A SUGGESTION OF GHOSTS - MAINS

[johnnymains]

A SUGGESTION OF GHOSTS
BLACK SHUCK (2017)

Les Edwards

A SUGGESTION OF GHOSTS 

SUPERNATURAL FICTION BY WOMEN 1826 – 1897 

EDITED BY BRITISH FANTASY AWARD-WINNER JOHNNY MAINS





Black Shuck is very proud to announce the latest book from Johnny Mains, an all-female anthology of ghost stories written from 1826 – 1897. Johnny has been deep in the cobwebbed archives of decaying periodicals, collections and newspapers and has found British, Irish, American and Australian stories that have never been anthologized since their original publication up to 190 years ago. Mains is thrilled that he can also attribute the correct authorship to ‘The Closed Cabinet’ to Lady Gwendolyn Gascoyne-Cecil, which has been continuously published under the by-line ‘Anon’ since its original appearance in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in January of 1895.


Mains feels that A SUGGESTION OF GHOSTS will be an invaluable book for those desperately seeking to read and research supernatural tales which have long faded away and have been forgotten about.



There will be a limited hardback edition of 100 numbered copies – with artwork by Edward Miller (Les Edwards) and Mike Mignola. The book will also be signed by Mains and Edwards. A SUGGESTION OF GHOSTS will also contain original publication dates of stories and biographies of the authors. The hardback will be published soon after as the pre-orders have been met (hopefully within two months).



Two months after the publication of the hardback, there will be a simultaneous paperback and e-book release, this will contain two stories less than the hardback.









Contents:



The Spectral Rout – Frances Power Cobbe

The Closed Cabinet - Lady Gwendolyn Gascoyne-Cecil

The Little Green Door - Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

A Legend of All-Hallow Eve – Georgiana S. Hull

At the Witching Hour – Elizabeth Gibert Cunningham Terry

The Death Spancel – Katharine Tynan

A Veritable Ghost Story – Susanna Moodie

The Ghost Room – Clara Merwin

The House That Wouldn’t Let – Mrs Hattie H. Howard

A Speakin’ Ghost – Annie Trumbull Slosson

Vindication of the Supernatural – Manda L. Crocker

The Warneford Abbey Ghost – Ada Maria Jocelyn

Miss Massareene’s Ghost - E.A. Henty

The Ghost of the Nineteenth Century – Phoebe Pember







JOHNNY MAINS won a British Fantasy Award for his first anthology, BACK FROM THE DEAD: THE LEGACY OF THE PAN HORROR STORIES, in 2011. Since then he has written three collections, a biography, numerous articles and liner notes and wrote the introduction to Stephen King’s 30th Anniversary edition of THINNER. Mains created the critically acclaimed DEAD FUNNY (co-edited with Robin Ince) and is writing books on the notorious Tod Browning film, FREAKS, and also his debut novel, A VERY BRITISH HORROR STORY.



BLACK SHUCK BOOKS is fast becoming the rising star of the indie horror publishing world. Previous titles include Mains’ omnibus of short stories, PLUGGED INTO THE MAINS and the paperback reprint of his award-winning BACK FROM THE DEAD: THE LEGACY OF THE PAN BOOK OF HORROR STORIES. Other books are MADE FOR THE DARK by John Llewellyn Probert, DISEASES OF THE TEETH by Simon Kurt Unsworth and two volumes of GREAT BRITISH HORROR.



Mains will be editing two further books - SUPERNATURALLY ANONYMOUS a book of re-discovered stories by 'Anon' and MAN Vs GHOST an anthology of previously unanthologised 19th century ghost stories for David Riley's PUP.
Please note that WHAT A GHOST STORY DID will no longer be published. 

Book can be ordered from HERE 

[jamesdoig]

Jul 24, 2017 7:50:48 GMT johnnymains said:

Contents:



The Spectral Rout – Frances Power Cobbe

The Closed Cabinet - Lady Gwendolyn Gascoyne-Cecil

The Little Green Door - Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

A Legend of All-Hallow Eve – Georgiana S. Hull

At the Witching Hour – Elizabeth Gibert Cunningham Terry

The Death Spancel – Katharine Tynan

A Veritable Ghost Story – Susanna Moodie

The Ghost Room – Clara Merwin

The House That Wouldn’t Let – Mrs Hattie H. Howard

A Speakin’ Ghost – Annie Trumbull Slosson

Vindication of the Supernatural – Manda L. Crocker

The Warneford Abbey Ghost – Ada Maria Jocelyn

Miss Massareene’s Ghost - E.A. Henty

The Ghost of the Nineteenth Century – Phoebe Pember

Looks good! Can't say I'm familiar with any of those...

[johnnymains]

Jul 24, 2017 7:50:48 GMT johnnymains said:

A SUGGESTION OF GHOSTS
BLACK SHUCK (2017)

Les Edwards

A SUGGESTION OF GHOSTS 

SUPERNATURAL FICTION BY WOMEN 1826 – 1897 

The paperback is now available to buy from here 

[jamesdoig]

Ooh, this looks good - an anthology after my own heart.

[johnnymains]

cheers James, am working on the 2nd one as we speak 

[ohthehorror]

I'll post the cover of the kindle version here. It may look the same as the cover above but the dates are different on my copy. The cover above has it as 1826-1897 while mine says 1854-1900. The only other differences I can see are that the stories are in a different order in the Contents and there seems to be one extra story in mine, The Oakleigh Ghost by Annie Armitt. Here's the cover of mine. It's lovely. 

