James Dickie - The Undead

[dem bones]

James Dickie (ed.) - The Undead: Vampire Masterpieces (Neville Spearman, 1971: Pan, 1973)

Tom Simmonds

Richard Wilbur - The Undead (verse)
Introduction - James Dickie

Bram Stoker - Dracula's Guest
F. Marion Crawford - For The Blood Is The Life
Clark Ashton Smith - The End Of The Story
Clark Ashton Smith - The Death Of Ilalotha
F. G. Loring - The Tomb Of Sarah
Carl Jacobi - Revelations In Black
E. F. Benson - The Room In The Tower
Ambrose Bierce - The Death Of Halpin Frayser
Eric, Count Stenbock - A True Story Of A Vampire
H. P. Lovecraft - The Hound
Manly Wade Wellman - When It Was Moonlight
Everil Worrell - The Canal
Walter Starkie - The Old Man's Story


Another excellent collection to have been right royally plundered by Otto Penzler for his Vampire Archives which - outrageously - reprints all thirteen stories. Only the Richard Wilbur pome and Dickie's accomplished introductory essay remain unmolested!

includes:

Clark Ashton Smith - The Death Of Ilalotha: As is the custom in Old Tasuun, the A-Listers commemorate the passing of Ilalotha, Queen Xantlicha's lady-in-waiting, with a three-day funeral orgy, the lovely corpse lying in state the while. A late arrival to the revelry is Lord Thulos, Ilalotha's ex and the Queen's current toy-boy. Gazing into the bier, Thulos reminisces fondly on the sex games he enjoyed with the deceased, how, in bed, she'd feign death to satisfy his necrophilia fetish. You can tell where this one's heading, can't you? For the present, he restricts himself to a kiss on her arm (does she stir slightly?) ... whereupon the drunken Xantlicha flies into a jealous rage and demands his presence at the south pavilion on the stroke of midnight for a mutual good seeing-to. Nobody crosses the Queen. It's common knowledge that she poisoned her husband and a succession of lovers have met with sticky ends once she's tired of them. To further complicate matters, when next he looks upon the body, Ilalotha whispers to him: "come to me at midnight. I will wait for thee .... in the tomb." Clashing assignations!

Come the appointed hour, Thulos, gambling that Xantlicha having binged for three days solid will be the more comatose of the pair, heads for the sepulchre and a climax which, in the words of the editor, "for sheer saturated horror would be difficult to surpass." Very splendid stuff indeed!

Eric, Count Stenbock - A True Story Of A Vampire: Very quiet, unfussy account of a case of psychic vampirism from the author's magnificently entitled collection, Studies Of Death (according to Dickie, he was a wealthy eccentric decadent who slept in a coffin with his toad familiar). When he misses his train, Count Vardalak is invited home by Dr. Wronski. The multilingual Count grows attached to a young boy and remains gentle and devoted to him even as he's draining away his life. The narrator, Carmela, who is now an old woman, admits that although he killed her little brother and hastened the death of her father, still she can't find it within herself to despise Vardalak.

Commander F. G. Loring – The Tomb of Sarah: Bristol. Told in diary form. When a grave is disturbed during church renovations, the beautiful seventeenth century Countess revives and wanders abroad, first in the form of a huge dog, then herself as was. She destroys several sheep and attacks a child before a clued-in Priest sharpens his stake …

If memory serves, there was some controversy as to whether or not Mary Cholmondeley ripped this story off for her similar (and, according to our old friends, the experts, superior) Let Loose, though i believe she successfully defended herself against these nasty accusations of plagiarism?

[Dr Strange]

I've got the Pan version with the shadow-face. I agree, good collection - have to check Dickie's intro though to see if he made the same mistake as Penzler and thought The Tomb of Sarah was "pre-Dracula" (it isn't).

[dem bones]

very true, Dr. Strange and, it's title notwithstanding, i'm not so sure that Count Stenbock's effort really belongs in the 'true stories' category.

