Rosalie, Sister Maddelena, came to be walled upright in a coffin-sized alcove.

In the hands of a 'Monk' Lewis, this would be a signal for the mob to burn down the convent and tear the vicious old trout to pieces, and Cram disappoints slightly by having the narrator, a Catholic, set Rosalie's tormented spirit free. But it's still good.

Lettice Galbraith – The Trainer’s Ghost: On the eve of the big race at Ebor, Slimmy the tout and his cronies from The Cat And Compass attempt to knobble the favourite to improve their own nag, The Ghoul's chances. They reckon without Ould Coulson, the trainer, fifteen years dead but still possessed of a competitive spirit.

W. C. Morrow – An Original Revenge: Bullied by an officer, Gratmar, a thoughtful young man unsuited to army life, commits suicide in spectacular fashion with the single, bloody-minded intention of returning from the grave to destroy his tormentor.

A bit flimsy for Morrow, who could be really horrible when he had the mind and certainly knew how to keep you reading, but rescued by a neat sting.

E. Nesbit - The Mystery of the Semi-Detached: A young man arranges to meet his intended wife at Crystal Palace. Having waited ages and, finding the door to her house open, he wanders in. There she is, sprawled on the bed, her throat slashed ear to ear! A policeman approaches just as he's throwing a fit on the pavement, takes him for a drunk and treats him to night in the cell. The following morning he tells his story at court and the kindly officer visits the house to check upon the young lady's health. She's fine. So who was horribly murdered?

Grant Allen - Pallinghurst Barrow: Rudolph Reeve, a house-guest of the formidable Mrs. Bouverie-Barton at Pallinghurst Manor House, suffers a headache on the night of the Autumn Equinox. Prescribed cannabis by kindly Dr. Porter, a stoned Reeve somnambulates to Old Long Barrow where he encounters a ghostly tribe of savage Picts. Easily captured, he's taken to their King, a cannibal skeleton! Can he escape becoming this year's human sacrifice?

Clive Pemberton - A Dead Man’s Bargain: One from the smoking room, narrated by Harold, a fellow who's fine head of brown hair has turned white through the experience. Rueben Chelston, mad church organist, takes to attending spiritualist meetings. A visitor from the other side promises to teach him "such a melody the world has never yet heard", and possibly, "so stupendously unearthly as to be unfit for human ears!"

The next stormy night, Harold is alone in their Parish Church somewhere in the Midlands, when the church organ begins to play itself. It's a death march, such a melody the world has never yet heard, etc., so no prizes for guessing what happened to Ruebin earlier that evening. Not included in this book, but recently read another of Pemberton's, equally fun, "Purple Eyes": Young Bruce Denman of Stoke Manor wishes to marry Dorothea Hastings but, despite being very fond of the young lady, his father the Squire will not grant his blessing to their nuptials. It all comes down to Bruce's grandfather, who lost his temper with a fakir while garrisoned in India.

"On the daughter of Colonel Tredecar — your mother — Gurlah Khan foretold that she would die in giving birth to a son, but that her son would live and be the father of a child with purple eyes! And that child would do something that would make the father curse the hour it was born. Bruce"—the old man lowered his voice to an awed whisper—"your dear mother did die the day you were born!"
"But, sir," protested Bruce: "it was chance - coincidence. The fakir could have had nothing to do with that."
"Bruce," returned the old man, solemnly, "I tell you that it is not to be scoffed at or treated lightly. These medicine men — these Indian fakirs possess uncanny powers that are beyond the understanding, but which cannot be disputed."

Naturally, Bruce takes no notice of the old fogey's ludicrous superstitions and goes ahead with his plans. A child is born ....

F. Marion Crawford – The Doll’s Ghost: Belgravia. Lady Gwendoline Lancaster-Douglas-Scroop disfigures Nina her favourite doll in a fall downstairs. Being a practical child she sets to digging her a grave, but the under-nurse has other ideas and drops off the casualty at Mr. Pucker the doll doctor. The gentle old German performs a magnificent emergency salvage operation but grows so attached to Nina – she reminds him of his beloved daughter Else – that he finds parting with her too painful. Else is assigned the job of returning the doll to Cranston House but come midnight she’s still not returned home. Understandably distraught, Mr. Pucker scours the city for her, convinced that she’s been murdered. The doll’s ghost comes to his assistance ….