In the Introduction by Linda E. Rucker she says one of the stories has a Scooby Doo like quality, and then teases us by making us guess which one. Well, I'm here to put you out of your misery. It's the first story(in this kindle edition anyway), A Veritable Ghost Story by Susanna Moodie.

The story came down to our narrator via his Aunt who we're told is very beautiful and has rosy cheeks even in her old age. It starts about a hundred years ago with a man called Wat Robinson who is a giant of a man and not a very nice one at that by all accounts. In the local pub he behaves even worse as he drinks and soon people are gradually slipping off to get away from him. He's warning the Yeoman who's entered the pub about going off up the lonely road due to a hideous apparition of a hairy monster complete with horns and the head of a bull that chases people and generally makes an arse of itself. The Yeoman of course, being a man of courage and afraid of nothing scoffs and laughs at Wat and not just because of his silly name it would seem either, and then he's off on his trusty steed up the lonely road. Before long he comes to a shadowy place and feels a strange chill in the air, then... a figure startles him bringing him to a halt. Challenging the large, hairy monster, he draws his pistol and fires and then suddenly terrified, is off at pace back to the pub where the landlord, once roused, basically says 'Hah, told you so', or words to that effect.

In the morning the Yeoman, the landlord and a group of friends etc. go off up the road to see what they can find. Low and behold, there is the monster lying dead in the shadows. This is the part where the unmasking occurs in each and every Scooby Doo episode and the exact same thing happens now with Wat being deprived of his hairy bull's hide and the Yeoman expressing sorrow at having been the one to kill him. 

'He deserved his death' said one. 
'He was full of spite and mallice.' said another.
...
'I'd have gotten away with it too if hadn't been for those danged kids.' said yet another. (but not really...)

And so ends another episode of Scooby Doo. 

This was notable for me more because if I hadn't been told it was written by a woman, I'd never have guessed. There's nothing really to distinguish it as being written by a woman. And apart from the initial vehicle of the Aunt having originally relayed the story to our narrator, all the characters from then on are men doing what men do. Very gruff, very physical, very brave(or stupid), very gung-ho and so on. Nothing wrong with all this of course, but I was surprised not to find a more female-centric story. 

Pleasant enough story, and well before it's time where Scooby Doo is concerned.


Edit: Thinking about it now, I don't know why I was surprised that it wasn't more 'obviously' by a woman. Maybe because it's specifically an anthology of women writers? Maybe the subtitle specifically mentioning women put the thought in my mind? Don't know really. Anyway, whatever... :0)

[andydecker]

Mar 25, 2021 14:06:45 GMT ohthehorror said:

This was notable for me more because if I hadn't been told it was written by a woman, I'd never have guessed. There's nothing really to distinguish it as being written by a woman. And apart from the initial vehicle of the Aunt having originally relayed the story to our narrator, all the characters from then on are men doing what men do. Very gruff, very physical, very brave(or stupid), very gung-ho and so on. Nothing wrong with all this of course, but I was surprised not to find a more female-centric story. 

Pleasant enough story, and well before it's time where Scooby Doo is concerned.


Edit: Thinking about it now, I don't know why I was surprised that it wasn't more 'obviously' by a woman. Maybe because it's specifically an anthology of women writers? Maybe the subtitle specifically mentioning women put the thought in my mind? Don't know really. Anyway, whatever... :0)

Isn't this how it should be? There are only well written stories, competently written stories and badly written stories. It doesn't matter who wrote it.

[ohthehorror]

Next up is The Spectral Rout by Frances Power Cobbe - I didn't really expect this to be my cup of tea when it started off talking of 'The Famine' and 'destitution' but it turned out to be a really good story. The Rockingham estate falls into desperate times brought on by troubles consequent of the Irish Famine and even though Mr Rockingham does his best he's soon destitute and his great Castle estate sold off leaving nothing for his daughters Adela and Florence who've known nothing but privilege. They decide to sell Millenary in Dublin and soon head off to the house that belonged to their Uncle(have I got that right?) that their Governess has managed to rent for the year, presumably with the last of their money.

Upon arriving at the house, they find it's in a relatively poor condition but make the best of it and immediately get to work. Things don't go well from the start and they barely manage to make ends meet. To add to their woes, one of the girls starts to hear lots of voices at night as though there's a party going on downstairs. She checks of course and there's nothing at all. Things get worse for them and they begin to sell off the remaining possessions they had with them, even down to their clothes. One thing that is left is what's described as a 'buhl pier-table' with a great tarnished mirror and lots of draws in it. Something is seen in the mirror. A spectre of all things, all scarlet and gold and wearing a head-dress. The girls later remember seeing this woman in a picture elsewhere. 

The ghostly voices continue and one of the girls(Adela I think) dreams of the 'spectre/woman' in the mirror and notices she's hidden the famous Galtimore diamonds in a secret, hidden drawer in the table. The girls rush down to it and... Ah Italy in the summer...

This is a lovely ending to a really well written story. It has that bleak feel to it a lot of the time which isn't really me. I prefer my supernatural tales more on the eerie, creepy side generally speaking, but the bleakness worked well with this setting and story. The girls, Adela and Florence really are wonderful in this one and carry the story nicely along to it's lovely ending. I think I like happy endings more than I would've expected. 

Relatively long one this, and worth the read. Very good indeed.