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Post by dem bones on Jun 22, 2021 9:08:08 GMT
James Doig [ed.] - Australian Gothic: An Anthology of Australian Supernatural Fiction: 1867-1939 (Borga, 2013: originally Equilibrium, 2007) James Doig - Introduction
Mary Fortune - The Spirits of the Tower B. L. Farjeon - Little Liz G. A. Walstab - The House by the River J. E. P. Muddock - The Ghost from the Sea Ernest Favenc - Spirit-Led Ernest Favenc - A Haunt of the Jinkarras Ernest Favenc - The Boundary Rider's Story Marcus Clarke - Cannabis Indica Hume Nisbet - Norah and the Fairies Rosa Praed - The Ghost Monk Louis Becke - Lupton's Ghost: A Memory of the Eastern Pacific Fergus Hume - A Colonial Banshee A. F. Basset Hull - A Strange Experience Frances Faucett - A Bushman's Story Guy Boothby - The Death Child Lionel Sparrow - The Jewelled Hand Lionel Sparrow - The Vengeance of the Dead Beatrice Grimshaw - The Cave Beatrice Grimshaw - The Forest of Lost Men James Francis Dwyer - The Cave of the Invisible William Hay - Where the Butterflies Come From W. W. Lamble - The Vampire Dulcie Deamer - Hallowe'en
About the editorBlurb: Australia has a long tradition of weird fiction, stretching back to colonial times. The stories in this anthology showcase the richness and variety of Australia horror and supernatural stories in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among the authors included are: Mary Fortune, Lionel Sparrow, Marcus Clarke, Guy Boothby, B. L. Farjeon, J. E. P. Muddock, Ernest Favenc, Hume Nisbet, Rosa ("Mrs. Campbell") Praed, Fergus Hume, James Francis Dwyer, and Dulcie Deamer. Editor James Doig has unearthed a rare and compelling collection of Australian horror classics that have remained largely undisturbed in the pages of old books and periodicals. With settings that range from the Australian Outback to Europe, India, and the South Pacific, these 23 unique and imaginative tales feature horrors and hauntings that are sure to appeal to lovers of the macabre everywhere!Some familiar from the excellent Wordsworth selection, Australian Ghost Stories, many not. Mary Fortune - The Spirits of the Tower: ( Australian Journal, March 1883). The author's The White Maniac: A Doctor's Tale was my joint favourite of the Australian Ghost Stories, and this is every bit it's equal. PC Mark Sinclair is stationed to a small community in the shadow of an abandoned mining camp outside Calandra. It's dull and depressing, nothing ever happens, and he is considering his resignation when a Mr. Cyrus takes up residence at the decayed mansion known as The Moat, whose last occupant, Mr. Mathew Malbraith, was murdered in his bed, killer or killers unknown. PC Sinclair strike up a friendship with the newcomer,who confides that he is Malbraith's son. His uncle, George, recently wrote a deathbed confession to the murder, in which he revealed that, ever since that terrible night, he had not known peace from Mathew's ghost. Cyrus hires the property's nominal 'caretaker,' Richard Neilsen, as handyman, even though the shifty fellow refuses to enter a certain room and avoids the Moat at night on account of its ghosts. A spectral re-enactment of murder, blackmail, midnight exhumation, and some seriously creepy business on the lake see us off to an encouraging start. B. L. Farjeon - Little Liz: ( Shadows on the Snow, 1867). A nasty revenge tale with supernatural elements, set during the Victoria gold rush. On discovering Teddy the Tyler is a wrong 'un, prospector Bill Trickett unceremoniously dissolves their partnership, replaces the thieving bully with narrator, Tom, and warns him against setting foot in the gully they'll be working. Teddy swears vengeance. "I'll make this the worst night's work you've ever done! You shall cry blood for the way you've served me!" Bill laughs off the threat, having beaten Teddy to pulp in previous fist fights. Hard as he is, Bill is a doting father to his six-year-old daughter, whose mother died not long after they'd fled England for a new life. While Bill and Tom mine the rich seam, Liz is protected by ferociously loyal Rhadamanthus, "the raggedest dog with the most disgusting tail that ever wagged." Decided on how best to pay back that bastard Trickett, Teddy the Tyler need only await the right moment.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 23, 2021 8:48:33 GMT
