enoch
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 120
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Post by enoch on Aug 10, 2023 2:55:43 GMT
From the Richard Dalby, Mammoth Book of Victorian & Edwardian Ghost Stories thread. I love those Allen Upward stories about the estate agent and his secretary. They were such likeable characters. I wish he had written more of them. They were kind of like an Edwardian era ghostbusting Tommy and Tuppence. After reading the above, simply had to dig this one out, the last of the five Ghost Hunter stories. Allen Upward – The Haunted Woman: ( The Royal Magazine, April 1906). Mr. Hargrave, Ghost hunter, and his secretary, Miss Alwyne Sargent (the adventurer, gifted psychic and brains of the operation) investigate a haunting at the Abbey, Abbotsford, where Lady Throgmorton is nightly terrorised by the ghost of Eleanor, her recently deceased daughter-in-law. The spectre has taken to sharing her bed. "It has grown worse night after night. The first time I saw it the shroud remained intact ...." If anything, I prefer this to The Story of the Green House, Wallington (which I liked a lot). Agree with Rip and Enoch — there should've been more. Glad you liked it. Alwyne is indeed the brains of the outfit; her intended is brave, loyal, and considerate, but very straitlaced and something of a dunderhead. To be fair, he never fails to credit her as being responsible for most of his success. I was rather struck with how "modern" Alwyne seems. Was it usual for male authors to portray women in this way in 1906? For example, when the agent tries to forbid her from doing something (he thinks it's too dangerous, IIRC), she responds by saying something like, "Well! If you're going to show the cloven hoof like that, I'll just go and marry some other man who's not such a tyrant!" His sister Jane is also portrayed as being rather smarter and more perceptive than he is. He has a heart of gold, though. |
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Post by dem on Aug 11, 2023 13:24:32 GMT
Glad you liked it. Alwyne is indeed the brains of the outfit; her intended is brave, loyal, and considerate, but very straitlaced and something of a dunderhead. To be fair, he never fails to credit her as being responsible for most of his success. I was rather struck with how "modern" Alwyne seems. Was it usual for male authors to portray women in this way in 1906? For example, when the agent tries to forbid her from doing something (he thinks it's too dangerous, IIRC), she responds by saying something like, "Well! If you're going to show the cloven hoof like that, I'll just go and marry some other man who's not such a tyrant!" His sister Jane is also portrayed as being rather smarter and more perceptive than he is. He has a heart of gold, though. Yes, that incident takes place early in The Haunted Woman. I've not yet met Jane, but I'm sure we'll get along fine. Just found Ripper's thread for Black Heath Books The Ghost Hunters. E. & H. Heron - The Story of Sevens Hall: ( Pearson's, Jan. 1899). For over a century, each of the Yarkindale males has died violently by their own hand following a bout of depression and compulsion to return to the family home from wherever in the world they might be at the time. The last of the line awaits imminent doom, his only hope, that Flaxman Low can lift the curse and permanently banish an evil spirit. Arthur Machen - The Red Hand: ( Chapman's, Dec. 1895). Mr. Dyson investigates the apparent murder of Sir Thomas Vivien, the noted specialist in heart disease, his throat slit with a Palaeolithic flint-knife in a Bloomsbury Street. Beside the corpse, a red hand chalked on a wall. Through a series of seemingly magical coincidences, Dyson locates the culprit, who has a strange and terrible story to relate ... A second subterranean race beside the Little People working malevolence against mankind. R. S. Russell - Like Clockwork: A bizarre and very likeable black comedy, original to the collection. A genius clockmaker proves hopeless at murdering the business partner who stole the credit for his most intricate mechanism. As related by Mr. Magarshack, a psychic whose gift is regularly employed to advantage by the police. |
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