R. C. Bull [ed.] - Upon The Midnight

[dem bones]

".... And now, I beg you, switch off the television."

R. C. Bull [ed.] - Upon The Midnight: An Anthology of Ghost and Horror Stories (MacDonald, 1957)

R. C. Bull - Introduction

William Hope Hodgson - The Voice in the Night
Sir Gilbert Campbell - The White Wolf of Kostopchin
J. B. Priestley - The Demon King
A Lady (Eleanor F. Lewis) - The Parlour Car Ghost
H. de Vere Stacpoole - The Middle Bedroom
Theo Gift - Dog or Demon?
Graham Greene - A Little Place Off the Edgware Road
Arnold Bennett - The Murder of the Mandarin
Amelia B. Edwards - The Four-Fifteen Express
Georgina C. Clark - A Life-Watch
John Moore - Decay
J. J. Curle - Awake-Asleep-Awake
Norman Edwards - The Flagstone
Robert W. Chambers - The Messenger
Clemence Dane - Nightly She Sings
Mrs. Gaskell - The Squire's Story

Blurb:
To the task of compiling a truly original and gripping collection of tales of the uncanny, Randolph Bull brings a knowledge of his subject - and a taste for the bizarre - at once unique and enormously appealing. Drawing on his immense library of supernatural fiction, he has produced a volume calculated to please both the connoisseur and the novice seeking a suitably "fearsome" introduction to this endlessly fascinating aspect of the story teller's art. Tales by famous authors and forgotten gems, rediscovered and introduced to the modern reader for the first time, are to be found here side by side. Upon the Midnight will keep you in your armchair until the last embers of the fire have died.

Sir Gilbert Campbell - The White Wolf of Kostopchin: (Wild and Weird: Tales of Imagination and Mystery: Russian, English and Italian, 1889). Lithuania. Paul Sergevitch, dissolute moneybags, is exiled to Lithuania after killing the Czar's man in a duel. The people of Kostopchin live in fear. A great white she-wolf roams its marshes and timber woods, tearing apart poachers, milkmaids and drunks, feasting upon their hearts. After several grisly murders, Sergevitch gives orders to smoke out the beast from the thickets. As the men light their fire, a beautiful woman in white fur emerges bleeding from the bushes. Ravina explains that has had the luckiest escape from the terrible she-wolf! Sergevitch, smitten, takes her home to meet the kids.

Arnold Bennett - The Murder of the Mandarin: (The Grim Smile of the Five Towns, 1907). Vera Cheswardine has no time for the 'supernatural' - "She hated to see life in a queer light. She hated to think" - and is most put out when husband Stephen and their mutual friend, Charlie Woodruff, insist that it is perfectly possible to destroy a fellow purely by thought projection. Suppose that a chap were assured riches in exchange for willing dead a complete stranger, say, for examples sake, an obscure mandarin not even his own people would miss? There's not an Englishman wouldn't jump at the opportunity.

It is the eve of the Ladies' Hockey Club ball. Vera so wants that silver belt from Brunts to wear with her white muslin dress. Such a bargain at a guinea, but - bother! - she's already spent her quarterly allowance! What harm can it do to put Stephen's silly theory to the test?

H. de Vere Stacpoole - The Middle Bedroom: (The Novel Magazine, Dec. 1918). Carey House, near Innis Town on the Irish west coast - a difficult let on account of it's bad reputation. Soft-headed locals insist that the property is haunted by the man who built it, Sir Michael Carey, Satan worshipper. The alleged 'ghost' is actually a were-spider. It attempts to drag the Leftwidge boy to a room in the rafters via the chimney.

Norman Edwards - The Flagstone: Original to this collection. Carter accidentally burns down the sixteenth century Barrow Cottage within only three days of signing the lease. Far from being dismayed at the loss of all his wordly goods, he is relieved. The place was getting to him, what with something burrowing beneath his feet, threatening to smash upward through the floor. Shortly before the inferno, Carter distinctly heard the thing release a high pitched giggle as it raised the flagstone ...

'A Lady' (Eleanor F. Lewis) - The Parlour Car Ghost: (Bob Holland Twenty-Five Ghost Stories, 1904). The ghost of J. Billington Price, travelling salesman, is doomed to spend eternity aboard the Flying Yankee unless he can make good on his vow to sell a caseload of blue denim.

[dem bones]

J. J. Curle - Awake-Asleep-Awake: "Is sanity just agreeing with enough people about enough things." After learning of Bob Stephens passing via the Times, Henry receives a letter from his old friend written three days before his death. A vivid and terrifying premonition of his final moments has decided Bob to amend his will in favour of wife Marion, despite their years of loveless marriage. Marion, unknown to her husband, is intent on his murder. Justice, of sorts, prevails from beyond the grave.

John Moore - Decay: (King Carnival, 1933). It's the Squire of Cottersham's 73rd birthday. As if to remind him there won't be many more, every tree he planted has been ravaged by foul fungi overnight. All is diseased and rotten. Everything dies.

Theo Gift - Dog or Demon?: (Not for the Night-Time, 1889). Castle Kilmoyle, Kerry, 1878. An elderly vagrant dies cursing the Lord of the Manor and his henchman, Captain Glennie, for forcing him from his cottage for rent arrears. During the eviction, the old man's dog was accidentally burnt alive. As thanks for his part in ridding Kilmoyle of a nuisance tenant, the Lord allows the Captain to live at the cottage for two years rent free. A grateful Glennie brings over wife Lily and their baby son from England to enjoy the Irish countryside. The demon dog will destroy them all.

[humgoo]

Thank you for filling another gap! It doesn't feel right there's a thread for Perturbed Spirits but no thread for this companion volume. Am interested in the Theo Gift story: is it good? (I don't happen to have one of those anthologies that contain it.)

[dem bones]

Jun 28, 2020 15:27:41 GMT humgoo said:

Thank you for filling another gap! It doesn't feel right there's a thread for Perturbed Spirits but no thread for this companion volume. Am interested in the Theo Gift story: is it good? (I don't happen to have one of those anthologies that contain it.)

Perturbed Spirits is particularly impressive. It lacks a commentary mostly because Hugh Lamb repeated several Bull selections in his own superb anthologies and we got to them first.

Robert W. Chambers - The Messenger: (The Mystery of Choice, 1897). The excavation of a St. Gildas wheat field unearths the remains of 38 British soldiers killed when the Bretons retook the fort in April 1760. The Mayor abruptly calls a halt to the dig when he realises the mass grave houses a 39th skull, that of L'Abbe Sorgue, the Black Priest, a powerful sorcerer who, in various guises, has plagued Brittany since the middle ages. Prior to his execution as a traitor, Sorgue was branded to the bone with an arrow blade driven through his forehead. The authorities were taking no chances. After death, his corpse was staked to prevent return.

The Black Priest died cursing his denouncer, Marie Trevic, and all her kin. Furthermore;

"I will come back to St. Gildas when my remains are disturbed. Woe to that Englishman whom my branded skull shall touch!"

The skull needs no help in escaping the pit - it simply rolls to freedom. So begins the persecution of Lys - an impossibly beautiful descendant of Marie Trevic - and her loving husband Dick Darrell, by a blood-seeping masked skeleton and a particularly ill-disposed deaths-head moth.

Longest story in book and a definite highlight. Revived by Hugh Lamb in his masterpiece, A Wave of Fear. Those who enjoy their Victorian supernatural horrors laced with love and romance need seek no further: you've found what you're looking for.