Hugh Lamb – Tales from a Gaslit Graveyard

[dem]

Hugh Lamb (ed.) – Tales from a Gaslit Graveyard (W.H. Allen, 1979, Coronet, 1980)

Cover illustration (W H Allen edition) Bob Haberfield. Coronet uncredited.

Introduction – Hugh Lamb

Hume Nisbet – The Haunted Station
Robert Barr – The Hour And The Man
Mrs. J. H. Riddell – Nut Bush Farm
J. H. Pearce – The Man Who Coined his Blood Into Gold
Lady Dilke – The Shrine Of Death
Lady Dilke – The Black Veil
Ambrose Bierce – The Way Of Ghosts
K. & H. Pritchard – The Fever Queen
W. C. Morrow – The Permanent Stiletto
Richard Marsh – The Houseboat
R. Murray Gilchrist – Dame Inowslad
Anon – The Mountain Of Spirits
Anon – The Golden Bracelet
The Countess Of Munster – The Tyburn Ghost
Guy Boothby – Remorseless Vengeance
Bernard Capes – The Green Bottle
Bernard Capes – An Eddy On The Floor

another dismal stub for the time being, but now we have threads for all Hugh Lamb anthologies published in the UK

[lemming13]

Thank you so much for the content listing on this - just received the copy I ordered from Amazon as a result, and have already read three while eating lunch. My daughter has put in her request to be next to read it, and I don't think she'll have a long wait.

[dem]

you know, i've been meaning to get stuck into Gaslit Graveyard for a good three years now as we at least have some kind of excuse-for-threads for just about all of Hugh's books 'cept this one. so please do let us know how you get on with it!

[dem]

Robert Barr - The Hour And The Man: A joyously grim variation on The Torture Of Hope. Prince Locarno sentences the brigand chief Toza to death by beheading for the murder of his brother. It doesn't seem severe enough but the Prince has to watch his step. His namby-pamby King has an aversion to torture and has sent a representative along to make sure things don't get too barbaric. Toza is well pleased with the outcome, especially as his gaoler, Paolo, lets on that he knows of a secret tunnel from the castle and is up for a juicy bribe ....

Lady Dilke - The Shrine Of Death: "Marry Death, fair child, if you would know the secrets of life." So the young woman sets out to do just as the witch advised, spending her days in the local church bowed before the statue of the Grim Reaper. Eventually the Priest agrees to let the madwoman spend a night at her shrine to Death. Dressed in bridal gown and veil for the occasion, she descends into the vault ...

A very odd, dreamlike piece not dissimilar in atmosphere to the equally very lovely The Devil Of The Marsh, though Lady Dilke's offering is possibly even grimmer! There follows the short, folksy tale of The Black Veil. After murdering her appalling husband, the widow's veil grows and grows to intolerable length until it weighs her down. A wise woman advises her to go pray alone at the dead man's grave. Some wise woman she turns out to be!

The Countess Of Munster - The Tyburn Ghost: Mrs Dale and her three daughters take rooms at Mrs. Parsons' decrepit lodging house near Marble Arch. Their stay is not a comfortable one as each night an old hag in a mob cap singles one or other out to receive a blast of putrid breath from her blackened, slimy, "hanging mouth" ....

Some light comedy touches. The hideous crone puts plenty of effort into her routine, i'll give her that.

Hume Nisbet - The Haunted Station: The narrator, a young Doctor wrongly convicted of deliberately poisoning his wife, is saved from the gallows by influential friends and is sentenced to transportation to Western Australia. While working on a chain gang, he escapes with two fellow convicts and, after a breathless pursuit, during the course of which a fellow fugitive is shot dead and he breaks an arm, he arrives at a remote station house which he takes to be deserted. But closer inspection reveals the skeletons of a mother and her daughter in an upstairs bedroom, and down in the servant's quarter, the stripped bare bones of three domestics!

Comes the stormy night when the murdered woman's husband arrives (a pantomime villain if ever there was: all "fiery eyes", scarlet lips and black mustache), trailing weeds and slime from his "saturated garments". The terrible history he relates - of treachery, revenge from beyond the grave and demonic possession - aided and abetted by the timely manifestation of the woman and her ghostly child - sends our man tearing from the house which, conveniently, is then blasted with a fork of lightening.

