Glimpses of the Unknown - Lost Ghost Stories

[gilmore]

I was thrilled to chance upon this anthology from the British Library last night in Waterstone’s. It’s part of the British Library ‘Tales of the Weird’ line. It’s a collection of ghost stories published in various magazines between 1890–1920 which have not been reprinted since. The real jewel here, at first glance, would seem to be an unpublished tale by E. F. Benson.

I’m not sure my scan really does justice to the subtlety of the cover design by Mauricio Villamayor, which seems to my mind perfect for this anthology.

I’m tempted to save this for the week leading up to Christmas but am not sure I’ll be able to hold out for that long.

£8.99 or £2.99 for a digital version from your favourite corporate behemoth.

The contents are as follows:

Introduction by Mike Ashley

On the Embankment by Hugh E. Wright

The Mystery of the Gables by Elsie Norris

The Missing Word by Austin Philips

Phantom Death by Huan Mee

The Wraith of the Rapier by Firth Scott

The Soul of Maddalina Tonelli by James Barr

Haunted! By Jack Edwards

Our Strange Traveller by Percy James Brebner

A Regent of Love Rhymes by Guy Thorne

Amid the Trees by Francis Xavier

The River’s Edge by Mary Schultze

A Futile Ghost by Mary Reynolds

Ghosts by Lumley Deakin

Kearney by Elizabeth Jordan

When Spirits Steal by Philippa Forest

The House of the Black Evil by Eric Purves

The Woman in the Veil by E. F. Benson

The Treasure of the Tombs by F. Britten Austin 

[dem]

Our friend Dr Strange has been giving us the guided tour of these treasures - starts HERE

[ripper]

I noticed the books in the British Library's 'Tales of the Weird' series while browsing through some Kindle books. The ones I have found are:

From The Depths: And Other Strange Tales From The Sea edited by Mike Ashley

Spirits of the Seasons: Christmas Hauntings edited by Tanya Kirk

Mortal Echoes: Encounters With The End edited by Greg Buzwell

Doorway To Dilemma: Bewildering Tales of Dark Fantasy edited by Mike Ashley

The Face In The Glass: The Gothic Tales Of Mary Elizabeth Braddon edited by Greg Buzwell

The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales Of The Railways edited by Mike Ashley

Glimpses Of The Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories edited by Mike Ashley

I am not sure if there are any more in the series, but there are some interesting titles there. Note that some of the above are not yet released.

[Dr Strange]

Just spotted a spoiler-free review of this here - www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2019/04/glimpses-of-unknown-lost-ghost-stories.html

According to Am*z*n there's a whole raft of new titles coming out in the British Library's "Tales of the Weird" series over the next few months. Titles that caught my eye were -

Doorway to Dilemma: Bewildering Tales of Dark Fantasy (ed. Mike Ashley, due May 2019)

Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic (ed. Daisy Butcher, due Aug 2019)

Promethean Horrors: Classic Tales of Mad Science (ed. Xavier Aldana Reyes, due Sept 2019)

Tales of the Tattooed: An Anthology of Ink (ed. John Miller, due Nov 2019)

[Michael Connolly]

I didn't know that this existed. Horror: A Literary History (2016) edited by one Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes ties in with the British Library reprints.

While it's not too academic, it is readable but a bit sketchy. It's hardly a comprehensive history either. For instance, despite his importance for the genre and his continuing influence, M.R. James is only mentioned twice. However, of the current writers highlighted, Ramsey Campbell (of this parish) comes off very well.



The book is worth a read, but only by borrowing it from the library.

[Dr Strange]

Here's the contents for Doorway To Dilemma:


"What Was It?" – FITZ-JAMES O’BRIEN

"The Anticipator" – MORLEY ROBERTS

"The Lady, or the Tiger?" and "The Discourager of Hesitancy" – FRANK R. STOCKTON

"The White People" – ARTHUR MACHEN

"The Prism" – MARY E. WILKINS

"The Mysterious Card" and "The Mysterious Card Unveiled" – CLEVELAND MOFFETT

"A Moonlight Fable" – H. G. WELLS

"Fear" – CATHERINE WELLS

"The Little Room" and "The Sequel to the Little Room" – MADELINE YALE WYNNE

"The Thing in the Cellar" – DAVID H. KELLER

"Johnson Looked Back" – THOMAS BURKE

"The Woman in Red" and "Unmasked" – MURIEL CAMPBELL DYAR

"The New Mother" – LUCY CLIFFORD

"The Hoard of the Gibbelins" – LORD DUNSANY

"The Three Marked Pennies" – MARY E. COUNSELMAN



All date between the 1880s and 1930s, some are very well-known, but others I don't recognize at all. The pairs of stories from Stockton, Moffett, Wyne, and Dyar are described in the Introduction as being examples of "puzzle stories".

[dem]

May 7, 2019 15:54:58 GMT Dr Strange said:

All date between the 1880s and 1930s, some are very well-known, but others I don't recognize at all. The pairs of stories from Stockton, Moffett, Wyne, and Dyar are described in the Introduction as being examples of "puzzle stories".

