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Post by dem bones on Jan 15, 2010 0:19:33 GMT
Thanks for the Rolt update Chris. Maybe it's as well that Wordsworth weren't able to pull off their own edition - they'd have queered each others' pitch. Delighted the contents include the two stories from the Hugh Lamb anthology and his essay The Passing Of The Ghost Story.
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Post by cw67q on Jan 15, 2010 10:06:42 GMT
Thanks for the Rolt update Chris. Maybe it's as well that Wordsworth weren't able to pull off their own edition - they'd have queered each others' pitch. Delighted the contents include the two stories from the Hugh Lamb anthology and his essay The Passing Of The Ghost Story. No problem, yes good news about the two added stories, I think "the Shouting" is one of his best, although if I remember right (a chancy buisiness) the second of the additional stories reads like an alternative draft of one of the stories from the original edition of Sleep no more. But any reprint of Rolt should really include these two pieces for completeness. I don't think I've read the essay, can't remember doing so anyway and my copy of the Sutton pb edition is not at home to check if it was included. Cheers - Chris
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Post by Steve on Jan 24, 2010 21:39:36 GMT
For some unearthly reason I've got it in my head to post something about the mysterious 'B' - he of 'The Stone Coffin' and what have you - but I really need to go back to bed for a bit before I even think about attempting anything of more than a few sentences. Right, yeah, about this 'B' business. I've not been in bed for the last 2 weeks by the way. Something came up. you're not, by any chance reading the Ghosts & Scholars anthology, are you? rather than get stuck into the Wordsworth collection, i dug out G&S for Christmas Reunion, then carried on last night with the Rolt and Spence stories... The Stone Coffin was up next as it's relatively brief I'd not been at the Ghosts & Scholars anthology, dem, no. I had been perusing the Ghosts & Scholars website when I made that post though and it's entirely thanks to G&S that I developed a passing interest in the mysterious 'B'. For anyone who doesn't know, 7 stories - signed simply 'B' - were published in the Magdalene College Magazine between 1911 and 1914. The identity of 'B' remains a mystery, although it has been suggested that A. C. Benson may have been the man behind the initial. I don't know, I'm certainly no expert, but I'm just not convinced somehow. There are some similarities - both make use of the archaic past tense 'sate' instead of 'sat', for example, but maybe that was just fashionable around Magdalene at the time. All I can really say is that I read all the 'B' stories recently, followed by Benson's "The Slype House" and it just didn't strike me as the work of the same person at all. I'm not particularly a fan of A. C. Benson but he was a capable writer. 'B', while I actually much prefer reading his stuff, has a far less assured style. His stories all seem underdeveloped and appear, to me at least (and for all their charm), to be the work of a reasonably talented amateur. Yet "The Slype House" predates the 'B' stuff by about 10 years. Anyway, 'B'. Most of his stories are fairly similar and fairly standard - generally involving a spot of restoration or renovation which either disturbs some unquiet spirit or is instrumental in helping lay one to rest. You know the sort of thing. "The Stone Coffin", while probably his best known story thanks to its inclusion in the aforementioned Ghosts & Scholars anthology, is a particularly slight example and not really representative of his best work in my humble. Much better written is "The Strange Fate of Mr Peach". It's not a great story mind, but there's some very effective writing in there. What I really like about 'B' though - along with the rather cosy and closeted academic world he evokes, in which unpleasant nocturnal disturbances are often attributed, quite wrongly as it turns out, to a heavy supper - is the way he uses animals as vengeful or familiar spirits in his stories. The hare in the story of the same name, the wicked little ape glimpsed briefly in "When the Door is Shut", and best of all the great hairy, foul smelling bear in that same story and also "Quia Nominor". In the latter, the bear at least gets some build up, some sort of back-story, but in "When the Door is Shut" he just comes out of nowhere. Quite bizarre, very elemental and really rather charming in a vaguely disturbing sort of way you can't put your finger on but can only agree that; "It's an ill thing," said the Dean, in his slow and husky voice, "when a man gets to brood upon bears...
