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Post by jkdunham on Oct 20, 2008 1:08:44 GMT
Stories From The Other Passenger - John Keir Cross, Ballantine, 1961 Cover art: Richard Powers "Terror in needlepoint" The Glass Eye The Last of the Romantics Clair de Lune Hands Miss Thing and the Surrealist The Little House Music When Soft Voices Die The Lovers The Other Passenger Nine selections from John Keir Cross's original collection of "eighteen strange stories", The Other Passenger, first published in 1944.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 20, 2008 10:08:43 GMT
Whoever was in charge of selecting the Chamber Of Horrors reprints-condensed titles knew what they were about when it came to which British authors to use. As far as I'm aware, Wakefield's The Clock Strikes Twelve has never been published over here and The Other Passenger hasn't been seen on these shores since 1948.
I've got some history with the title story. First time I read it, it had me bemoaning the fact that the Pan horrors would ever include such pretentious, self-indulgent drivel, it's political correctness gone mad, the collapse of Western civilisation as we know it, zzzzzzzzz, etc., etc. Then, having got into him via the gruesome revenge story Music When Soft Voices Die, ace horrible dummy feature The Glass Eye and the conte cruel "Happy Birthday, Dear Alex", I reread it and promptly declared it a "masterpiece!" as I have a tendency to whenever a story makes me miserably happy. Other points in John Keir Cross's favour are his three thoughtful horror anthologies for Faber and the fact that apparently he once tried to summon Satan on a live radio broadcast!
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Post by Johnlprobert on Aug 10, 2009 9:26:08 GMT
Just started on this after picking up a copy at a Hampstead bookshop on the weekend. It's an interesting mix of pulp, conte cruel and literary effort so far, as evidenced by the first three stories:
The Glass Eye: As this story progressed I kept thinking 'if this was an EC story I know how this would end' and blow me if it did! Quite surprising given the 'literary quality' of the writing and a pleasant surprise.
The Last of the Romantics: Why does an elderly man order tea for two and then let the other cup dangle from the pull cord of the light above his table? He's got a good nasty reason and it's worth reading about.
Clair de Lune: How many stories are there with this title? Here's a very literary one, with a bit of a ghost and the tiniest of allusions to 'Dark Ones' plus a load of stuff I couldn't see the relevance of towards the end.
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Post by Dr Strange on Aug 10, 2009 10:22:17 GMT
Can you shed any light on the "Terror in Needlepoint" subtitle? Seems like a rather odd juxtaposition...
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Post by Johnlprobert on Aug 10, 2009 10:48:54 GMT
No idea at all. It certainly doesn't seem to be explained in the book!
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Post by Johnlprobert on Aug 12, 2009 13:18:52 GMT
Hands - now this really is the business, not that you'd expect it AT ALL from the first 12(!) pages but then the story ends with such a ghastly murder, act of mutilation, and completely insane 'performance' with said mutilation that you'd think that Alex White had taken over writing chores from Terence Rattigan. Seriously skilful. I'm starting to like this guy
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Post by dem bones on Aug 12, 2009 16:27:31 GMT
Hands - now this really is the business, not that you'd expect it AT ALL from the first 12(!) pages but then the story ends with such a ghastly murder, act of mutilation, and completely insane 'performance' with said mutilation that you'd think that Alex White had taken over writing chores from Terence Rattigan. Seriously skilful. I'm starting to like this guy Hugh Lamb included this "very grisly piece" in the Star Book Of Horror #1, bemoaning the fact that the original, eighteen story The Other Passenger has been out of print since the 'forties. Even the anthologies aren't a great help in this instance as they usually reprint from the stories available in the Ballantine edition. Two i've found elsewhere are Esmeralda in Hamlyn's Best Horror Stories and Fontana Ghost #7 and Happy Birthday, Dear Alex in Jacquelyn Visick's London Tales Of Terror (Fontana, 1972). Glad you're enjoying yourself with this one, Lord P!
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Post by marksamuels on Aug 12, 2009 16:59:55 GMT
I used to have this one in the Ballantine edition, but let it go when I found a copy of the 1944 hardback, with the colour plate surrealist illustrations by Bruce Angrave.
Here's the contents list:
The Glass Eye Petronella Pan The Last of the Romantics Clair de Lune Absence of Mind Hands Another Planet Liebestraum Miss Thing and the Surrealists Valdemosa Amateur Gardening The Little House Esmeralda Music, When Soft Voices Die Cyclamen Brown Couleur de Rose The Lovers The Other Passenger
I was in Felpham on Monday and Tuesday. On the way back through Bognor Regis, there was a Paperback Exchange bookshop with a bustling horror section. Lots of good stuff, and I came away with around a dozen books (including The Farm by Richard Haigh, some Sphere oddity called Project Dracula, and a first of Herbert's The Rats).
Mark S.
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Post by bushwick on Aug 12, 2009 17:02:35 GMT
I was in Felpham on Monday and Tuesday. On the way back through Bognor Regis, there was a Paperback Exchange bookshop with a bustling horror section. Lots of good stuff, and I came away with around a dozen books (including The Farm by Richard Haigh, some Sphere oddity called Project Dracula, and a first of Herbert's The Rats). Mark S. I always go there whenever I visit my ma. cracking little shop. the stickers they put on the books are impossible to get off clean though!
