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Post by dem bones on May 20, 2010 7:45:01 GMT
Henry S. Whitehead – The Black Beast And Other Voodoo Tales (Mayflower, 1976) The Black Beast Seven Turns In A Hangman’s Rope Mrs. Lorriquer The Projection Of Armand Dubois The Lips The FireplaceBlurb: The West Indies. Tropical islands steeped in native beliefs and superstition. Home of the dreaded jumbee. Birthplace of a thousand unfathomable mysteries. The mysteries of voodoo.
Let Henry S. Whitehead take you into this macabre world where beasts invade the minds of men.
Where executed buccaneers still twitch on the hangman’s rope. Where the lives of the living are racked by the spirits of the dead. Where the curses of the great Guinea-Snake can freeze the blood in your veins and melt the iron in your soul!Henry St. Clair Whitehead was born in New Jersey but lived much of his life in the West Indies, serving as Archdeacon to the Virgin Islands for much of the nineteen twenties, the decade when he began submitting his tales of voodoo and witchcraft to the pulps. From 1924 until his death, Whitehead contributed over 30 stories to Weird Tales and Strange Tales, the bulk of which were posthumously collected in two Arkham House collections, Jumbee & Other Uncanny Tales (1944) and West India Lights (1946). H. P. Lovecraft said of him: "He has nothing of the musty cleric about him, but dresses in sports clothes, swears like a he-man on occasion, and is an utter stranger to bigotry and priggishness of any sort." The Lips: ( Weird Tales, Sept. 1929). A strangely erotic take on Edward Lucas White's Lukundoo. St. Thomas, Dutch west Indies. Luke Martin, captain of the slave ship Saul Taverner, delivers his human cargo to a plantation. When one of the negro women takes too long fussing over her infant, he strikes her viciously. She casually turns to him, whispers a word in his ear - 'L'kundu' and, without warning, nips the skin of his shoulder between her teeth. Martin sets sail for home - he's due to be married on his return to Boston - but there's something weird happening to the wound .... The Chadbourne Episode: ( Weird Tales, February 1933). Chadbourne, Connecticut. Gerald Canevin, a veteran of Whitehead’s adventures, takes centre stage in this investigation into the disappearance of five year old Truman Curtiss, last seen in the company of ‘a lady’. Prior to the boy’s abduction, the gnawed bodies of several lambs and cats had been found up on Cemetery Ridge. Cavenan comes upon the Persian ghouls as they are feasting on the boy in the old Merritt mausoleum. This time the influence is Edward Lucas White's Anima, though Whitehead makes the story his own with some remarkable touches, and one particularly vivid image of a feasting pig with an old woman's face has haunted me since first i read it. Christine Campbell Thomson included The Chadbourne Episode and Passing Of A God in the Not At Night series which is another point in his favour and, indeed, hers. Seven Turns Of A Hangman's Rope ( Adventure, July, 1932): Frederiksted, St. Croix. The execution of an infamous pirate crew is recorded in a painting, and Canevin notices that the figure representing Saul Maccartney is seem to squirm when he looks at it from a certain angle. The canvas even appears to be bleeding. Whitehead gives a lengthy account of how the haunting came to be. It seems that when Maccartney joined up with swashbuckling Captain Fawcett, he so alienated his cousin and bride-to-be, Camilla, a voodoo adept, that she financed a mission to bring them to justice. It was Camilla who depicted the gallows scene but in her eyes, a mere hanging wasn't enough for Maccartney. So she painted his soul onto the canvas, effectively trapping him in torment for eternity. The Passing of a God: ( Weird Tales, January 1931). When young Arthur Carswell was diagnosed with stomach cancer, he broke off his engagement, gave up his business and quit America for the salt marshes of Haiti. It wasn't long before Carswell befriended the local natives who introduced him to voodoo, a practice which had always held a great fascination for him. After seven years, he was "a walking encyclopedia of native beliefs" so when one night, after he'd suffered a fainting fit, he recovered to find himself being worshiped by the snake people, he wasn't the least fazed, realising that they believe him to have been temporarily possessed by a deity. It's then the pains in his stomach become unbearable, and Carswell admits himself to hospital in Sao Paulo where the surgeon discovers a triangular tumour the size of a man's head growing inside him. Wait until he removes it! Told to Canevin by Dr. Pelletier, the surgeon who wrestled with the seriously malignant growth. Several references in the text to William Seabrook's The Magic Island, in particular the account of a voodoo baptism, Girl-Cry - Goat-Cry. In a similar vein, the novella Cassius: ( Strange Tales, November 1931) concerns Canevin's man-servant, Brutus Hellman, whose tumour is revealed to be his tiny conjoined twin a la Basket Case. Removed by the industrious Dr. Pelletier, the malevolent six-inch pygmy subjects Hellman to a relentless violent persecution and, in one memorable early scene, disembowels a rat in claw to claw combat. Arthur Carswell, who, of course, knows a thing or two about ghastly growth, guest stars.
