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Post by humgoo on Aug 29, 2023 11:11:51 GMT
Truth to tell, for someone who's not the greatest fan of psychic detective fiction, I've been enjoying this selection so much more than expected. Yet another "I didn't think I needed it but now I'm not so sure" book. Sigh. And thanks for the long quote from CCT's I am a Literary Agent, which looks like a treasure trove of info on inter-war authors (does she mention Eliza Pyke in it?).
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Post by dem bones on Aug 29, 2023 13:52:38 GMT
Truth to tell, for someone who's not the greatest fan of psychic detective fiction, I've been enjoying this selection so much more than expected. Yet another "I didn't think I needed it but now I'm not so sure" book. Sigh. And thanks for the long quote from CCT's I am a Literary Agent, which looks like a treasure trove of info on inter-war authors (does she mention Eliza Pyke in it?). Disappointingly, and in keeping with the rest, no mention of the Not At Night's, let alone the great Ms. Pyke. It's all very feelgood - CCT assures us she has made no enemies in the business - and likely not the book you hoped for, certainly no "treasure trove of info on inter-war authors." Our heroine signs off with; "Many of those who read this book may wonder at omissions of all reference to people whom they know have influenced me, or to whom I have been devoted: my response is that this is not an exposition of myself; it is a book of memories culled from the past and there are some things too precious to be printed." Edited to add " not the book you hoped for."!
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Post by helrunar on Aug 29, 2023 14:08:26 GMT
Interesting quote from CCT's memoir--thanks for that, Dem. She was a very complicated person. Her occult writing reveals a very different sort of personality from the editor and the author of startlingly carnage-ridden, rather sadistic horror stories. Intriguing.
cheers, Hel.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 30, 2023 19:17:55 GMT
Ella Scrymsour - The Room of Fear: (The Blue Magazine, July 1920). Shiela Crerar, fledgling psychic Investigator, travels to Taynuilt, Argyle, to investigate the tower room at McKenzie Castle, where three people have suffered fatal heart attacks in as many months. Miss Crerar insists on sleeping in the deadly chamber, which is indeed haunted by phantom shrieks and groans of agony and terror. After several uncomfortable weeks, Shiela is no nearer to solving the mystery until she realises the floorboards are not long laid. She has them taken back up.
Love interest is a loyal, frightfully decent-seeming chap, Stavodore Hartland. Our advice would be to take a leaf from Jack Hargreaves' book, be patient, and your romantic dreams will surely be fulfilled at the series' conclusion. Be that as it may, this is another story would not have been out of place among the gruesome horrors of the imminent Not At Night's.
Philippa Forest [Marion Holmes] - The Seven Fires: (Pearson’s Magazine, March 1920). "I'm being burnt out of house and home. Seven outbreaks in four days — my nerves won't stand it!" That's Masterman, a collector of Grecian and Roman art, whose private museum on Hampstead Heath has become worryingly susceptible to fire. The antiquarian puts the blame on a "clumsy" young maid, Alice, and, in a roundabout way, he's not entirely wrong. A case for Peter Carwell, who, on this evidence, might be a Jazz age Lionel Fanthorpe (master of the esoteric, imperturbable, happily married, etc.) A lighter, mildly humorous interlude, narrated by Carwell's colleague, Wilton the artist.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 31, 2023 17:28:19 GMT
H. R. Hammond, Weird Tales, Sept. 1934. These stories in which the occult detective confront a moral dilemma. Dion Fortune - The Subletting Of The Mansion: ( The Royal, Dec. 1922: The Secrets Of Dr. Taverner, 1926). With Taverner holidaying in Scotland, Dr. Rhodes is left to run the nursing home. Winnington, a pal of Taverner, dangerously ill with TB, lusts after a Mrs Bellamy, who resides in the village. Rhodes, who meets her at the postbox most days, learns that her husband is hooked on narcotics, and unwittingly reveals as much to his patient. Seizing the advantage, Winnington takes to the astral ("I saw a grey, spindle-shaped drift of mist") to steal his rival's body, effectively driving the evicted spirit to take up residence in his own. On his return, Taverner immediately reasons what's happened, but will he do right by the ousted Bellamy and reverse the exchange? Don't bet on it. Seabury Quinn - The Jest Of Warburg Tantavul: ( Weird Tales, Sept. 1934). A tale about an evil old man who reached back from the grave to work his will — a story of Jules de Grandin. The-dapper-little-Frenchman and his straight man, Dr. Sam Trowbridge lay the ghost of a sadist, but not before he's played a particularly spiteful prank on his children. Apparently upset moralist groups on publication. See Michel Parry [ed.], Supernatural Solution, 1976). Ashley presents the stories in chronological order of publication until Quinn's breaks the sequence. A. M. Burrage - The Soldier: ( The Blue Magazine, Sept. 1927). On retiring to a property in Minthaven, Hants., Lionel Glover engages a husband and wife to do for him. The Wrathams boast excellent references, despite a disinclination to stay put for long. Soon after their arrival, Glover discovers that a gardener's cottage is haunted by the ghost of a young soldier cruelly mutilated at the battle of Cambrai. He calls upon his friend. Francis Chard, paranormal investigator who, it transpires, having learned the backstory to the affair, is loath to intervene.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 6, 2023 8:15:09 GMT