G. A. Walstab - The House by the River: ( Australian Journal, June 1883). Post-mutiny India. Former dragoon 'Harry' and family relocate to a large, roomy property in Agrapurrah to escape Calcutta's cholera epidemic. The compound is built on site of a Portuguese mission house with Nun's dormitory. One of the sisters hasn't left. J. E. Muddock - A Ghost from the Sea: ( Stories, Weird and Wonderful, 1899). A further macabre episode in the history of the gold rush. While her husband is away prospecting, Mrs. Harvey, at that time reputedly the richest woman in Melbourne, is strangled in her room at Jackson's lodging house. The killer, who used such force as to break her neck, scatters jewellery across the floor, taking only gold nuggets, amounting to a fortune, from her trunk. A year later, Jackson and wife, whose business has fallen into decline due to his excessive drinking and miserable demeanor, board a ship home to England. A third party follows on the waves. As also revived by Richard Dalby in The Mammoth Book of Victorian & Edwardian Ghost Stories in 1995. Ernest Favenc - Spirit-Led: When Maxwell last went prospecting with Bennett, he suffered a cataleptic episode and was buried prematurely, barely returning from the astral in time to fight himself free of the grave. It wasn't this terrifying ordeal that sent his hair white, however, but the weird visions he experienced while 'dead'. These same visions convinced Maxwell that there's gold to be found at a gloomy gorge on the Nicholson River, and, some years on, he and Bennett set out to find it. The ghost girl who has haunted him all this time urges them to 'go back. Happily for us, they ignore her .... Remembered this one as I was reading it, though not the climax which gave me a jolt. Poe influence not restricted to premature burial.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 23, 2021 21:03:39 GMT
Remembered this one as I was reading it, though not the climax which gave me a jolt. Poe influence not restricted to premature burial. That must be the one where the guy decomposes in seconds - quite gross for that era!
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Post by dem bones on Jun 24, 2021 9:38:07 GMT
Remembered this one as I was reading it, though not the climax which gave me a jolt. Poe influence not restricted to premature burial. That must be the one where the guy decomposes in seconds - quite gross for that era! You got it. I can well understand why you rate his work so highly. Ernest Favenc - A Haunt of the Jinkarras: ( Tales of the Austral Tropics, 1894). Lost race story. A degenerate tribe of evil-smelling, tailed pygmies lure white ruby hunters to their doom in a flooding cave. Familiar from the Wordsworth sampler. Ernest Favenc - The Boundary Rider's Story: ( My Only Murder and Other Tales, 1899). Christy, a fencer, cuts the throat of a Chinese cook to pocket the man's pay cheque. The gory-throated ghost pursues him to his doom. Marcus Clarke - Cannabis Indica: ( Colonial Monthly, Feb. 1868). Let us seal our bridal with this kiss, thou cold student of dead love. Hashish nightmare of a young man as he tramps the streets of Heidelberg by night, pursued at every turn by a shapeshifting witch-hag selling rings and demanding "A kiss! a kiss! a Kiss! for the soul of the Student Martialis!" Put me in mind of Anna Laetitia Aiken Barbauld's Sir Bertrand, A Fragment, of all things. The sequence aboard ship reads like something out of the most lurid penny dreadful. James kindly allowed us to feature this story on our advent calendar for 2016. Very recommended reading if you've not yet braved it.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 25, 2021 6:49:07 GMT
Hume Nisbet - Norah and the Fairies: (Stories Weird & Wonderful, 1900). Little Norah Westwood, eight, lost and getting loster while flower gathering in the Bush.
Rosa Praed - The Ghost Monk: (Stubble Before the Wind, 1908). Father Canalis offers a prayer for the repose of a monk walled-up alive inside St. Xavier de Contram church. The monk's ghost expresses his gratitude by assuring the good priest; "Three days before your death you will see me again."