Baron Vordenberg provided some startling revelations about a James Dickie who may or may not be our man on Vault Mk I, which i quote in full below if you're feeling lazy.

********

Baron V wrote (Jan 14th, 2006):

I don't know if anybody has mentioned the 1973 Pan edition of James Dickie's vampire anthology 'The Undead' - it's a pretty good collection and clearly chosen with sure discrimination featuring the odd rare item such as F.G. Loring's 'The Tomb of Sarah', a classic like E.F. Benson's 'The Room in the Tower' (when Benson was good he was extraordinarily good - this story always gives me that genuine frisson of fear...'Jack will show you to your room...')

Jame's Dickie's Introduction is also notable as it is very erudite, eloquent and well written and conveys some excellent insights. He clearly has a real feel for the subject of Vampirism in literature and culture and it shows in this intro.

The biography of James Dickie says that he is 'Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Lancaster University. A graduate in Arabic of Glasgow and Barcelona Universities, he took his doctorate in Arabic Literature at Granada in 1967...the author of two books on the poetry of the Arabs in Spain.

Who's Who lists his recreations as 'flagellation and ecclesiology', and such time as the pleasures of the rod and the study of church furniture leave over in the academic holidays he uses for travelling the Middle East in pursuit of mosques and excitement...This leaves him free to espouse the cause of the Radical Right... etc . etc.'

Curiously I lately re-read his excellent little anthology and in an idle moment googled his name and this came up, cited by journalist Daniel Pipes from 'The Scotsman' newspaper:

hnn.us/blogs/entries/14491.html

"Yaqub Zaki, born in Greenock, Scotland as James Dickie, now deputy leader of the self-styled Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, and author of an article in Muqarnas (a scholarly journal in which I too have published) on "The Mughal Garden: Gateway to Paradise," says he has no problem with Muslims mounting a rocket or bomb attack on the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street.

I say go ahead, I would be very happy. The IRA did it. They had rockets that were ready to rain down on No 10. "It would be a shame because it's a beautiful Georgian property. I wouldn't like to see it destroyed but as for its inmates, well, I don't care much for what happens to them.

He would not object to the bombing of Tony Blair's office and residence? "No, I wouldn't be upset, no. But I'm not calling for his execution." Zaki raised the possibility that the July 7 attacks in London were carried out in collusion with the security services to demonize Muslims."

Is this perhaps the same James Dickie who edited 'The Undead' with such aplomb and judicious taste or am I mistaken perhaps?

Cripes! Wheres Conky Bill when you need him!!

********

[Dr Strange]

It is the same James Dickie. Found this short biog online -

James or Yaqub (a literal translation) was born in the depression of the 1930s in Greenock, the only child of engineer Arthur Dickie and his wife Margaret. He managed to secure a place at Glasgow University, where he studied Spanish and developed a fascination with mediaeval Spain and Islam. He gained an MA and then journeyed, initially to Spain, to study for his PhD at the University of Granada, with further study in Barcelona. It was there that he converted to Islam, taking the name Yakub Zaki and becoming fluent in Arabic. From Barcelona, it is believed he travelled to Egypt. He returned to Britain as a Professor of Islam in the highly respected but radical, newly set-up Religious Studies Department at Lancaster University. Further travels and Zaki's growing involvement with Islam took him to Afghanistan and Central Asia, where he met his wife-to-be Irina Abdurrahnda. She was just 24 when she married 55-year-old Zaki. The couple returned to Greenock, where they live in a rundown street near the town centre.

[Dr Strange]

Dickie dates The Tomb of Sarah correctly (1900) in his intro, but has some errr... interesting things to say on the subject of "true" vampire stories, connections to Satanism, and the like. Can't quite work out how serious he is, but given the bio he provided for himself (recreations are "flagellation and ecclesiology", etc.) I reckon the answer is probably "not very". Still, it is an Intro that's really quite entertaining and definitely worth re-reading, and that's something that always makes me happy.

