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Post by andydecker on Aug 25, 2012 11:10:49 GMT
Unlike the Victoria Holt school, where there are several layers of irony and the "heroine" may well turn out to be the real villain of the piece. For an example of the latter, I recommend Holt's THE LEGEND OF THE SEVENTH VIRGIN, a truly subversive work. SEVENTH VIRGIN is a great novel, more layered than you typical gothic. Would have made a terrific movie, now that I think of it. Just saw Downton Abbey for the first time, so maybe I am in the right mood.  Yeah, Whitney is kind of a bore, isn´t she? |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 25, 2012 12:06:55 GMT
I've seen it said that Lovecraft only offered advice to Eddy on the tale. Supposedly this edition is based on the original manuscript, but I haven't seen the book: www.fenhampublishing.com/11643.htmlof course you realise that, even if you'd produced conclusive evidence that every word was Lovecraft's, it would still be C. M. Eddy's story to me! I always thought that at the very least, the necrophilia part was Eddy's--that never sounded like HPL to me. "The Loved Dead" is a classic--especially the end--but I have a sneaking preference for his "Deaf, Dumb, and Blind," which doesn't get as much attention. For what it's worth, I think that the most recent edition of The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions lists them both as secondary, rather than primary, revisions. The used bookstore in my town has a huge paperback gothic section, and I think of her blog whenever I look through it (I once found an Ace edition of Shirley Jackson's The Sundial with a beautiful Richard Powers cover there). Next time I'm in the store I should check to see if they have any of Holt's books. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 25, 2012 18:10:59 GMT
Take two on the table of contents, this time assuming a single doorstopper volume (a particularly thick one if the non-WT stories are included):
Christine Campbell Thomson - Out of the Earth (1925, Weird Tales) or The Gray Lady (1929, Weird Tales)
Bassett Morgan - The Wolf-Woman (1927, Weird Tales) or one of the brain transplant stories
Signe Toksvig - The Devil’s Martyr (1928, Weird Tales)
Nell Kay – The Voice (1928, Ghost Stories)
Everil Worrell - The Gray Killer (1929, Weird Tales)
Kelsey Percival Kitchel - Mummy (1929, Weird Tales)
Amelia Reynolds Long - The Thought Monster (1930, Weird Tales)
Elizabeth Sheldon - The Ghost That Never Died (1931, Weird Tales)
Marion Brandon – The Dark Castle (1931, Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror)
Greye La Spina - The Devil’s Pool (1932, Weird Tales)
Phyllis A. Whitney – The Silver Bullet (1935, Weird Tales)
Pearl Norton Swet - The Medici Boots (1936, Weird Tales)
G. G. Pendarves - The Withered Heart (1939, Weird Tales)
C. L. Moore - Hellsgarde (1939, Weird Tales)
Frances Garfield - The Forbidden Cupboard (1940, Weird Tales)
Leigh Brackett – The Tapestry Gate (1940, Strange Stories)
Mary Dale Bruckner – Bodies Born for Slaughter (1940, Terror Tales)
Jane Rice – The Crest of the Wave (1941, Unknown) or The Idol of the Flies (1942, Unknown)
Mary Elizabeth Counselman - Parasite Mansion (1942, Weird Tales) or The Smiling Face (1950, Weird Tales)
Sophie Wenzel Ellis – White Lady (1943 Strange Tales)
Dorothy Quick - The Cracks of Time (1948, Weird Tales)
Allison V. Harding - The Underbody (1949, Weird Tales)
Evangeline Walton - At the End of the Corridor (1950, Weird Tales)
Mildred Johnson - The Cactus (1950, Weird Tales)
Zenna Henderson – Hush (Beyond, 1953)
Leah Bodine Drake - Mop-Head (1954, Weird Tales)
Margaret St. Clair - Brenda (1954, Weird Tales)
Rosemary Timperly – Dreams Are More Than Shadows (London Mystery Magazine, 1956)
Viola Barker Ririe – House of Evil (London Mystery Magazine, 1956)
Shirley Jackson – The Missing Girl (1957, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Miriam Allen de Ford – Laughing Moths (1960, Shock: The Magazine of Terrifying Tales)
Tigrina – Last Act: October (1964, Magazine of Horror)
Janet Hirsch – The Seeking Thing (1964, Magazine of Horror)
Joanna Russ – Come Closer (1965, Magazine of Horror)
Anna Hunger – Come (1967, Magazine of Horror)
Dorothy Norman Cook – The Parasite (1969, Startling Mystery Stories)
Lisa Tuttle – Dollburger (1973, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Potential additions:
Katherine Yates – Under the Hau Tree (1925, Weird Tales)
Eli Colter - The Last Horror (1927, Weird Tales)
Loretta G. Burrough – Creeping Fingers (1931, Weird Tales)
Based on the description, the Ford were-moth story sounds to good to omit. I also threw in a Tigrina story. I cut the Bishop and Heald stories.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 25, 2012 18:36:34 GMT
Yeah, Whitney is kind of a bore, isn´t she? Indeed, yes, as far as I can tell. But Mary Stewart is an even greater bore. Unfortunately, I had read most of her novels before I decided to give up. I shall not make the same mistake with Whitney. |
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Post by dem on Aug 25, 2012 20:14:49 GMT
Take two on the table of contents, this time assuming a single doorstopper volume (a particularly thick one if the non-WT stories are included): Now that would make for one seriously astonishing collection. I'm thinking a nasty kid sister to Richard Dalby's Virago Book Of Ghost Stories who's not to be trusted with sharp objects or deadly poisons. And we're not done yet. Much as it's tempting to opt for a typical example of a Web Terror Story, we've no way of discerning whether Christine Crewell ( The Curse Of The Borgias), Auralia Mulhare ( The Pain Tree), or Ernestine Darvell ( Glutton For Punishment) are who they say they are, rather than some sleazy blokes in drag enjoying a paid perve. So best play safe and settle for the relatively restrained vampire story, Treason Of The Blood (Aug. 1962) by Marion Zimmer Bradley who clearly had no idea what kind of 'horror' publication she'd gotten herself involved with. We'd be way short of 'forties material were it not for the rival publications so will see if i can dredge some more. And yes, Tiguana should definitely be included. |
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Post by ramseycampbell on Aug 25, 2012 20:33:12 GMT
I fear that Marion Zimmer Bradley had some history of not knowing what she was involved with.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 25, 2012 23:10:42 GMT
I'm thinking a nasty kid sister to Richard Dalby's Virago Book Of Ghost Stories who's not to be trusted with sharp objects or deadly poisons. Funny that you mention Dalby's Virago Book of Ghost Stories--that one's near the top of my to-read stack. I'm especially curious about "Three Miles Up." Much as it's tempting to opt for a typical example of a Web Terror Story, we've no way of discerning whether Christine Crewell ( The Curse Of The Borgias), Auralia Mulhare ( The Pain Tree), or Ernestine Darvell ( Glutton For Punishment) are who they say they are, rather than some sleazy blokes in drag enjoying a paid perve. So best play safe and settle for the relatively restrained vampire story, Treason Of The Blood (Aug. 1962) by Marion Zimmer Bradley who clearly had no idea what kind of 'horror' publication she'd gotten herself involved with. This publication is new to me--checking back, I see that Mike Ashley mentions it in one of the appendices of his Who's Who, but I must have skipped right over it. The title of magazine is so perfectly lurid that if I hadn't just looked at the scans, I might have figured this for another one of your practical jokes. |
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Post by dem on Aug 26, 2012 6:35:45 GMT
No, I'd not cheapen a brilliant thread with my tiresome nonsense (and there's also the little matter of having to write Treason Of The Blood when Robinson realise what an inspired idea for a theme anthology this is). Having said that, it's maybe for the best I decided against posting that tribute to 'Women In Horror Awareness month' after all. Very confident that you will get along famously with Three Miles Up and, indeed, the bulk of Virago Book Of Ghost Stories, and hope you will share your thoughts with us. The thread is best avoided for time being as potentially spoiler heavy, but which edition do you have as the contents differ, the 2006 hard-cover being a best of selection from the 1987 original, Vol II and The Virago Book Of Victorian Ghost Stories. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 26, 2012 14:15:59 GMT
which edition do you have as the contents differ, the 2006 hard-cover being a best of selection from the 1987 original, Vol II and The Virago Book Of Victorian Ghost Stories. I've got the 1987 (the McGraw-Hill edition, same contents as the Virago). |