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Post by stuyoung on May 21, 2010 8:17:50 GMT
I recently took Bill Pronzini's Tales of the Dead anthology down from my bookshelf with the intention of reading Whitehead's Seven Turns in a Hangman's Rope and The Chadbourne Episode. Unfortunately taking the book down from the bookshelf is as far I've got. So many books, so little time.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 22, 2011 14:10:58 GMT
Good news and a request from our friend Derek at Wordworth!
One of our projects for 2012 is Henry S. Whitehead - technically a little early, as copyright expires on 1 January 2013.
As you know, we like to pack in as much as possible into our books, so in an ideal world we would like to do a complete set of his supernatural stories. As usual, David Stuart Davies is doing the compilation of the book, and he tells me that a certain number of Whitehead's stories seem to be scattered across various anthologies and do not appear in his published collections.
Knowing what a knowledgeable crew the Vault crowd are, I wondered what the chances are of coming up with a definitive list of his stories, to give us something to work to.
The Collected ones are easily dealt with, so let's get them out of the way first:
Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales (Arkham House, 1944: Neville Spearman, 1974) by R.H. Barlow - Introduction: Henry S. Whitehead Jumbee Cassius Black Tancrède The Shadows Sweet Grass The Black Beast Seven Turns in a Hangman's Rope The Tree-Man Passing of a God Mrs. Lorriquer Hill Drums The Projection of Armand Dubois The Lips The Fireplace
West India Lights (Arkham House, 1946) [and i'm sure i've seen a Neville Spearman edition of this, too. Anybody? ]
The Black Terror West India Lights Williamson The Shut Room The Left Eye Tea Leaves The Trap The Napier Limousine The Ravel Pavane Sea Change The People of Pan The Chadbourne Episode Scar Tissue "'—In Case of Disaster Only'" Bothon The Great Circle Obi in the Caribbean
Now it gets tricky. Below, to best of my knowledge, are the uncollected, and they're the one's we need concentrate on. If you know of any that were anthologised or revived for other magazines, then i'm sure that would be a great help. And, of course, if you can suggest a Whitehead obscurity or two, so much the better!
---------------------------------------------- The Door (Weird Tales, Nov. 1924) The Moon-Dial (Strange Tales, 1932: Magazine Of Horror #32, May 1970) The Cult of the Skull (Weird Tales, Dec. 1928) The Wonderful Thing (Weird Tales, July 1925) The Thin Match (Weird Tales, March 1925) Across the Gulf (Weird Tales, July 1926) The Tabernacle (Weird Tales, Jan. 1930)
The Tree-Man (Weird Tales, Feb-March 1931: Sept. 1953) No Eye-Witnesses (Weird Tales, Aug. 1932)
The Great Circle (Strange Tales, June 1932) Sea-Tiger (Strange Tales, Oct. 1932)
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Post by severance on Sept 22, 2011 14:37:03 GMT
Sea-Tiger was collected in the 1994 Barnes & Noble anthology Sea-Cursed. Across the Gulf was collected in the 1994 Barnes & Noble anthology 100 Wild Little Weird Tales. In the 1994 anthology 100 Crooked Little Crime Stories there's a story called The Cunning of the Serpent - whether it has any supernatural content - don't know, haven't got it, sorry.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 22, 2011 18:39:22 GMT
thanks, Sev! That's sure to be a great help because I can forsee David Stuart Davis having the devil's own job with this unless he has access to a near complete run of early Weird Tales.