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Feb 3, 2010 21:40:12 GMT
I'm rather a latecomer to this thread, having just today read "Christmas Reunion" in the "Ghosts and Scholars" anthology, so belated thanks to Dem and Steve for the kind words. I really need to stock up on more Wordsworth editions once the pennies have started to accumulate on my credit card, and I think this will be near the front of the list, as I really enjoyed the Christmas story. As for favourite Jamesian authors... that's a tough one. I may need to consider compiling a contents list for my own fantasy Jamesian antho, as there are some particularly excellent Jamesian stories written by authors I wouldn't necessarily describe as typically Jamesian. Lucy M. Boston's "The Curfew" comes into that category, as does "Dr Graham's Story" by Penelope Fitzgerald (actually a chapter in her non-supernatural novel, "The Gate of Angels", where a character very much based on MRJ takes time out to tell a ghost story), and Michael Cox's MRJ tribute story, "In Vitro", is a joy. I'll be a second to nominate Steve Duffy's "The Night Comes On" and (co-written with Ian Rodwell) "The Five Quarters". From "Night", the story "Figures on a Hillside" - in which historians attempting to trace the outline of a long-lost chalk figure unleash something monstrous - is a firm favourite, while "Quarters" has the sublime "The Penny Drops" - something nasty inhabits the amusement arcade on an abandoned pier - which was also featured in G&S. I also like a lot of Chico Kidd's Jamesian stories, which are grouped together in "Summoning Knells". Chico, of course, was another G&S regular. Mind you, if I went through my G&S collection, I'd be hard pressed to find an author there I didn't like, so I think I'll stop here.
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elricc
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by elricc on Feb 4, 2010 13:12:00 GMT
Another fan of Mr Duffy here, the Penny Drops is a real spine tingler, I particularly liked the character of the guy who ran the hotel guest house, I just got the image of Bill Nighy in my head.
From the G&S and Supernatural Tales,I really enjoyed stuff by Mile Chislett, long overdue for a comprehensive collection of all his work.
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Post by ripper on Feb 4, 2010 13:15:43 GMT
Lurker: I got to meet Steve Duffy and Chico Kidd at the 20th anniversary bash of G&S in Rochester in 1999. Chico kindly signed some of her chapbooks for me. Both are among my favourite Jamesian writers. I like all of SD's stories from "The Night comes On," particularly "One Over" and "Running Dogs" and the notes on the stories at the end of the book I found very interesting. I don't have "The Five Quarters" and have only read "The Penny Drops" in G&S. I found that story to be very effective. CK's stories are also very good imho. I have been meaning to get hold of a copy of her novel "The Printer's Devil" for some time as I have heard that it is very Jamesian.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Feb 4, 2010 18:34:16 GMT
I haven't met either Steve or Chico, though Chico did "take me to task" in the pages of the G&S Newsletter for writing a favourable review of BBC4's adaptation of "Number 13", which she hated. She also contributed a new short story to the last G&S Newsletter to mark 30 years of Ghosts and Scholars. Not all of the stories in "The Five Quarters" are Jamesian, but "The Penny Drops" and "Uneasy Lies the Head" most definitely are, with "Uneasy" directly referencing a particular MRJ story. And Steve's story notes are great, giving the full outline for an earlier draft of "The Penny Drops" that differs a lot from the finished article, but has its own particular chills. As for L.T.C. Rolt, I like his stories a lot, particularly "Bosworth Summit Pound", which has a wonderfully eerie atmosphere, but they didn't entirely blow me away. That said, I'll definitely be purchasing the new edition, as I'm curious to read the two additional stories. And, thinking more on Caldecott's "Christmas Reunion", the MRJ story it most puts me in mind of is "The Malice of Inanimate Objects", with a similar sense of a very black joke being played on a deserving victim.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 7, 2010 14:47:59 GMT
Had another dip into Not Exactly Ghosts. Not in the least Jamesian as far as i can see, but perhaps my favourite to date is the blackly comic psychic vampire story Authorship Disputed:
Brilliant Oxbridge pupil Eustace Amberlake had been the tutors' favourite to walk off with the prestigious Porthill prize, but much to everyone's surprise, can only manage runner up to Terrence Terrison, a student with whom he'd recently struck up an unlikely friendship. Terrison goes on to make a name for himself as a successful novelist while Amberlake is apparently content to play his number one fan, and to such an aggressive degree that he gradually alienates their mutual friends at the Acropolis Club.
Terrison makes a name for himself as a novelist (Cain's Sacrifice, Red Rage, etc.) until pneumonia does for him at the tender age of 34. Following Terrison's death, Amberlake confides all to their Oxbridge contemporary Cliverton. Terrison, he explains, far from being his friend, was a vampire who leeched upon his talent, draining him in the process. "In everything he wrote, I caught the vivid reflection of something I had said to him. He was just pen, ink and paper. I was the writer."
Cliverton finds Amberlake's remarks very distasteful, and suggests he do something about this morbid hatred of Terrison else he wind up in an asylum. But when Amberlake dies in truly bizarre circumstances shortly afterward, Cliverton has cause to revise his opinion.
