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Post by dem on Jun 30, 2021 17:03:58 GMT
Daisy Butcher & Janette Leaf - Crawling Horror: Creeping Tales Of The Insect Weird (British Library, June 2021)  Mauricio VillamayorBlurb: Introduction
Edgar Allan Poe - The Sphinx
A. G. Gray jnr. - The Blue Beetle: A Confession
Anonymous - The Mummy's Soul
Jane G. Austin - After Three Thousand Years
Oliver Schreiner - A Dream of Wild Bees
H. G. Wells - The Moth
A. Lincoln Green - The Captivity of the Professor
Lafcadio Hearn - The Dream of Akinosuke and Butterflies
E. F. Benson - Caterpillars
Algernon Blackwood - An Egyptian Hornet
Christopher Blayre - The Blue Cockroach
J. U. Giesy -The Wicked Flea
Clare Winger Harris - The Miracle of the Lily
Arlton Eadie - Warning Wings
Garth Bentley - Beyond the Star Curtain
Carl Stephenson - Leiningen Versus the AntsBlurb: 'Its long antennae waved inquiringly back and forth, its tiny eyes sparkled black with crimson points, and then it began to run. The Professor caught it in his hand as it toppled from the edge of the counter. It bit him.'
A brush with a killer hornet upends a reverend's life. A moth wreaks a strange vengeance on an entomologist. Bees deliver a supernatural dilemma to a mother-to-be. This new anthology offers a broad range of stories from the long history of insect literature, where six-legged beasts play many roles from lethal enemies to ethereal messengers.
With expert notes on how each tale contributed to insect horror literature, Janette Leaf and Daisy Butcher are your field guides for a tour through classic insect encounters from the minds of Edgar Allan Poe, E. F. Benson, Clare Winger Harris and many more.A. G. Gray jnr. - The Blue Beetle: A Confession: ( The Train: A First Class Magazine, Jan. 1857). A death tick beetle falls into a liquid solution prepared by a would-be Victor Frankenstein, promptly embarks on a killing spree from London to the wilds of Northumberland. Taking inspiration from Mary Shelley's tragic monster, the scarabaeus selects its victims from those dearest to the now suicidally repentant alchemist. Had never heard of this story before. I am so happy to have had opportunity to read it!  The Moth, Ghost Stories, Oct. 1927). : ( Pall Mall Gazette, March 1895). A bitter feud between entomologists Hapley and Pawley consumes their every waking hour for over two decades until the older party dies. Thereafter Hapley is persecuted by a moth only he can see until his behaviour becomes so erratic he is carted off to an asylum. Arlton Eadie - Warning Wings: ( Weird Tales, Sept. 1929). The master of the vessel heeded the warning in the white wings of the moth that fluttered over the compass. A ghost moth, fluent in morse code, alerts a shipmaster that the ocean liner need change course to avert disaster.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 30, 2021 17:51:49 GMT
A ghost moth, fluent in morse code An idea that, at some point, occurs to most authors. |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jun 30, 2021 23:58:36 GMT
A ghost moth, fluent in morse code An idea that, at some point, occurs to most authors. Even though this is funny, I still regard you as a very naughty man. Worst boy in class. |
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Post by dem on Jul 1, 2021 9:10:03 GMT
Warning [especially for CB: I've no wish to ruin it for you]. Contains Spoiler.  Andrew Brosnatch
"Yes. Troublesome, my child. But — he might use 'em in a moral crusade. A dozen turned loose on the beaches would discourage one-piece bathing suits. Mermaids would need a suit of armor and a club. And if he'd stencil 'em with anti-vice badges — "
"Oh, well, go on and be funny if you want to! I think it's simply crazy," Nellie declared with an irritated laugh.J. U. Giesy -The Wicked Flea: ( Weird Tales, Oct. 1925). Riproaring Story of a Flea That Grew to Gigantic Size. Irked at daughter Nellie and fiance for making fun of his latest pet theory, Professor Xenophon Xerxes Zapt force-feeds beef and multi vitamins to a flea until it bloats to such monstrous proportion as to shatter it's glass container. 'Pulex' roams the street, chasing a dog and biting a young woman before a stage Irish policeman shoots him dead. Not great, humour likely dated at time it was written, but, for me, story fails to live down to its minor infamy on grounds that it is not in same mind numbing dull league as same author's Ashes of Circumstance. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 1, 2021 10:30:41 GMT
Warning [especially for CB: I've no wish to ruin it for you]. Contains Spoiler. Andrew Brosnatch Thank you for the warning. I've already ordered my copy of Crawling Horror. |