Very tempted, if only for the "puzzle stories." Sam Moskowitz exhumed both the Muriel Campbell Dyar and Cleveland Moffat double headers for Weird Tales during it's first, short lived revival (1973-4).

Murial Campbell Dyar - The Woman In Red: (The Black Cat, Nov. 1899: Weird Tales, Summer 1973). A macabre gem concerning a mystery woman dressed entirely in scarlet who, since arriving in Monte Carlo, has never been known to remove her velvet mask. She offers no name and, chaperoned by a semi-mummified, half-demented crone, spends her evenings at the casino. Men are enchanted by her (how beautiful she must be!), women the opposite (how scandalously hideous she must be!). It can only be a matter of time before someone succumbs to temptation, lays her face bare, to find .....

Writes Moskowitz.
"So tantalizing was the ending of this provocatively imaginative story that hundreds of letters poured in asking for a sequel and big red letters across the top of the March, 1900 number presented it reading The Woman In Red - Unmasked!. As a special feature of this issue we are bringing you both the famed original story and its splendid sequel. We have every confidence you will enjoy them."

[Dr Strange]

A bit of googling will turn up most (if not all) of the "puzzle stories" online.

From the Intro to Doorway To Dilemma:

The sister to the story of fear was the puzzle or dilemma story. Frank R. Stockton, who created many of his own fairy tales, established this form with his classic “The Lady, or the Tiger?”, which drew upon the fairy/folktale background and raised a classic dilemma which has intrigued readers ever since. The popularity of this form led to other puzzle stories and I have included here a few of the best, “The Little Room”, “The Mysterious Card” and “The Woman in Red” along with their sequels.

When I read the Stockton story online yesterday, I had a weird feeling of both dimly recognizing it and also feeling like I was reading it for the first time. I think it's possible that I may have read about it at some time, rather than having actually read it, but I don't know. Anyway, I googled a few of the other "puzzle stories" as well, and they were all available online (though, to be honest, I only read a couple of them and then lost interest). I've definitely read The Woman In Red before.

[cauldronbrewer]

May 9, 2019 12:03:59 GMT Dr Strange said:

When I read the Stockton story online yesterday, I had a weird feeling of both dimly recognizing it and also feeling like I was reading it for the first time. I think it's possible that I may have read about it at some time, rather than having actually read it, but I don't know.

I clearly remember when I read the Stockton story for the first time: it was in school, as an introduction to metafiction.

Come to think of it, I owe several of my teachers some credit for leading me down the path to the Vault. One of my sixth grade teachers was a Poe fan, so we read "The Tell-Tale Heart," "Hop-Frog," "The Pit and the Pendulum," and "The Masque of the Red Death" (I think "The Cask of Amontillado" was in a different class, however). She also read us Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," which left a mark on my brain that'll never go away. Then, in high school, we read fun stuff like "The Damned Thing" (Ambrose Bierce), "Sredni Vashtar" (Saki), "Thus I Refute Beelzy" (John Collier), "A Rose for Emily" (William Faulkner), and "The Most Dangerous Game" (Richard Connell).

I enjoyed those a lot more than, say, The Great Gatsby or Grapes of Wrath.

[Johnlprobert]

Aha! Glad to see VAULT is profiling this series as it's excellent. I've just finished my fifth volume and it just happens to be GLIMPSES OF THE UNKNOWN. Favourite stories in this one for me include Wraith of the Rapier which is a cracking action-packed tale of a championship swordsman who happens to collect the weapons having to fight a sword (plus invisible swordsman) while trapped in his flat. Echoes of Karen Black and the Zuni fetish doll with this one. Loved it. I also liked James Barr's Soul of Maddalina Tonelli which went in directions I didn't expect. Oh and that final tale is a cracker, too. You just don't get stories these days that involve the lead characater lending two ex-army lates a wad of cash so they can buy the equivalent of a second nand Hawker Hurricane. That they then store on said character's grounds before taking off off to find treasure and...other things.

[Dr Strange]

Have decided to take a chance on From The Depths & Other Strange Tales of the Sea next. Here are the contents -

The Ship of Silence by Albert R. Wetjen (1932)
From the Darkness and The Depths by Morgan Robertson (1913) – who also wrote the recently mentioned (on the "Mummy in Horror" thread) Futility, or The Wreck of the Titan (1898), which is supposed to prefigure the sinking of The Titanic.

Sargasso by Ward Muir (1908).
Held by the Sargasso Sea by Frank Shaw (1908).
The Floating Forest by Herman Scheffauer (1909).
Tracked: A Mystery of the Sea by C.N. Barham (1891).
The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship by William Hope Hodgson (1911).
From the Depths by F. Britten Austin (1920) - who also wrote Treasure of the Tombs, a favourite from Glimpses of the Unknown.
The Murdered Ships by James Francis Dwyer (1918).
The Ship That Died by John Gilbert (1917).
Devereaux's Last Smoke by Izola Forrester (1907).
The Black Bell Buoy by Rupert Chesterton (1907).
The High Seas by Elinor Mordaunt (1918).
The Soul-Saver by Morgan Burke (1926).
No Ships Pass by Lady Eleanor Smith (1932).