I guess for completest sake we should also mention that Mayflower recycled the contents of Jumbee ... over two 1976 paperbacks, Jumbee & Other Voodoo Tales and The Black Beast & Other Voodoo Tales.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 23, 2011 0:02:54 GMT
A few additions from the Barnes and Noble "100" anthologies:
The Door is in 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories.
The Tabernacle is in 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories.
No Eye-Witnesses is in 100 Wild Little Weird Tales AND 100 Tiny Tales of Terror.
The Wonderful Thing is in a collection titled Passing of a God.
Finally, The Moon-Dial is supposedly in an anthology titled Seekers of Dreams: Masterpieces of Fantasy, though I haven't seen that one myself.
One other note: The Great Circle is in West India Lights and The Tree-Man is in Jumbee--they're on both lists.
That leaves the following:
The Thin Match (Weird Tales, March 1925) The Cult of the Skull (Weird Tales, Dec. 1928)
I'm a huge Whitehead fan, so I'd buy a new collection just for those two, plus The Moon Dial.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 23, 2011 5:51:58 GMT
excellent work as ever, CB! Have sent Derek a direct link to this thread and i'm sure he'll be thrilled with the response to date. whatever happens, we should be OK for The Moon-Dial 'cause i can scan them a copy from MOH if needs be. sorry 'bout the double inclusions by the way - my eyes aren't what they were, and the less said about my phenomenal aptitude for proof reading the better.
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Post by cw67q on Sept 23, 2011 7:30:50 GMT
This is great news, Whitehead will be a great addition to the series.
- Chris
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 23, 2011 11:18:24 GMT
Glad to be of any help! I think that Whitehead is an excellent choice for the series, too--his work deserves greater exposure.
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Post by wordswortheditions on Oct 19, 2011 12:28:43 GMT
Hello, Derek from Wordsworth here. I just wanted to drop in and thank you all for the Whitehead information. I've passed on the whole list to David Stuart Davies and told him that, thanks to your efforts, I can provide sources for any stories he can't lay his hands on.
Your support is very much appreciated, as always. We are also doing an E.F. Benson collection, and with the help of the Aleister Crowley estate, a complete collection of the Simon Iff stories, including some not previously published.
Happy reading!
Derek
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Post by dem bones on Oct 20, 2011 7:15:19 GMT
lovely to hear from you, Derek. Delighted the Whitehead book is coming along so quickly: it will be thrill to see one of the 'thirties weird pulp greats on the shelf in the book-stores again, and the Simon Iff collection is sure to sell. Can't think why there hasn't been one before, but i'm glad its going to be a Wordsworth Edition.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 24, 2012 20:39:44 GMT
TOC/ page count yet to be announced, but this is what we have to look forward to in August (price £2.99) Blurb: With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies.
‘And behind him, like a misshapen black frog, bounded the Thing, its red tongue lolling out of its gash of a mouth, its diminutive blubbery lips drawn back in a murderous snarl…’
Let Henry S. Whitehead take you into the mysterious and macabre world of voodoo where beasts invade the mind of man and where lives of the living are racked by the spirits of the dead. In this collection of rare and out of print stories you will encounter the curses of the great Guinea-Snake, the Sheen, the weredog whose very touch means certain death, the curious tale of the ‘magicked’ mirror, and fiendish manikins who make life a living hell. Included in this festival of shivering fear is the remarkable narrative ‘Williamson’ which every editor who read the story shied away from publishing.
With deceptive simplicity and chilling realism, Whitehead’s Voodoo Tales are amongst the most frightening ever written.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Mar 24, 2012 22:42:16 GMT
I'm going crazy waiting to see the TOC for this one. I check the Wordsworth site every few days just to make sure they haven't posted it.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Mar 25, 2012 22:37:25 GMT
Oh yes! This should be a cracker!
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Post by ramseycampbell on Mar 27, 2012 8:07:33 GMT
Splendid! Will it acknowledge Lovecraft's contribution (if as I assume it won't just include voodoo stories)?
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