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Post by dem bones on Aug 18, 2016 10:15:06 GMT
On a vaguely similar theme. According to the author, de Sade detested the guillotine, not least because he was only spared first hand experience of the blade by Robespierre's sudden and gory fall from power. Daniel Gerould - Guillotine: It's Legend & Lore (Blast, 1992) Victor Hugo, Justitia, 1857 Blurb: AT THE PEAK of the French Revolution, as noble aspirations began to give way to the bloodthirsty chaos of the Reign of Terror, Doctor Guillotin submitted to the National Assembly a plan for a "humanitarian" method of execution. Over the next two hundred years, until its abolition in 1981 countless numbers fell victim to the guillotine, from kings to criminals and aristocrats to anarchists.
With the first fatal drop of the guillotine blade, folklore began to spring up — stories of severed heads that spoke after decapitation, of heads that bit their executioner, and severed heads whose eyes blinked just as a loved one shrieked their name in horror. Metaphysical musings on the meaning of the head without the body, letters and journal entries written by those who saw the device in action, excerpts from Dickens, Dumas, Hugo, Tolstoy, and Turgenev, who recorded their eyewitness accounts with la guillotine, bring the gruesome machine back to life.
Packed with over 100 illustrations, Guillotine: Its Legend and Lore explores the profound impact of this swift dispenser of justice on the Western imagination.
A long-time collector of guillotine artefacts and memorabilia, DANIEL GEROULD is Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of CUNY. He is also the author of more than a dozen books on the theatre and other subjects.A 'bibliographical aid' in that much of the book concerns Dr. Guillotin's hideous apparatus in popular culture, with chapters seven through to fourteen devoted almost exclusively to the guillotine in fiction, much of it horror and supernatural fiction. The novels discussed include: Victor Hugo - Last Days Of A Condemned Man (1823) Jules Janin - The Dead Donkey; or, The Guillotined Woman (1830: reprinted by the Gargoyles Head Press, 1993) Eugene Sue - The Mysteries Of Paris (1842) Alexandre Dumas - Woman with the Velvet Necklace (1849) Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities (1859) Élémir Bourges - Under The Knife (1876, "the most extreme and violent of the nineteenth century guillotine novels") Paul Féval - The Chouans And The Blues (1879) Paul Busson's The Man Who Was Born Again (1921). Short stories: Washington Irving - The Adventure Of The German Student (1824) Antoine Wertz - Thoughts And Visions Of A Severed Head (circa 1853; reprinted in the book) Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, who was, apparently, a big fan of public executions, composed at least three guillotine-fixated cruel tales, namely The Eleventh-Hour Guest (1874), The Secret of the Scaffold (1883) and terrors-of-the-wax-museum outing, Monsieur Redoux's Phantasms (1888). I am sure we can add to that listing. There's are also entries on Andre de Lorde, the High Priest of the Grand Guignol,and his 1921 play, At The Break Of Day, which caused a public outcry, and Alice Cooper utilization of the device as stage prop during the Billion Dollar Babies tour. The much loved, scary Aurora 'Chamber of Horrors: The Guillotine' model also receives a page.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 18, 2016 10:35:51 GMT
I had the Aurora guillotine as a child. It was very educational! Interestingly, I also skimmed JUSTINE at a tender age, as we had it on the bookshelves at home (and much worse stuff, actually, such as an English translation of Apollinaire's LES ONZE MILLE VERGES---still the most indefensible piece of smut ever).