Sydney Horler - The Horror of the Height: ( Mystery Stories, April 1928). "Possessed of comfortable means, he devoted his life to the study of crime in its more exotic and weird manifestations. He was a repository of so much varied knowledge that I often marvelled how and by what means he could have accumulated so many facts, knowing that he was still under forty. Quin had learned Chinese well enough to pass for a native within a month, and could speak altogether eighteen languages. " Newly arrived in Trevelyn, Rathin Memory wastes no time in upsetting everyone, not least Miss Violet Loring, whom, he insists, will be his, no matter that she is betrothed to her childhood sweetheart and finds the attentions of this unsought admirer repulsive. When Violet's father threatens Memory with the law, he retaliates with black sorcery. With Mr. Loring paralysed and her husband-to-be inane, Miss Long wisely approaches Sebastian Quin, psychic investigator, for help. This story is the same as reappeared in Horler's The Screaming Skull and Michel Parry's 3rd Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories under the prosaic title, Black Magic. L. Adams Beck - The Mystery of Iniquity: ( The Openers of the Gate, 1930). Dr. James Livingstone, neurologist, is first made aware of Miss Joyselle Saumaraz while holidaying in the Swiss Alps with his great friend, Pastor Donnerstein. The girl's mother has leased the Parsons house for a year to aid the eighteen-year-old's recovery from a mystery illness. The late unlamented Dr. Suamaraz, a London psychologist drummed out of the profession for immoral experimentation in hypnosis techniques, trained his daughter to detach from her body to commit unspeakable acts while under the influence of hashish, to which she is now addicted. Joyselle in phantom form delights in luring young men to their death, as she does with two hikers, posing nude beneath a waterfall to entice them over a crevice. Challenged by Livingstone, she agrees to become his patient for six months to prove which of their magics is stronger. A 40 page novella, most likely one of the most accomplished stories in the book, but after 30 pages of Livingstone knowing best, I just wanted it to go away.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 12, 2024 17:12:32 GMT
C. C. Senf Amelia Reynolds Long - The Thought Monster: ( Weird Tales, March 1930: Christine Campbell Thomson [ed] Switch on the Light, 1931). A goose-flesh story of the sudden and frightful deaths caused by a strange creature in a panic-stricken village. After a series of mysterious deaths in the wood, the villagers turn to a New York detective, Gibson, for help, only for him to go missing a week before returning a gibbering idiot! Michael Cummings, psychic investigator, concludes they are dealing with a supernatural entity which can only be repelled by violet light. Oblivious to the Terror, reclusive scientist Julian Walgrave has created a "mental being" by the concentrated power of pure thought. The invisible feaster on human minds was confined in a room with lead lined walls until Walgrave was took to his bed ill, whereupon his housekeeper left the door open ... Cummings is relatively peripheral on this occasion, the scientist having taken it upon himself to destroy the monster he'd thought into being. Hugh Rankin Henry S. Whitehead - The Shut Room: ( Weird Tales, April 1930: Stefan R. Dziemainowicz, Robert Weinberg & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - 32 Terrors Unearthed, 1988). Eery manifestations took place in "the Coach and Horses" Inn, where the English highwayman had been caught red-handed Gerald Canevin and the Earl of Caruth investigate the haunting of a 14th century Sussex inn by a phantom thieving leather fetishist operating from a guest room on the top floor. It was here that Simon Forrester, highwayman and murderer, was bludgeoned to death in June 1818, Old Titmarsh the innkeeper having betrayed him to the King's men. The ghost hunters draw comparisons with William Hope Hodgson's account of the haunting of The Whistling Room by a vengeful spectral jester. Suitably prepared, they keep vigil in the haunted chamber. Amos Sewell Gordon MacCreagh - Dr. Muncing, Exorcist: ( Strange Tales, Sept. 1931; Peter Haining [ed.], The Black Magic Omnibus: Vol 2, 1977). Dr. Muncing Challenges a Malignant Entity — a Thing of Hate out of the Unknown Void Old Mrs Jarrett's foray into spiritualism lets loose an elemental to prey upon her invalid brother. Muncing and his hired muscle, Dr. Jimmy Terry prepare for battle with the horror in the attic!