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Theo Gift – Dog or Demon?: Castle Kilmoyle, Kerry, 1878. Against his pregnant wife Lily's wishes, Captain Glennie assists the lord of the manor in evicting an aged squatter from a cottage on his estate. The old man proves a tenacious customer and it takes over half an hour to smoke him out, during which time a spark has lit the barn. Not only does he lose his home but his solitary companion, a dog as mangy as himself, is burned alive.

Lord Kilmoyle allows Glennie, Lily and the baby to keep the cottage for two years, rent free, as a token of his gratitude,. Lily hates to be away from England but the offer is too good to refuse. The Glennie's move in - whereupon the dead dog sets about systematically destroying them.

If you appreciate the grim likes of E. Nesbit's Uncle Abraham's Romance, you'll maybe agree that truly, this is Victorian supernatural fiction at it's miserable best!

Alice Perrin - Caulfield’s Crime: Caulfield, the finest shot in the Punjab, is as unpopular for his misanthrope as he's admired for bagging game, so the narrator is suitably flattered when he's invited to join him on one of his forays into the jungle. It's all going to plan .... until an emaciated old fakir deliberately scares off the wild geese in retaliation for Caulfield throwing a stone at him. Caulfield, true to form, shoots him down. The fakir's hideously repulsive face is even worse in death - neither man likes the look of it at all.

Dragging the dead man into the trees, they head off for a bite in the village as though nothings happened. But when they return to bury the poor devil, a jackal is feasting on his corpse. You can bet the fakir is not going to forgive and forget Caulfield in a hurry!

Robert Benson - The Watcher. Properly, quietly scary Pan horror of a different kind. The narrator is astonished when his Reverend companion bursts into tears at the sight of a dead mouse on the path. It stems from an incident in his childhood when he shot a thrush out of anger and sheer cruelty, then saw a terrible face leering at him in appreciation from the rhododendron bush.

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Alice Perrin - The Bead Necklace: Hayfield. Beautiful young Adela Roscoe loves the local clergyman's son. Chris Mortimer, but her father the Major has fallen on hard times and will only allow his prize "commodity" to marry money. Chris, all disgruntled, heads off to sea, determined to make a mint and return for his beloved. Her ghastly father has other idea's. He's cultivated the friendship of Sir Bennet Falcon, the notorious drunken lecher, and is set on shoving his daughter into his matrimonial bed. The Major has calculated that, the way Sir Falcon's going, he'll have drunk himself to death soon enough whereupon Adele will inherit all and keep him in the luxury he was once accustomed for the rest of his days!

Adela isn't one to disobey her disgusting father, and it looks like she's set to become Lady Falcon when the packet arrives. She recognises Chris's handwriting but much to her disappointment, there's no letter enclosed, just a hideous glass bead necklace. Her debauched husband-to-be knows it for what it is - a cannibal's fetish charm - and from that moment he falls to pieces. The same night he runs half-naked from the house, claiming to have seen the ghost of his once best friend. Seems Sir Falcon has a particularly lurid dark and guilty secret from his days on the South Sea Islands!

More top notch Victorian melodrama with a truly revolting twist. I'm beginning to love Alice Perrin. Turns out she even had the decency to write one called A Perverted Punishment, a Vault title if ever was. Richard Dalby has since edited a 15 story selection of her supernatural fiction, The Sistrum & Other Ghost Stories (Sarob, 2001), details as follows. Hello Wordsworth editions!

Richard Dalby - Introduction

Cauldfield's Crime (Belgravia Annual Dec, 1892)
In The Next Room (Belgravia Holiday Number, 1893)
Chunia, Ayah (East of Suez, Anthony Treherne, 1901)
The Sistrum (Red Records, Chatto & Windus, 1906)
Powers Of Darkness (Red Records, Chatto & Windus, 1906)
The Bead Necklace (Red Records, Chatto & Windus, 1906)
The Packet of Letters (Pall Mall Magazine, July 1904)
Footsteps In The Dust (Red Records, Chatto & Windus, 1906)
Moore (Red Records, Chatto & Windus, 1906)
Thirty Acres (Tales That Are Told, Skeffington, 1917)
The Miniature (Tales That Are Told, Skeffington, 1917)
The Admiral’s Dog (Tales That Are Told, Skeffington, 1917)
Old Ayah (Tales That Are Told, Skeffington, 1917)
The Brahminy Bull (Rough Passages, Cassell, 1936)
Ann White (Rough Passages, Cassell, 1936)

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Bernard Capes - A Ghost-Child: The angelic Tryphena's love is so great that she wills her drowned fiancé Jason from the ocean floor to celebrate what would have been their wedding night as intended. Nine months later, on Christmas morning, a miracle! Capes likely conceived this as a feel-good festive crowd-pleaser, but here is one morbid bastard would have much preferred another cut from the same cloth as A Gallows Bird.