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Post by dem bones on Aug 18, 2016 11:05:52 GMT
I had the Aurora guillotine as a child. It was very educational! Interestingly, I also skimmed JUSTINE at a tender age, as we had it on the bookshelves at home (and much worse stuff, actually, such as an English translation of Apollinaire's LES ONZE MILLE VERGES---still the most indefensible piece of smut ever). Must say, your family library sounds splendid! No big surprise, but I've yet to sample the dubious delights of LES ONZE MILLE VERGES. Re the Aurora guillotine. The painting on the box used to terrify me as a kid. It was on display in the window of local model shop. I'd pass by on the other side of the street rather than see it close up again, but, of course, couldn't resist a quick glance to see if it had yet been removed. The Forgotten Prisoner used to get to me, too. Makes me wonder how I ever got into reading all this morbid stuff.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 18, 2016 11:22:01 GMT
Makes me wonder how I ever got into reading all this morbid stuff. It is how we deal with our fears! Or so a sympathetic psychologist might say.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 18, 2016 13:18:44 GMT
Makes me wonder how I ever got into reading all this morbid stuff. It is how we deal with our fears! Or so a sympathetic psychologist might say. Whatever the truth of that, reading horror fiction and morbid lit in general seems a less destructive coping mechanism than many I can think of. Been trying to think of additional Guillotine kiss/ French Revolution novels and shorts, and not making very much headway, so, as ever, should anybody wish to help out please do. Les Daniels - Citizen VampireEtienne Aubin - The Terror Of The Seven CryptsShorts: Honore de Balzac - An Episode In The Terror Marjorie Bowen - The Folding Doors Dick Donovan - Some Adventures With A Head Gaston LeRoux - The Woman With The Velvet Collar Alexander Dumas - Marceau's Prisoner J.H. Turner - The Guillotine Urann Thayer - The White Domino - Post French Revolution/ Modern Day variations - Roald Dahl - Man From The South Harry E. Turner - The Lion’s Cradle Ken Alden – The Moment of Death
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Post by andydecker on Aug 18, 2016 17:46:37 GMT
Robert Arthur Smith: The Prey. (Or Prey of the Werewolves) A forgotten Fawcett horror from 1977. 450 pages.
Alister Kershaw: A history of the Guillotine. Tandem 1965.
Does Dennis Wheatley count? Roger Brook 4: The Man who killed the King.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 18, 2016 18:02:19 GMT
Thanks Andreas. Kershaw and Smith go direct to wants list, and how could I have overlooked Wheatley? I like the sound of Mr. Smith's Keeper, too.
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Post by andydecker on Aug 19, 2016 8:57:31 GMT
Here are the scans.
When even Frenchmen forget that the Guillotine is still used in the twentieth century, it is time to present the facts about its origins, its history and its methods of operation. Originally invented to satisfy the humanitarian and egalitarian impulses of the French revolutionaries, the guillotine will be forever identified with the blood and terror of that epoch. While decapitation was no doubt "an advance on burning, disembowelling, stangling and such ingenuities", the question still remains as to whether death by the guillotine is instantaneous. Or whether consciousness survives decapitation. What was the attitude of the headsman who performed his grisly task time and again with apparent unconcern? And of the crowd who watched and applauded? These and other questions Alister Kershaw discusses frankly and with scrupulous reagard for historical accuracy.
This is a book which will surprise and horrify. It is a unique piece of macabre history.
"All the known and hitherto unknown facts about la machine in a style as swift, sharp und cynical as the knife itself. THE TIMES
I am the wretched man who caused this chain of horrors. In my ignorance and pride, I tampered with mysteries dangerous to mankind and others have paid the forfeit. By my hand was set free a monster that fouled and blotted the work of creation and, to my immortal shame, murdered my fellow creatures.There can be no forgiveness for such a crime. My only wish is that others might take warning. May God have mercy in my soul, and on the soul of those who came upon this story.
The young narrator Morivania lives in a castle in a remote part of Austria. His father is under the thumb of a mysterious and disfigured man named Luther. Luther wants to seduce Morivania to his cause - basically he is a werewolf - , but the young man stubborn refuses. Morivania flees to Paris, because a friend of his father, an alchemist, has supposedly an elixier which can destroy Luther. Hunted by Luther and his creatures our hero arrives just a few days before the storming of the Bastille and gets caught up in the revolution. He and his band of new friendes can escape the mob and journey to Switzerland to get the weapon.
This is a historical horror told in first person narrative. It is not very gory, and it is rather slow, but there are a few nice ideas and a great atmosphere. I like it still a lot. Smith wrote five novels.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 19, 2016 13:40:32 GMT
Thank you, Andreas. The Prey in particular sounds just what I'm after. Have you read Les Daniels' Citizen Vampire? I'm a big fan of his Don Sebastian novels, and this is perhaps my favourite after the first,The Black Castle (Spanish Inquisition setting for that one). The gist of the series is that Don Sebastian is a proper, traditional vampire - i.e., all blood lust and black magic - but even he finds it difficult to stomach humanity's capacity for evil for its own sake.
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Post by andydecker on Aug 19, 2016 16:24:48 GMT
I have the complete Don Sebastian series. Citizen Vampire was very well done. Maybe even the best of the novels. But it is some years I read them.