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Post by dem bones on Feb 13, 2024 15:40:05 GMT
Boris Dolgov Margery Lawrence - The Case of the Haunted Cathedral: ( Number Seven, Queer Street, 1945). Six months since it was built, the Nant Valley Cathedral is already haunted by the ghosts of the architect who built it and that of a little girl in red ragged dress. Soon after completion of his masterpiece, the former, Gregg Hart, a cantankerous, reclusive genius, committed suicide at the altar and the faithful have stayed away since, citing an overwhelming atmosphere of fear, misery, shame and ...what? The key to the mystery lies in Hart's journal, which Dr. Miles Pennoyer locates in a concealed drawer of the dead man's desk. Manly Wade Wellman - The Shonokins: ( Weird Tales, March 1945). Precautions against the Shonokins are not like precautions against anything else in this world or out of it.[/i] An occult battle in a Times Square hotel room. John Thurstone and pipe confront three Shonokin, a cat-eyed, pre-homo sapien race who once dominated America and work black magic toward doing so again. Thurstone, perhaps uniquely, has identified a weakness — the Shonokins refuse to acknowledge their own mortality — and uses it against them. Pauline C. Smith (?) Joseph Payne Brennan - The Dead of Winter Apparition: ( Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Feb. 1975). This may be a haunting reminder not to lose one's temper. Brennan and psychic investigating private eye Lucius Leffing travel to Comptonvale, Maine, to investigate the haunting of the Pasquette's house by an amorphous, spectral blob, its twisted human face emanating waves of pure hatred. The entity, active only during snow blizzards, is an energy vampire, sapping the strength of the new residents, as it had the previous occupier. Leffing learns that the property formerly served as a schoolhouse where, one winter's afternoon, a deformed child went missing after the tutor kept him behind for detention. This truly is a far the most enjoyable psychic detective selection I've read. Can't recall one dull story.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 14, 2024 17:53:21 GMT
Eric Williams - The Garden of Paris: (John Carnell [ed.], Weird Shadows from Beyond, 1965). UNO troubleshooter M. Paul Delacroix investigates an extraordinary tip off that at least fifty murders have been perpetrated in the Jardin des Plantes on successive nights of the full moon. The source, M. Abine, whose house overlooks the botanical school, believes the gardens are being used for political assassinations. To his wife's chagrin - frozen limbs at his age! - Delacroix decides on a midnight stake out. His persistence is rewarded, ours likewise, in a delightful mad botanist pulp throw-back. Mark Valentine - St. Michael and All Angels: ( 14 Bellchamber Tower, 1987). Renovation of the disused twelfth century church at Enderby coincides with an alleged outbreak of "vandalism," the perpetrator hurling stone slabs from the roof. Ralph Tyler, impeccably groomed occult detective, is more inclined to believe the testimony of the workmen — that the church is under attack from a winged beast — than the 'official' explanation offered by a worried charitable trust. It is Tyler's belief that neglect of the annual rededication to St. Michael has let loose a medieval horror from the crypt. The trust secretary agrees to an exorcism. Allen Koszowski Jeremiah Sad one to end on. Jessica Amanda Salmonson - Jeremiah: ( Harmless Ghosts, 1990). Told in a letter from Penelope Pettiweather to her best friend, the church art restorer, Jane Bradshaw, familiar to many of us as the heroine of Mary Ann Allen's The Angry Dead. In the latter years of their long, happy marriage, Jeremiah Adamson was stricken with Alzheimer's, and died despising his wife, Gretta, raging that she was trying to poison him. At midnight on Christmas Eve for the past fifteen years, his demented ghost has arrived to scream abuse at the woman he adored. Moved by the old woman's plight, Penelope stays with her over the holiday, intent on putting Jeremiah's troubled soul to rest.
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