Louis Becke - Lupton's Ghost: A Memory of the Eastern Pacific: (The Ebbing of the Tide: South Sea Stories, 1895). Against his better judgement, Frank Lupton, trader, permits the demonstrably ailing 'Mr. Brown' ashore to live out his final days among Lupton's family and servants on the otherwise uninhabited Mururea island. Brown, a bag of bones, proves amiable company, doted upon by Lupton's wife and daughters, respectful of and respected by the natives ("Let him talk. I like these people, and like to hear them talk - better than I would most white men." ), too nice for words. There just has to be some gruesome secret buried in his past. A visit from the Silent Man, prophet, wizard and soul-catcher, brings the truth to light.
Title given as Lupton's Guest in Australian Ghost Stories, which is the more accurate in terms of the story.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 25, 2021 21:54:40 GMT
Title given as Lupton's Guest in Australian Ghost Stories, which is the more accurate in terms of the story. And in the first edition of Australian Gothic - clearly missed here in the proofreading process. And in other news I just signed a contract for Wildside to bring out the 2nd Aus anthology, Australian Nightmares, which to complicate things will be the third issued by Wildside.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 26, 2021 7:16:14 GMT
Title given as Lupton's Guest in Australian Ghost Stories, which is the more accurate in terms of the story. And in the first edition of Australian Gothic - clearly missed here in the proofreading process. And in other news I just signed a contract for Wildside to bring out the 2nd Aus anthology, Australian Nightmares, which to complicate things will be the third issued by Wildside. Well done, James! Any rough idea of the publication date? Fergus Hume - A Colonial Banshee: ( The Dancer in Red, 1906). When Norah and brother Michael Maguire, the last of the line, emigrate to New Zealand, Bridget, the family banshee follows close behind. Bridget is most put out over their lack of consideration and longs to return home to Ireland. Michael, a consumptive, is already on his way out, but his sister still has good years ahead of her. Narrated by Mr. Dunham who recalls an exchange of pleasantries with the much irked spirit of doom. A. F. Basset Hull - A Strange Experience: ( A Strange Experience & other stories for Christmas, 1888). Robert Caton is condemned to death for the murder of his wife, Grace, after she taunted him over taking a lover. As the charge is read, the deputy sheriff experiences a brief but terrifying exchange of bodies with the prisoner. The same thing happens when he visits Caton in his cell. Now the killer approaches the gallows, still proclaiming that his is a crime of justifiable homicide. The deputy sheriff is dreading the moment the doomed man falls through the trap ... Frances Faucett - A Bushman's Story: (1866). A lone rider crossing a fifty mile expanse of Bush on Christmas Eve, wrong-turns into a great white city of the dead beside a river of ghastly lost souls. Should you ever meet him and he tells you Brush Creek is haunted, it's best to agree.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 27, 2021 1:50:35 GMT
Well done, James! Any rough idea of the publication date? [/quote] No idea - John Betancourt pretty much runs a one-man show at Wildside these days, so hopefully he'll get around to it in the next few months!
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Post by dem bones on Jun 27, 2021 5:40:07 GMT
Well done, James! Any rough idea of the publication date? No idea - John Betancourt pretty much runs a one-man show at Wildside these days, so hopefully he'll get around to it in the next few months! It's just him and his wife, isn't it? They're remarkable. I love their facsimile pulp reprints. Australian Nightmares presumably horror stories? Please let us know when you have any news. Guy Boothby - The Death Child: Abducted by slave traders as a child, 'Papuan Lizzie' proves a Jonah without equal. Shipwreck, mutiny, disease, murder, insanity and everyday catastrophe trail in her wake claiming friend and foe alike. Eventually an Englishman, Pat Dolson, takes her for his wife, but no surprise, it doesn't work out. A gem of a horror story, blackly comic and EC comic gory. Lionel Sparrow - The Jewelled Hand: ( Australian Journal, Aug. 1887). Determined to discover whether the human brain continues to function post decapitation, the narrator constructs a home guillotine to establish the truth once and for all. He volunteers his best (as in only) friend, Don Alvaro as guinea pig. Lionel Sparrow - The Vengeance of the Dead : ( Australian Journal, July, 1910). Martin Calthorpe, black occultist and master hypnotist, returns from the dead to destroy the daughters of the man who killed him. Winnie Burford duly dies from a mysterious wasting disease, her father blows his brains out, and Connie seems doomed to see an early grave until the intervention of Ravanna Dâs, a Hindu Brahman vampire slayer.