[carandini]

The Creaking Door, a South African horror radio progamme in the vein of American broadcasts like The Witch's Tale or the notorious Arch Obler Lights Out did a pretty good version of 'The Haunted Station' on one of their shows.

[dem]

i'm sure it would adapt very well. from what i've read of him, Nisbet had a talent for unashamed melodrama which is most likely why E. F. Bleiler didn't get on with his work. He's certainly popular on this board.

R. Murray Gilchrist - Dame Inowslad: The Golden Bull on the borders of Sherwood Forest is the setting for this grim little drama. Every night for a year, young Dinah has wandered into the wood awaiting the return of Sir Jake Inowslad, the lover who abandoned her when she fell pregnant. At least she's had their dead baby to keep her company these past three months, though i don't suppose that's been a great consolation. Now tonight, Sir Jake is back playing piano in the pub. He explains to Dinah that he's been in an Asylum the whole time, but, cured of his mania, he's come back to take her as his bride. His coach awaits. By tomorrow she will be Dame Inowslad! And poor Dinah accepts his explanation!

i think Lord P. has wondered aloud if, for the casual reader, maybe Gilchrist's stories work better in multiple author anthologies - on this evidence there's no doubt about it.

W. C. Morrow - The Permanent Stiletto: Poor Arnold, writhing in agony on the bed with a stiletto plunged in his breast having just come off worse in a lovers tiff. "Pull it out, old fellow" he beseeches his friend, and "it hurts", but his friend daren't remove it. Dr. Rowell isn't much help. His considered verdict is that should they remove the weapon, Arnold will die in three minutes. Leave it, and that buys him an hour to settle his earthly affairs. But then he remembers he knows a brilliant, if slightly unorthodox Creole surgeon. Young Dr. Raol Entrefort to the rescue.

Not Morrow's very best, but this has enough blood, guts and sewn skin flaps to make up for a predictable ending.

[deedee81]

Jan 10, 2010 12:40:07 GMT dem said:

Hugh Lamb (ed.) – Tales from a Gaslit Graveyard (W.H. Allen, 1979, Coronet, 1980)

Introduction – Hugh Lamb

Hume Nisbet – The Haunted Station
Robert Barr – The Hour And The Man
Mrs. J. H. Riddell – Nut Bush Farm
J. H. Pearce – The Man Who Coined his Blood Into Gold
Lady Dilke – The Shrine Of Death
Lady Dilke – The Black Veil
Ambrose Bierce – The Way Of Ghosts
K. & H. Pritchard – The Fever Queen
W. C. Morrow – The Permanent Stiletto
Richard Marsh – The Houseboat
R. Murray Gilchrist – Dame Inowslad
Anon – The Mountain Of Spirits
Anon – The Golden Bracelet
The Countess Of Munster – The Tyburn Ghost
Guy Boothby – Remorseless Vengeance
Bernard Capes – The Green Bottle
Bernard Capes – An Eddy On The Floor

another dismal stub for the time being, but now we have threads for all Hugh Lamb anthologies published in the UK

[dem]

This pair of Gothics from The Best Terrible Tales Of The Spanish (Gibbings, 1891).

Anon [Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer] - The Mountain Of Spirits: Cruel Beatrice goads her lovestruck cousin Alonso into climbing the wolf infested Mountain to retrieve her discarded blue silk ribbon. Any other time he'd be happy to do so, but this is All Souls Night when the skeletons of the Knights Templars walk abroad.

Anon [Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer] - The Golden Bracelet: Toledo. The Fair Maria covets the beautiful bracelet worn by the statue of the Virgin of Sagrario. Pedro Alfonso resolves to steal it. The ghostly guardians of the Cathedral have other ideas.

K. & H. Pritchard – The Fever Queen: When his life's work, The Inspiration, is trashed by the critics, Sidney Brodrick, tortured artist, slips out of England for good. Five years later he lies malaria-stricken and raving in a festering tropical swampland when word reaches him that the painting sold for £5, 000. Public acclaim has come too late.

Bernard Capes – The Green Bottle: When Sewell, a ghoulish Fleet Street hack, comes into money he converts his dingy flat into a museum of macabre Newgate mementos. Prize exhibit is a shapeless, stoppered green bottle containing the souls of a homicidal glass-blower and his odious victim.