J. B. Harwood - The Underground Ghost: A tourist, separated from the main party, finds himself utterly lost in the Cheshire salt mines, his lantern running on empty. A pale girl in distinctly non-mining apparel offers to escort him to the safety, but is she really leading him further and further in the opposite direction? Unfortunately not.

A. C. Benson - The Slype House: Mentioned elsewhere. Apprentice Necromancer Anthony Purvis attempts to communicate with spirits after thirty years retirement from the field. He succeeds only in drawing down an elemental, obliging his dead loved ones to fight for his soul.

[Shrink Proof]

The first 30 pieces in this book (up to & including "Yuki-Onna") were also published as "The Giant Book of Ghost Stories", edited by Richard Dalby.

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Similar thing with the first volume of his Mammoth Book Of Ghost Stories, Mr. Proof. Tiger brought out an instant remainder which prunes the last ten stories.

[Shrink Proof]

Of these I particularly liked Christmas Eve On A Haunted Hulk by Frank Cowper. It stood out a bit from the rest in that the way the story develops seemed more modern. The narrator goes off to spend Xmas with a friend who has recently been appointed curate of a Fenland parish; bleak, flat, marshy and isolated. He goes off duck shooting on his first full day (Xmas Eve) but without success as the ducks are all miles away. He finds a dinghy and paddles out onto a mere in the hope of getting within shooting range of the fowl.

After a while he comes across an abandoned hulk beached on a mudbank in the middle of the mere. He decides to scramble aboard and hole up there, using it as a hide from which to shoot. Having done so, the dinghy breaks free and drifts off, leaving him marooned on the wreck as night falls and rain sets in. Failing to attract attention by firing all his ammunition, and miles from anywhere, he has no option but to spend the night under cover below deck. Then he starts to hear footsteps & the sound of something heavy being dragged across the boards...

This one's highly atmospheric, probably given more authenticity because Cowper was both a sailing fanatic (he also wrote novels & non-fiction that were sailing themed) and also a pre-Raphaelite painter of some standing in his day. The other more modern aspect to it, compared to the other tales in the book, is that, in contrast to the traditional Victorian/Edwardian approach, nothing is ever really explained. There's none of the "he was killed exactly 100 years ago in this very room" stuff here.

[dem]

Thanks for taking us through that one, Mr. Proof. Richard Dalby clearly thinks highly of the story as he also included it in 1989's Chillers For Christmas (you can read it online at friend R. J. Warren's Amalgamated Brotherhood Of Spooks).The only other Frank Cowper ghost story i've been able to find is The Eve Of St. John In A Deserted Chalet (Blackwood's, July 1891) via Jessica Amanda Salmonson's The Haunted Wherry And Other Rare Ghost Stories. It concerns a tourist climbing a particularly treacherous slope in the Swiss Alps. Naturally, being English, he dispenses with any thought of a guide, loses all sense of direction, falls over a ravine and sustains a serious head injury. All seems lost until he spots a light in the distance. Exhausted and freezing, he drags himself onward only to find the chalet abandoned, pitch dark and reeking of decay, it's one notable feature a rusty iron bath-tub with what he takes to be a sack of twigs propped against it. He props himself against a wall, has just fallen asleep, when ....

Admittedly, the denouement has more than a touch of the "he was killed exactly 100 years ago in this very room" about it, but it's exceptionally good with a genuinely unpleasant ghost.

Richard Marsh - A Set of Chessmen: Eccentric recluse M. Auguste Funchon was a "chessmaniac" to such an extent that he forgot to eat and ultimately starved to death. Marsh acquires the deceased's favourite set for a snip and challenges superstitious room-mate to a game. Mildly hilarious hijinks ensue as the spectre of M. Funchon manipulates both players through an eccentric contest. More fun than it sounds.

Sabine Baring-Gould - H. P.: Reads like a caveman variation on Poe's Some Words With A Mummy. The narrator is heading an archaeological dig on the Limousin when a tunnel collapses, leaving him stranded overnight with a centuries old skeleton and it's spectral custodian. 'Homo Prehistoricus' lets it be known in no uncertain terms that he will not have his bones displayed in a museum. Rev. Baring-Gould ranking among the least PC of the Victorian ghost set, it's not long before the pair get into a discussion about women and how to treat 'em. The archaeologist concedes that prehistoric man had the right idea.