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Post by dem on Aug 26, 2012 19:47:56 GMT
i've not got volume 2, but far prefer that 1987 original over the later compilation under the same title. Been flicking through my measly vintage pulp mag "collection" for likely stories, and have dredged a few more for consideration. It's been quite an eye-opener. Could be it's just the luck of the draw, and the few issue's i have of Fantastic (will come back to that) and the like are atypical, but the lack of female contributors is striking. However. Stephen Jones & David Sutton (eds.) - Fantasy Tales #5 (Winter, 1979)  David Lloyd The Thing In The MoonlightI know we already have a Frances Garfield story, but i was delighted to find a reprint of Don’t Open That Door ( Weird Tales, Jan. 1940) in the above, have set it aside for a rematch, along with Beverley Haaf's Mrs. Kaye from Startling Mystery Stories #11 (Winter 1968-1969) and, of course, Brian J. Frost's Book Of The Werewolf (am assuming, i hope not incorrectly, that Beverley Haaf is a woman? I nearly came a cropper on Mindret Lord!). As a crowd-pleaser, and to give the collection more Robinson appeal, we could throw in Agatha Christie's The Last Seance which first saw print as The Woman Who Stole A Ghost in Ghost Stories (Nov. 1926) |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 26, 2012 21:02:04 GMT
Could be it's just the luck of the draw, and the few issue's i have of Fantastic (will come back to that) and the like are atypical, but the lack of female contributors is striking. I looked through more than a decade's worth of TOCs for Fantastic and came up with nothing other than a Shirley Jackson story that I don't rate as highly as "The Missing Girl." Some great covers, though. Also, Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg must have missed out on a few years' sleep working for that magazine. I nearly came a cropper on Mindret Lord! I was all set to go with his "Naked Lady" until I did a little more research. As a crowd-pleaser, and to give the collection more Robinson appeal, we could throw in Agatha Christie's The Last Seance which first saw print as The Woman Who Stole A Ghost in Ghost Stories (Nov. 1926) Good catch. |
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Post by dem on Aug 31, 2012 6:09:26 GMT
Anna Hunger -Come: Adam Stark, conscious that, now he's turned forty, his girl-magnet days may be reaching an end, sabotages his happy relationship with Beatrice on a whim, only to regret it the moment she tells him he can go. Stark jumps in the car, heads onto the San Antonio freeway, determined to revisit his globe-trotting, bed-hopping ways of old, and drives straight into a grey cloud. The siren's call lures him further and further into the eyeball searing smog, until he emerges in the barren wastes of Limbo.
As mentioned, John Pelan has selected Come as finest story of 1968 for his Century's Best Horror, but among the Magazine Of Horror readership, opinions were divided, Doc Lowndes letting on that the voters placed her her work "somewhere in the middle ground between excellent and awful." Come is the only one I've read and, while i'm not sure it's the best story published in 1968 (or even MOH #22[/i]), the bleak ending has stayed with me since the first time around, so that obviously goes in it's favour.
Beverly Haaf's Mrs Kaye is perhaps a little obvious, but a useful one to sit on the sub's bench in case a decent quiet werewolf tale is required to meet the page count.
Helen R. Kasson's Please Go Away And Let Me Sleep is folksy and whimsical, doesn't make it a bad story, just one maybe more suited to Unknown than Weird Tales where it appeared in 1940. Both Leo Marguiles and Kurt Singer would later exhume it for The Ghoul Keepers and I Can't Sleep At Night respectively.
Joanna Russ's My Dear Emily (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1962) is perhaps her greatest hit - "An outstanding treatment of the vampire motif, and a better one - we say it with drawn wolfbane - than Dracula," enthuses editor Avram Davidson in his introduction to her There Is Another Shore, You Know, Upon the Other Side (MFSF, Sept. 1963) - but can't bring myself to wield the axe on Come Closer!