There is also a French Revolution novel by Tanith Lee. The Gods are thirsty (1996). I have this somewhere, bought it on a whim because at the time I couldn't stand her style any longer. Never read it. I think it is a straight historic novel without any supernatural or fantasy elements.
I always wondered that there are not more horror novels about this period.
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Post by bobby on Aug 20, 2016 13:09:41 GMT
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Post by bobby on Aug 20, 2016 13:39:30 GMT
Re the Aurora guillotine. The painting on the box used to terrify me as a kid. It was on display in the window of local model shop. I'd pass by on the other side of the street rather than see it close up again, but, of course, couldn't resist a quick glance to see if it had yet been removed. The Forgotten Prisoner used to get to me, too. Makes me wonder how I ever got into reading all this morbid stuff. That sounds like me and the glow-in-the-dark Aurora Phantom of the Opera someone got me for my birthday. (Obviously it wasn't something I asked for.) Whoever built it (not me) didn't paint it, and the Phantom's head and heads, the prisoner behind bars, and the rat all glowed in the dark. I would hide under the covers after the light was turned off so I wouldn't have to look at it.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 20, 2016 19:04:27 GMT
Thank you Andreas and Bobby. My guess is there are probably a lot more, it's just we've not heard of them. Either that or authors shy away from the period as too horrific to begin with, so how could they compete with the real thing? Black Book Of Horror (and Vault Advent Calendar!) contributor Gary Power has a flash fiction piece, Ms Marie Antoinette's Puppet Gallery. Read it at Manneqüin.Haüs: A Journal Of Literary Art (May, 2016) Meanwhile: " ...To us, de Sade seems one of the great bores of all time, but in France in the age preceding Swinburne (1837-1909) people were so convinced of the supernatural power of his novel Justine that one writer, Frédéric Soulié, made the villain of his novel Mémoires du Diable (1837) put a copy of the book into the hands of the heroine with the idea that reading it would drive her mad. The heroine was locked up alone in a dungeon." - Ronald Pearsall, Night's Black Angels: The Forms & Faces Of Victorian Cruelty, Hodder & Stoughton, 1975). The "Divine" Marquis has made the occasional special guest appearance in supernatural horror fiction. As mentioned, he comes across as quite a decent chap in Les Daniels' novel Citizen Vampire, less so in Jerome Bixby's The Marquis' Magic Potion ( Devil's Scrapbook, Brandon House, 1964, reprinted in Peter Haining's Black Magic Omnibus, 1977). His cranium continues to cause all manner of spiteful mischief in Robert Bloch's much reprinted The Skull Of The Marquis de Sade ( Weird Tales, Sept. 1945), while the heroine of the same author's A Toy For Juliette ( Dangerous Visions, 1967) is none other than Justine's depraved big sister. I'm not sure it qualifies as "horror fiction", but de Sade is the subject of Guy Endore's Satan's Saint, (Panther, 1967), "An uninhibited novel about the most infamous man who has ever lived ... ," which proved too difficult for my tiny brain to follow on first acquaintance, so rematch required. Phyllis Stone's Blood For A Tiger (Charles Lloyd [ed.] Monsters, Philip Allan, 1934), suggests that you can identify the sadistic psycho among you merely by scrutinising the contents of his book shelf, while Laymon Jones warns against performing works from an 18th century hymn book if it's shared shelf space with works by or about de Sade ( The Nine Lessons And Carols, Amy Myers [ed.] The Third Book of After Midnight Stories, William Kimber, 1987).
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Post by andydecker on Aug 20, 2016 19:49:49 GMT
About the dear Marquis, there was this vampire series.
Mary Ann Mitchell: Sips of blood and 5 other novels, which features the Marquis as a vampire. I have a hazy collection of reading one and finding it absolutly dull.
In comics he is also featured. In a few early issues of The Invisibles by Grant Morrison.
Robert Englund played him in Tobe Hopper's Living Nightmare, which I also remember as pretty awful.
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Post by cromagnonman on Aug 20, 2016 20:53:24 GMT
never did get a copy of this but I'm thinking it might be worth it for the novelization of Matheson's script for AIP's DeSade(1969) which sounds a disaster though maybe some of our film buffs can advise me otherwise? Kiss the Whip (Creation, 2005) That cover crumpet looks suspiciously like Penny Irving from House of Whipcord.
Er, or so I am reliably informed anyway.
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