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Post by Swampirella on Jun 27, 2021 10:48:51 GMT
No idea - John Betancourt pretty much runs a one-man show at Wildside these days, so hopefully he'll get around to it in the next few months! Lionel Sparrow - The Vengeance of the Dead : ( Australian Journal, July, 1910). Martin Calthorpe, black occultist and master hypnotist, returns from the dead to destroy the daughters of the man who killed him. Winnie Burford duly dies from a mysterious wasting disease, her father blows his brains out, and Connie seems doomed to see an early grave until the intervention of Ravanna Dâs, a Hindu Brahman vampire slayer. I think we can can all agree that there should be more stories about "Hindu Brahman vampire slayers"....
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Post by andydecker on Jun 27, 2021 11:56:19 GMT
Lionel Sparrow - The Vengeance of the Dead : ( Australian Journal, July, 1910). Martin Calthorpe, black occultist and master hypnotist, returns from the dead to destroy the daughters of the man who killed him. Winnie Burford duly dies from a mysterious wasting disease, her father blows his brains out, and Connie seems doomed to see an early grave until the intervention of Ravanna Dâs, a Hindu Brahman vampire slayer. I think we can can all agree that there should be more stories about "Hindu Brahman vampire slayers".... Absolutely!
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Post by mrhappy on Jun 28, 2021 2:52:19 GMT
Title given as Lupton's Guest in Australian Ghost Stories, which is the more accurate in terms of the story. And in the first edition of Australian Gothic - clearly missed here in the proofreading process. And in other news I just signed a contract for Wildside to bring out the 2nd Aus anthology, Australian Nightmares, which to complicate things will be the third issued by Wildside. This is great news!
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Post by dem bones on Jun 29, 2021 7:31:53 GMT
Cryptozoological interlude.
Beatrice Grimshaw - The Cave: (Blue Book, Aug 1932). Peter Roirdan relates his weird and terrifying experience while mining for copper at Rafferty's Luck, in a cave haunted by the ghost of .... lets just say, it's huge.
Beatrice Grimshaw - The Forest of Lost Men: (Blue Book, Aug 1934). While gold prospecting in the Bush, young Harlow, one of those damn fool educated fellows, allows devotion to science to get the better of him when he discovers the village of a pygmy tribe. The Lakalakas are accomplished sorcerers and cannibal headhunters.
James Francis Dwyer - The Cave of the Invisible: (Blue Book, April 1939). Andre Ilyin, Russian archaeologist and rake, meets his end in a toad-infested Mayan jungle temple where time has stood still for several hundred years. Ilyin's seduction of innocent Siva does not sit well with her ancient, opium-addled guardian who duly summons evil spirits to destroy him.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 29, 2021 9:43:37 GMT
Beatrice Grimshaw - The Cave: ( Blue Book, Aug 1932). Peter Roirdan relates his weird and terrifying experience while mining for copper at Rafferty's Luck, in a cave haunted by the ghost of .... lets just say, it's huge. Beatrice Grimshaw - The Forest of Lost Men: ( Blue Book, Aug 1934). While gold prospecting in the Bush, young Harlow, one of those damn fool educated fellows, allows devotion to science to get the better of him when he discovers the village of a pygmy tribe. The Lakalakas are accomplished sorcerers and cannibal headhunters. You could probably put together a decent collection of her weird stuff.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 29, 2021 11:58:04 GMT
Beatrice Grimshaw - The Cave: ( Blue Book, Aug 1932). Peter Roirdan relates his weird and terrifying experience while mining for copper at Rafferty's Luck, in a cave haunted by the ghost of .... lets just say, it's huge. Beatrice Grimshaw - The Forest of Lost Men: ( Blue Book, Aug 1934). While gold prospecting in the Bush, young Harlow, one of those damn fool educated fellows, allows devotion to science to get the better of him when he discovers the village of a pygmy tribe. The Lakalakas are accomplished sorcerers and cannibal headhunters. You could probably put together a decent collection of her weird stuff. How about Lionel Sparrow? Have to say that I much prefer The Jewelled Hand - which reads like a Baird Weird tale thirty plus years early - to the vampire story. Does he have many other horrors?
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