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Post by dem bones on Aug 12, 2009 17:29:56 GMT
I was in Felpham on Monday and Tuesday. On the way back through Bognor Regis, there was a Paperback Exchange bookshop with a bustling horror section. Lots of good stuff, and I came away with around a dozen books (including The Farm by Richard Haigh, some Sphere oddity called Project Dracula, and a first of Herbert's The Rats). Mark S. That will be Alan Scott's Project Dracula from 1971? Haven't got a copy but I noticed it in Margaret L. Cartter's vampire biblio. It was reprinted by Pyramid in the USA as The Anthrax Mutation! Thankks for listing the full contents of The Other Passenger, Mark. Even Tartarus haven't got that far yet!
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Post by Johnlprobert on Aug 12, 2009 21:11:05 GMT
Right! 'Hands' has convinced me I need the unexpurgated version so it's in the post, sadly minus its dustjacket (FAR too expensive)
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 1, 2009 15:33:56 GMT
Miss Thing & The Surrealist - Art house crowd discovers that celebrated work of art isn't quite what it seems. Or rather it is. Another one that causes you to do a double take at the end for all the right reasons.
The Little House - Lovely lovely nasty horror story that I won't spoil the punchline of.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 12, 2009 19:02:30 GMT
Music, When Soft Voices Die – Is a beautifully written EC comics story before they even existed. How did the two skull-shaped drums end up in Sir Simon Erskine’s collection? And what ever happened to his wife & his best friend?
The Lovers – Is such a bloody good joke I’m going to tell it at any dining opportunity I get. The punchline’s a classic and that’s all I’ll say.
The Other Passenger – Now here’s a weird, slightly surreal, often quite deliberately disjointed story about a pianist going nuts. It actually helps to have read the whole of the collection it’s taken from as there are references to the other stories, including the one about Chopin going mad with his writer girlfriend on Valdemosa. I’m not at all surprised I didn’t like this when I was a kid but it’s well worth revisiting for anyone who did likewise.
Now, since I got that paperback I’ve got hold of the unexpurgated harcover collection and I have to say it’s bloody brilliant and well worth tracking down. For the record the other stories not included in the paperback are:
Petronella Pan – This is so good it’s worth seeking out the original alone for. Korngold loves babies and often organises beautiful baby competitions. But the most beautiful baby of all never gets the prize, and the reason why is so bizarre, fantastic and outrageous that it still has me chuckling.
Absence of Mind – Maud Carpenter is very absent minded indeed and when she finds a valuable jewel in her purse she assumes the worst. Even my mum wouldn’t be offended by this story, which just shows that Mr Cross was capable of appealing to all and sundry.
Another Planet – Those in love often are, even when they’re being hanged or committing suicide.
Liebestraum – Mr Mackenzie discovers that love is for the young in a heart-breakingly sad tale.
Valdemosa – Chopin goes to live on an island with his girlfriend, coughs up a lot of blood and feels very sorry for himself when he should be composing.
Amateur Gardening - Rejected lover with penchant for gardening. You can guess the rest EXCEPT the last line which is hilarious.
Esmeralda – Mr Felix Broome murders his fat ugly evil-smelling wife and is then plagued with visions of his 13 year old fantasy girl. Who stops being a fantasy at the end as he goes seriously off the deep end. Truly an antithesis to the traditional wife-murdering crime stories. And Shirley Temple movies come to think of it.
Cyclamen Brown – Why does the beautiful singer wear a mask? Why did her lover glue razors beneath his fingernails?
Couleur de Rose – An everyday story of brotherly jealously until the last unexpectedly truly shockingly violent paragraph – in fact this works a lot like ‘Hands’ in that you get a real jolt because you just don’t expect the ending.
And that’s it! I really thought a lot of The Other Passenger. JKC definitely gets the JLP seal of approval and he really deserves a reprint of this book, with all those weird colour prints it has intact.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 12, 2019 13:05:15 GMT
Just got the 2017 Valancourt reissue of The Other Passenger. Full contents:
Introduction: A Little in Love with the Macabre, by J.F. Norris
Portraits: The Glass Eye Petronella Pan The Last of the Romantics Clair de Lune Absence of Mind Hands Another Planet Liebestraum Miss Thing and the Surrealists Valdemosa
Mysteries: Amateur Gardening The Little House Esmeralda Music, When Soft Voices Die Cyclamen Brown Couleur de Rose The Lovers The Other Passenger
I've only ever read a few of these before, scattered across various anthologies. I've read the first four stories in the collection just now, and I am very impressed. The first three have a sort of Tales of the Unexpected vibe (with a lot of black humour), and the fourth is a ghost story that raises some disturbing questions about what "ghosts" really are.
The Glass Eye - I've read this one before, but it's still great. Possibly the best ventriloquist's dummy story ever.
Petronella Pan - Why won't the highly experienced judge of beautiful baby contests give the prize to the "exquisitely beautiful" baby in the old-fashioned pram? The closing image will stay with me for a while. The Last of the Romantics - What is the story behind the solitary old man who always orders "Tea for Two" in The Parrot restaurant, and then hangs one cup from the hook on the table-lamp chain?
Clair de Lune - A man is persuaded to stay at a "guest house for interesting people" with his dippy female friend, and finds himself utterly bored by the other guests playing at being Bohemians. Then he encounters a beautiful female ghost in the garden outside his room, who tells him that he is not the one "The Others" are waiting for. There's a lot I like about this one - the deliberate use of "A Ghost Story" as a subtitle primes certain expectations, but the whole point of the story is to suggest that "ghosts" may be something quite different to what people think they are.
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Post by helrunar on Jul 12, 2019 15:33:56 GMT
That sounds awesome, Dr Strange. My only encounter with JKC has been as the editor of the fab Best Black Magic Stories anthology of 1960. Would love to read these.
Best, Helrunar
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