Tom Gallon – The House That Was Lost: Paul Jenner sets out to post a letter during the thickest London fog he's ever known. All he need do is follow the railings to the pillar box at the end of his street but, colliding with another pedestrian, he takes a detour and enters the wrong house. He's about to sneak back out when he hears a scream. Down in the basement, a "villainously ugly" dwarf is goading a young woman and her lover, both of whom are tightly bound to their chairs. It transpires the girl is the dwarf's wife by an arranged marriage, but has continued a platonic friendship with her true love, Dick. Now the monster is threatening to kill them both and torch the house! The girl pleads with him, swearing she'll be true and obey his every command without protest "for the sake of Dick."

"For the sake of Dick" sneered the dwarf. "That shows you in your true colours. That shows who you are and what you are!"

And all the while Jenner is watching this, appalled/ grateful that he can do nothing to intervene ....

[Jojo Lapin X]

Mar 16, 2012 13:55:35 GMT dem said:

"For the sake of Dick" sneered the dwarf. "That shows you in your true colours. That shows who you are and what you are!"

Were it not that the Victorian origin makes it unthinkable, I would swear there was a double-entendre there.

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I'm pretty sure Mr. Gallon intended it as a single entendre, jojo. The House That Was Lost is another surprise package (or at least, it was to me) from a consistently rewarding collection. First published in The Story-Teller for May 1908, there's at least a hint of the shudder pulps to come - am very glad Mr. Dalby saw fit to revive it. According to the editor, Gallon "found popularity with his plays and stories about low-life, emulating both Dickens and W. W. Jacobs, mixing comedy with the macabre." He seems to have been something of a specialist in variations on A Christmas Carol. Steve Holland provides more, so much more information at the ever-reliable Bear Alley

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Approximately 300 stories in and still no closer to the finishing line. I swear the dastardly Mr. Dalby is slipping in a bonus item or five whenever my back is turned.

Thomas Nelson Page – The Spectre In The Cart: Virginia. Racial tensions in the run up to the election of a new State Attorney. In the thick of the agitation, Absalom Turnell, fresh home from the army and sworn to drink the white man's blood. Farmer John Halloway, the bravest and saintliest gentle giant ever to walk God's earth, takes the sting from the situation by humiliating Absalom before his supporters at Burley's Fork, and signs his own death warrant in the process. Turnell and his elderly father, Joel, are arrested and charged with the murder. After a protracted trial and several appeals, the local whites lose patience with the law and form themselves into a lynch mob. The narrator, a lawyer named Stokeman who is acting for the prosecution, is eventually re-elected. The spectres - a bashful Joel, his swinging son - may be incidental to the story, but they are very effectively drawn.

[ripper]

This was the anthology that sparked my interest and fondness for ghost/supernatural tales from the Victorian/Edwardian eras. I particularly enjoyed the stories from Edith Nesbit, Alice Perrin and Theo Gift, and it was this volume that introduced me to those writers, along with quite a few others.

[ripper]

Re-reading J.B. Harwood's 'The Underground Ghost' I was again impressed by the atmosphere the author created and the unusual setting. Of course, the title gives the game away completely and when the spectre appears the narrator seems a bit slow on the uptake as to her true nature. It is a simple little tale, but quite effective, particularly in the description of the salt mine imo.

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How far have you got with this one, Rip? Even by Mammoth standards, this is a book that keeps on giving, all but impossible to finish for anthology-hoppers. Can't believe it's been three years since I got seriously stuck into Mammoth Victorian & Edwardian Ghosts, which likely explains why Harwood's story is completely wiped from my 'Brain.' Have you read the Alice Perrin pair? I remember liking her stories plenty.

[ripper]

This particular Mammoth was the one that first got me interested in ghost stories of the Victorian/Edwardian eras, Dem. I must have first read it around 1996 I would guess and keep dipping into it again from time to time. I liked the Alice Perrin stories well enough, 'Caufield's Crime' being my favourite. The thing that I like about the collection is that there are a fair few tales and authors that don't often get anthologised and the introductions to each story that Dalby provides are informative and point the reader to where he can find more by that author. I probably have 5 or 6 other anthologies of Victorian/Edwardian ghost stories, but this Mammoth edition is my favourite and I would recommend it to anyone who would like a fine selection of tales from those eras.