Maybe not quite as successful a story but still good fun is Cheap And Nasty: Mrs. Kitty Cromley is a fanatical bargain hunter and perhaps her finest achievement to date is landing Thurbourne Manor for a mere £5, 500. All is well until her husband Tom invites author Aubrey Roddeck to stay. Kitty, of course, is still banging on about her great fortune in landing the Manor - and she's even had central heating installed for next to nothing! Roddeck, professional miserable bastard that he is, suggests there's usually a reason for letting a property go at a price below its worth; either it's haunted or "waiting" ....
Roddeck's words prey on Kitty's mind, and she grows increasingly depressed, a condition worsened with the discovery that her dirt cheap second hand stove had been put to grisly use in an unsolved murder. Roddeck is delighted with the way things are going. He's made a lot of money from similar interventions and stands to gain a thousand guineas from Lord Howerly if he can induce the Cromley's to sell.
With Kitty's health fading, the Cromley's are only too happy to do business. Roddeck pockets his commission, moves into Thurbourne as Howerly's guest. The stove keeps on clanking and groaning away ....
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Post by cw67q on Feb 8, 2010 11:56:40 GMT
I must re-read these stories. The plus side of having a memory like a sieve is that you can still be surprised on the second or third visit.
- chris
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Mar 23, 2010 18:59:22 GMT
I'm on the closing stretches of "Not Exactly Ghosts", and I have to agree with Dem's statement that the stories are 'not in the least Jamesian' by and large. The closest in tone to MRJ are some passages that put me in mind of the comical opening to "Wailing Well" and the inglorious school career of Stanley Judkins - the child characters in "The Pump in Thorp's Spinney" and "What's in a Name" brought this to mind.
I haven't found much that's scary in the stories, but they're certainly hugely entertaining, and I've found myself laughing aloud quite frequently, in particular at the haunted trousers in "Quintet"., but at many other funny turns of phrase and little character moments.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 24, 2010 13:59:17 GMT
Have certainly had good fun with those I've read so far. Does he only get included in the James Gang on the basis of Christmas Reunion being an attempt to complete one of the Stories I Have Tried To Write?
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Mar 24, 2010 23:21:07 GMT
does he only get included in the James Gang on the basis of Christmas Reunion being an attempt to complete one of the Stories I Have Tried To Write? I don't have my copy of "The James List" to hand, so I don't know if anything else is specified, but, aside from some little touches here and there, I'd say his main claim to gang membership would seem to rest on that story - and I'm pretty sure I've seen even its Jamesian credentials questioned in G&S.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 24, 2010 23:47:04 GMT
Just dug out The James Gang and along with a name-check for Christmas Reunion there is Seated One Day At The Organ, which certainly makes use of many of MRJ's favourite props. still reads like Caldecott to me, though.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Mar 25, 2010 0:13:21 GMT
Thinking more on it after my last post, "Seated One Day" was the only one I could think of that had a Jamesian device - the object that gives you a glimpse of something seen out of its own time, like the binoculars in "A View From A Hill", or the title objects of "A Haunted Dolls' House" and "The Mezzotint", or even the Punch and Judy show in "The Story of an Appearance and a Disappearance", so I'm not surprised that's the one cited.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 27, 2010 18:38:51 GMT
another pair of winners. thanks to lurks & lemming for putting me onto the delightful Quintet!
A Victim of Medusa: Herbert Siddon, 43, is knocked down by a train as he stands transfixed on the line at the Haddenham crossing. Recovered from the scene of the accident: a squashed jellyfish. The narrator inherits £5000 and his late cousin's library. Two notebooks and a scrapbook offer clues as to why Herbert should have come to such a tragic end.
A borderline 'When Seafood Attacks' entry in that, while the jellyfish didn't murder Mr. Siddon, it unwittingly played a part in his death.
Quintet: "There was now a slight movement in the trousers, a sort of twitching, as though they were being gradually inflated ..."
Brindlestone Manor, New Years Night. Young Vernon Ruthwell prevails upon his parents and their guests - Miss Clara Godwinstone, founder of the Telmington Psychic Circle, and Mr. Felworth, a new neighbour - to each share a ghost story. Mr. Felworth cries off as he believes the telling of such tales to be "rather incautious". Mrs. Ruthwell gives a mercifully brief account of the man from a popular Whiskey advertisement who stood by her bed. Her husband, a sceptic, relates the story of a parsimonious father and a disappearing headstone in the churchyard. Far and away the best, Vernon reads Not In Those Trousers - a story rejected from the College Magazine on the grounds that its author had not put their name to it - featuring Mr. Markson, piano-tuner, the man with the poltergeist in his tweeds. As the too sobre church bell tolls out the old year , Mr. Felworth finally comes good.
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