[noose]

here he is:

[valdemar]

I'm sure that I have this book somewhere, but with a different cover which is of a shadowed face with a pair of terrifying staring, evil eyes looking straight at you. The copy I have starts with a tale of a traveller resting at a monastery, and aquiring a key which lets him go through a door to a beautiful land, where everything is just dandy, and his ideal woman just happens to be living there. Only it isn't. It's an illusion, and his ideal woman is a Lamia [Disturbingly, I know a young woman whose daughter is called Lamia], and is sucking his blood. Anyone know the name of this story, please?

[Jojo Lapin X]

Apr 4, 2012 20:02:42 GMT valdemar said:

I'm sure that I have this book somewhere, but with a different cover which is of a shadowed face with a pair of terrifying staring, evil eyes looking straight at you. The copy I have starts with a tale of a traveller resting at a monastery, and aquiring a key which lets him go through a door to a beautiful land, where everything is just dandy, and his ideal woman just happens to be living there. Only it isn't. It's an illusion, and his ideal woman is a Lamia [Disturbingly, I know a young woman whose daughter is called Lamia], and is sucking his blood. Anyone know the name of this story, please?

Sounds like Clark Ashton Smith's "The End of the Story."

[dem bones]

I'll go along with that, jojo.

this is the Pan paperback edition from 1973.

Blurb:
`Most mysterious and intriguing of all occult phenomena, the vampire becomes in death the expression of sadistic erotomania at its intensest.'

A unique anthology to chill through flesh and blood and bone based on established lore of the vampire tradition in all its hideous detail.
The fascinating foreword by James Dickie introduces thirteen stories by such masters of the macabre as Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce, H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.
For your peace of mind, now decide where fact and fantasy merge in these tales of vampires and victims who make up the bloody legions of the undead .. .

[valdemar]

I do believe you are correct. Having seen a list of the tales in the book, it's the only one I cannot place. Thanks!

[jayaprakash]

I read this when I was 12 or 13, in the edition with the shadow-face on the cover. I remember finding everything about this book far superior to most of the other paperback horror anthologies in my father's collection, from the cover art which I found genuinely unsettling at the time to the stories, many of which lingered in my mind merely as haunting tales whose origins I was unsure of for years, until I started reading a lot of horror fiction again in my 30s. I don't have a copy anymore, I must look out for one, I'd like to revisit some of the stories which I haven't found in other books (although I suppose a copy of Vampire Archives would do the trick too - since it's all second hand it isn't as if I'll be rewarding Penzler).

[Michael Connolly]

The Undead seems to be James Dickie's only anthology, of which this is the cover of the American edition (Pocket, 1976).

[Michael Connolly]

Jan 25, 2019 13:39:55 GMT Michael Connolly said:

The Undead seems to be James Dickie's only anthology, of which this is the cover of the American edition (Pocket, 1976).

I had forgotten about the superior cover above. I've just re-read "The End Of The Story" from The Undead, which is a tad deliberately overwritten but still very effective. Pretty much can also be said for "Revelations In Black", which is inadvertently a tad overwritten.

[andydecker]

This is the same edition as the Haining.

The Undead, 1973, 255 pages

Also like the Haining there is a extra story included, this time from a German writer.

[samdawson]

The Undead is one of the books recently unpacked for the first time since I left home in the 80s, and now re-read for the first time since 1973, when it was one of my first horror book purchases. It's really remarkably good. I suspect it may have slightly spoiled me for vampire fiction by setting the bar so high: flashing teeth and a swirling cape would no longer quite do after reading these stories, with their lamias and longings and decaying (but often plausibly present day) settings. 
As for Dickie himself, his introduction is pleasingly erudite but I dislike the note struck by his tone of academic superiority, his remark about Polidori's suicide and by the flagellation boasts, which you could only find in a 1970s book. Interesting to see that he went from espousing "the Radical Right" unlike the other "morons" to radical Islam.