L.P. Hartley - The Collected Macabre Stories (Tartarus Press , Dec 2001, 2005)
Mark Valentine - Introduction
L. P. Hartley- Introduction to The Third Ghost Book
A Visitor from Down Under
Podolo
Three, or Four, for Dinner
The Travelling Grave
Feet Foremost
The Cotillon
A Change of Ownership
The Thought
Conrad and the Dragon
The Island
Night Fears
The Killing-Bottle
A Summons
W.S.
The Two Vaynes
Monkshood Manor
Two for the River
Someone in the Lift
The Face
The Corner Cupboard
The Waits
The Pampas Clump
The Crossways
Per Far L’Amore
Interference
The Pylon
Mrs. Carteret Receives
Fall In at the Double
Paradise Paddock
Roman Charity
Pains and Pleasures
Please Do Not Touch
Home, Sweet Home
The Shadow on the Wall
The Sound of Voices
Mrs. G. G.
The Stain on the Chairblurb:
Perhaps best known for his 'perfectly realised' novel of Edwardian childhood The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley was also a much admired adept of the macabre short story. Hartley was no dilettante in the genre: he was well-versed in its long and distinguished tradition, and these carefully crafted tales represent some of the most successful attempts to carry the ghost story into the twentieth century.
The Collected Macabre Stories includes thirty-seven of Hartley's best tales, ranging from the well-known, traditional ghost stories 'The Cotillon' and 'Feet Foremost', through the dark humour of 'The Travelling Grave' and 'The Killing Bottle' to the Aickmanesque 'The Pylon'. These encompass a wide range of settings, from English Country Houses to Venetian Palaces. Two accomplished fantasies, 'Conrad and the Dragon' and 'The Crossways' display Hartley's range and versatility. Taken as a whole, the collection represents one of the most impressive achievements of twentieth-century macabre fiction.from
Tartarus Can you have a favourite book that you've never seen a copy of, let alone owned? Fortunately, Hartley's ghost and horror stories are, in the main, much anthologised.
Other than that, I just wanted an excuse to give him his own thread.
Someone In The Lift: The Maldons are spending Christmas at the Brompton Court Hotel and six year old Peter is insistent that he can see a man in the lift, a still figure in shadow whose features he can’t discern. oddly, the only times this mysterious individual is absent is when Peter tries to show him to his dad. His father tells him it must be Santa Claus.
On the 23rd the lift breaks down and the workmen go flat out to repair it. Peter is desperate for them to succeed but, come the big night, he has reason to wish they hadn’t. L. P. Hartley: a good man to have around if you want to celebrate a really gloomy Christmas.
The Two Vaynes: Vayne populates his garden with statues of gods, goddesses, nymphs, satyrs, dryads, oreads and a huge sculpture of himself dressed in trademark tweeds which he uses to surprise his guests. Sniggering behind a hedgerow, he gages the man on his reaction to the startling anomaly - he really is an odious old creep.
Vayne talks Hartley into acting as his accomplice in duping Fairclough, a first time visitor to the estate. Though Hartley is reluctant, he agrees to the ruse as Fairclough is perhaps a little too full of himself, so it’s decided that in the evening, these three shall play a game in the grounds.
Prior to this wizard jape Hartley and Fairclough get around to discussing their host. We learn that three years earlier Vayne had been forced to resign his chairmanship of the company under threat of exposure by Postgate. Vayne didn’t seem unduly bothered and even invited Postgate and the rest of his former colleagues to a “reconciliation party” to show there were no hard feelings on his side. Postgate hasn’t been seen since. It’s clear from their conversation that neither man thinks Vayne is entirely innocent in the matter of Vayne’s disappearance and perhaps he has a grudge against everybody connected with the firm. And isn’t it rumoured that he has rigged a bath so that it descends into the workshop where Vayne creates his masterpieces?
What follows is one of the most suspenseful games of hide and seek either men are likely to see in their lives …
'W. S.': one of the finest variations on the doppelganger theme I've yet read. Author William Streeter is the recipient of serial, increasingly hostile postcards from a mystery man who shares his initials. From the postmarks it is evident that the sender is travelling ever closer to where he lives, and Streeter requests police protection. The bobby stationed outside his home is the embittered 'W.S.', a creation of Streeter's own pen who has assumed flesh and blood existence and wants to know why the author always portrayed him as a wretched character, devoid of any redeeming features whatsoever.
The Travelling Grave:
“So you didn’t know that I collected coffins.” Dick Munt has recently returned home from abroad where he’s acquired the prize exhibit in his macabre collection - an animated coffin capable of hunting down a man and crushing him to nothingness. How can he put it to the test?
Munt invites three male guests to spend Sunday with him at Lowlands and engages them in a game of hide and seek. One of them, Hugh Curtis, he’s delighted to learn, is a man alone in the world and none but the other men know he’s here …
Monkshood Manor: Among the guests at the weekend party, Mr. Victor Chisholm, a man with a morbid fear of fire who frequently roams the house at night, checking that they’re all extinguished. Gradually he learns that the Manor is haunted by a cowled figure. The ending is inevitable, but why Chisholm meets his grisly doom is left unexplained. A fine and horrible ghost story.
The Waits: The Marriner family are all set for Christmas with father feeling particularly smug with himself on account of there being one less expensive present to fork out for this year. That's when the carol singers show up. Two of them, man and boy. And they're very demanding - they even refuse Mr. Marriner's tip as "not enough". Also, those are not the correct words to
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen ...
Podolo: Hugh Lamb singles out
Podolo as "probably the closest he came to writing a tale of pure horror." (
Star Book Of Horror #2, 1976). The narrator, Angela and their gondolier Mario visit a shunned island where a murderous
something awaits.
The Shadow On The Wall: Mildred Fanshawe is a weekend guest of Joanna's at Craventhorpe. Joanna gives her the room next door to the mysterious Count Olmutz - unlucky for Ms Fanshawe who is disturbed in her bath by a shadow on the wall and an insistent voice informing her "I want you."
An encounter with a snoring spectre sporting a slit throat just about rounds off her pleasant stay.
Fall In At The Double: Philip Osgood buys a house in the West Country at an outrageously low price on account of it’s hard to let status. During WWII it was occupied by the army and there was some nasty business involving the martinet of a Lieutenant-Colonel, Alexander McCreeth, who drowned in the river. Local gossip has it that he was done in by his own men. When Alfred, his impossibly cheerful manservant, reports being disturbed by banging noises in the night and repeated cries of “fall in at the double”, the narrator realises that the incident is to be reenacted. Fortunately, Alfred is on his game and caps his marvellous performance with a killer kiss off line.