[dem]

Thanks Dr. S. Incidentally, you sold me on Doorway To Dilemma. It's an odd one in that so many of the stories are much-anthologised but there are enough obscurities among the remainder to make it worthwhile. The Peter Haining approach.

Mauricio Villamayer

Blurb:

“The events which I purpose detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn…”

Welcome to the realm of Dark Fantasy, where the weird prevails and accounts of unanswerable dilemma find their home. Gathered within these pages are twisted yarns, encounters with logic-defying creatures and nightmarish fables certain to perplex and beguile.

So join us as we journey across the threshold, deep into the Library’s vaults where nineteen deliciously dark and totally dumbfounding stories await. These tales, plucked from long-lost literary magazines and anthologies spring to life again to embody this most mesmerising of genres.

About the author: Mike Ashley is one of the foremost historians of popular fiction with a specialism in the rare and forgotten short fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His Tales of the Weird anthologies include Glimpses of the Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories and The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways.

[Dr Strange]

I don't think anyone can question Ashley's ability to select good quality stories - I noticed that the two from Glimpses that Lord P singled out for praise both got pretty short shrift from me, which just shows how difficult it is to please everyone. I was intrigued by Doorway, but mainly about what Ashley would consider early examples of "dark fantasy" - I wouldn't say I even like "dark fantasy" or "fairy tale" type stories, and it was probably the inclusion of some of the more well-known stories (O'Brien, Machen, Keller) that actually drew me to it, because they are exactly the sort of thing I do like. Anyway, decided to go for the sea stories instead because that's a genre that I generally do like - I think there may be a couple or three I've read before, but so long ago I won't really mind reading them again, and the rest I have no idea about.

Also - I really like the covers on these BL "Tales of the Weird" books.

[dem]

From Glimpses of the Unknown

Hugh E. Wright - On the Embankment: (The Blue Book, Sept. 1919). A haunted park bench classic featuring the ghost of the formidable rough sleeper, Mr. 'Squinty.' As featured on most recent Vault Advent Calendar: Read it here.

E. F. Benson - The Woman In The Veil: (Evening Standard, 26 June, 1928). Polreath, Cornwall. A hotel employee murders Miss Alice Trellings, the famous explorer, for a string of pearls. Miss Trelling's ghost haunts the cliffside path where she was strangled with her own pink motor-veil.

Elsie Norris - The Mystery of the Gables: (Yes or No #20, June 1908). Carstone accepts a bet to spend a night in the haunted house next door. Its late owner, Dr. Vivian, was a vivisectionist of dubious professional ethics.

From Doorway to Dilemma

Catherine Wells - Fear: (The Book of Catherine Wells, 1928). A brief, magnificently miserable conte cruel. An errant wife prefers to overdose in the woods rather than face combustible husband.

H. G. Wells - A Moonlight Fable: (Collier's Weekly 10 April 1909). Mother impressed on him that he should save the beautiful suit for a special occasion. Several years later he realises the big day has finally arrived!

Cleveland Moffat - The Mysterious Card: (The Black Cat, Feb. 1896). Richard Burwell, a New Yorker visiting Paris, is handed the card by a mystery woman as he enjoys an evening at the Folies Bergère. Ignorant of the language, Burwell shows the card to the manager of the Hotel Continental, and from that moment his life unravels. The manager requests in no uncertain terms that he vacate his room, and within a month Burwell has lost his wife, best friend, business and near enough his sanity. Still nobody will tell him what is written on the card. Finally he spots the mystery woman on Broadway. Surely now she will explain what this has all been about?

The sequel, set eleven years later, purports to explain all in it's own preposterous way.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}The woman who handed Burwell the card - which is, to all intents and purposes, a hologram - recognised him as a Kulos man, a "fiend soul" whose good half has no awareness of what his evil side gets up to which, in his case, includes a series of infamous murders. As the man who has spent the past decade tracking Burwell informs our narrator. "The great truth of a dual soul existence, that was dimly apprehended by one of your Western novelists, has been demonstrated by me in a laboratory with my camera."

[Dr Strange]

I've made a start on From The Depths & Other Strange Tales of the Sea:

The Ship of Silence by Albert R. Wetjen (The Blue Book Magazine, July 1932) - an abandoned ship, reminiscent of the Mary Celeste, except for the presence of a talking (actually, screaming) parrot that must have witnessed whatever happened to the crew. Vaguely feel I may have read this one before.

From The Darkness And The Depths by Morgan Robertson (New Story Magazine, Jan 1913) - a boat is capsized by a tsunami when Krakatoa explodes, and the survivors then have to deal with an invisible monster. Didn't really like this one - it's far too long (at 25 pages), has some excruciatingly bad dialogue (including a comedy German accent - "Oh, mine foot, how it hurts!"), and one of the dumbest "scientific" explanations I've ever come across (apparently the monster is invisible because it evolved in an environment where there is no light).