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 1, 2012 21:23:36 GMT
As mentioned, John Pelan has selected Come as finest story of 1968 for his Century's Best Horror, but among the Magazine Of Horror readership, opinions were divided, Doc Lowndes letting on that the voters placed her her work "somewhere in the middle ground between excellent and awful." Come is the only one I've read and, while i'm not sure it's the best story published in 1968 (or even MOH #22 [/i]), the bleak ending has stayed with me since the first time around, so that obviously goes in it's favour.[/quote] I don't know this one, but it sounds good. I've thought about trying to start collecting Lowndes' old magazines--he seems to have had a great eye for material (the index makes for fascinating browsing). Beverly Haaf's Mrs Kaye is perhaps a little obvious, but a useful one to sit on the sub's bench in case a decent quiet werewolf tale is required to meet the page count. I read "Mrs. Kaye" in Brian J. Frost's Book of the Werewolf, but reading Dale C. Donaldson's "Pia!" immediately afterward seems to have erased all trace of Haaf's story from my memory. Helen R. Kasson's Please Go Away And Let Me Sleep is folksy and whimsical, doesn't make it a bad story, just one maybe more suited to Unknown than Weird Tales where it appeared in 1940. Sounds about right--it's rather silly. Joanna Russ's My Dear Emily ( Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1962) is perhaps her greatest hit - "An outstanding treatment of the vampire motif, and a better one - we say it with drawn wolfbane - than Dracula," enthuses editor Avram Davidson in his introduction to her There Is Another Shore, You Know, Upon the Other Side ( MFSF, Sept. 1963) - but can't bring myself to wield the axe on Come Closer! "My Dear Emily" has certainly received more exposure than "Come Closer," so no argument here. I've never read the latter, whereas the former was once the bane of my anthology-reading habit. The first two times I came across it, I couldn't manage to finish it (which bothered me considerably, given my compulsion to finish everything I start reading). Oddly, I liked it just fine the third time around. |
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Post by dem on Sept 2, 2012 11:50:27 GMT
Robert Lowndes. Be it MOH, SMS or the short-lived Weird Terror Tales, you can't go wrong. It's not just his eye for a great pulp yarn, though that certainly helps. The editorials, occasional reviews and a 'lively' (© Stephen Jones) letters column make for a truly great magazine. I've not seen issues of the Western or SF sister publications, but I'll bet they're brilliant too. Re; the revelations on The Werewolf Scrapbook thread via Doug Anderson, the beauty of having A Vow on Halloween available is, if you were to present the stories chronologically, it makes for a far more dynamic opener than Flavia's Out Of The Earth. Pia! does tend to overshadow everything else in Brian's book. This would be the third or fourth time i've read Mrs. Kaye and i was determined to nail down a synopsis before it again vanished from memory. I'm working on the assumption that, once they've thrilled to ' Weird Tales by Women Writers', an adoring public will demand a Volume 2, so best to have some material on standby. Avram Davidson (ed.) - Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (Sept, 1963)  Emsh (Ed Emshwiller) Glory Road
Grendel Briarton - Ferdinand Feghoot: LXV
Robert A. Heinlein - Glory Road (conclusion of three part serial)
Herbert W. Franke - The Man Who Feared Robots
Jack Sharkey - Collector's Item
William Bankier - Unholy Hybrid
Fritz Leiber - 237 Talking Statues, Etc.
Walter H. Kerr - Attrition (verse)Also Isaac Asimov - Who's Out There? (article)
Avram Davidson - Book reviews Includes Margaret Murray's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s Cat's Cradle, Ignatius Donnelly's Atlantis, the Antediluvian World, Grendel Briarton's Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot, Im Bang and Yi Ryuk's Korean Folk Tales.
Ward Moore - Review of Philip Wylie's TriumphFound another Joanna Russ novella, There Is Another Shore, You Know, Upon The Other Side, in one of very few issues of Magazine Of Fantasy & Science fiction lining the shelves of shame, so will give that a go over coming days. Margaret L. Carter lists it in The Vampire In Literature, which, to be fair, could mean anything - the requirements for inclusion are a little arbitrary. It's strange that we've been going so long without anyone starting an MFSF thread, but then there's never been one for Rosemary's Baby either. NB. Would be most obliged if everyone would see fit to develop selective amnesia with regard to any previous murmurings along the lines of 'how comes these women only selections are most of them edited by men?" Any such outbursts were due to whatever, can invent some flimsy excuse later, and are, of course, entirely redundant. |
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Post by dem on Oct 1, 2012 10:17:08 GMT
Joanna Russ - My Dear Emily ( Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1962). I'd heard great things about this story, so on first reading, was sitting there expecting to be blown away and it was very much a case of "that's Ok, but can't really see what all the fuss is about." Second time around and "actually, I really like that!", third is "Maybe we'll have to include two Joanna Russ stories in our imaginary 'Rivals of the Women of Weird Tales' anthology." Essentially it's Dracula in miniature with a dash of Carmilla. Emily, a young woman in late nineteenth century San Francisco, must choose between a comfortably mundane life with her Reverend father, fiancé William and bosom friend Charlotte, or the sensual unlife of exciting bloodsucker, Martin Guevara, who she adores/ abhors in equal measure. Charlotte, who reads her share of the day's trashy novels, tittle tattles to the others that Emily is being preyed upon by a vampire, and they duly set out to trap him outside the Guevara family vault. Their intervention comes too late to prevent Charlotte from becoming one of Guevara's brides but it helps Emily reach her decision. Of course, there's far more to it than that, and Ms. Russ deliberately muddies the waters until you're never quite sure who is conversing with who, so My Dear Emily holds added appeal for those who like to dig that bit deeper. In short, another mini masterpiece. This thread is full of them. 
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