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Post by dem on Jul 2, 2021 9:53:52 GMT
I've already ordered my copy of Crawling Horror. Hope you'll be kind enough to share your thoughts on it all at a later date. Anon - The Mummy's Soul: ( The Knickerbocker, May 1682). Three thousand years hence, a new life. Set in [then] present day Thebes. Historically significant as the first known fiction to concern a mummy curse. It's also remarkably grim. Have only synopsised events to a point so as not to entirely ruin it. Fred excavates a sarcophagus from a sealed alcove in a recently discovered tomb. His guide swears to watching the mummy's spirit fly away on release and Fred has to concede he thought he saw something similar, but, of course, 'ghosts' are for numbskulls and simpletons. The mummy, unravelled, is a particularly hideous specimen. Embalmed alongside her, a fly six inches in length, which Fred takes home to England. His wife, Annie, is fascinated by the insect but fearful it will somehow do her terrible injury. One evening Fred leaves a saucer of ammonia and ether unattended in his laboratory. The fly dutifully drops into the liquid and returns to life! Meanwhile, Annie is stricken by a mystery wasting illness. Fred awakens in the night to find himself caressing the exact replica of the ghastly, shrivelled woman in the tomb ... As to the author: The following is entirely the work of 'RDN' of Pulpscans. |
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Post by dem on Jul 3, 2021 7:10:16 GMT
E. F. Benson - Caterpillars: (The Room in the Tower, 1912). Benson holidays on the Riviera as the guest of Mr & Mrs Stanley. The hostess offers him a room above that which saw a cancer fatality last year and has since been left unoccupied. Benson dreams of obscene yellow-green caterpillars crawling through a keyhole to amass on a bed ...
Ghastly for sure, though far from my favourite of EFB's supernatural horrors.
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Post by dem on Jul 4, 2021 6:39:38 GMT
Christopher Blayre [Edward Heron-Allen] - The Blue Cockroach: ( The Purple Sapphire & other Posthumous Papers. 1921). The attractively coloured insect arrives in the 54 year old Professor's life via a bunch of bananas bought at Covent Garden Market, The toxins released in its bite release long repressed affections toward Pamela, the nearest thing he's ever had to an old flame. Alas, the effect wears off before their dinner date is over. Whimsical, slight, not really my thing.
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Post by dem on Jul 4, 2021 16:28:42 GMT
Jane G. Austin - After Three Thousand Years: (Putman's Monthly, July 1868). This is much more like it. Millard Vance returns from an Egyptian jaunt with a gift for Miss Marion Harleigh, who had requested he bring her "some personal ornament from the mummy of a princess." He has outdone himself with a necklace of golden scarabaei. The enclosed parchment explains the jewellery is not only cursed but poisoned, so fortunate indeed that Vance is informed of the translation before Marion can wear it. She puts it away in a drawer but never quite forgets about it.
Some months later, and Marion has played so hard to get that Millard believes she hates him and turns to her cousin, Juliette, for sympathy. Marion catches them together. The curse works its evil ...
Oliver Schreiner - A Dream of Wild Bees: (The Woman's World: Vol II, 1889). African bees bring gifts for the child of an expectant mother, though she may only choose one from health, wealth, fame, love, talent or enlightenment. Short fairy tale/ fable, no "insect horror" involved, but am delighted with Crawling Horror for the two mummy stories, The Blue Beetle: A Confession and even The Wicked Flea.
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Post by dem on Jul 7, 2021 12:08:21 GMT
Clare Winger Harris - The Miracle of the Lily: ( Amazing Stories, April 1928). From the borders of the great state-city of Iowa, I was witness to the passing of one of the great kingdoms of earth— the vegetable, and I can not find words to express the grief that overwhelms me as I write of its demise, for I loved all growing things.2990. The vegetable world has ceased to exist. Deprived of their food source, the insects turn carnivore, raiding the cities to carry away still screaming human meat. After a war spanning several decades, man eventually cages the very last bug on the planet - a giant stag-beetle - to display at the Universapolis. It dies detesting the human race with every fibre of its being. Writing in 3928, Nathano mourns "a soulless world is gradually dying from self-inflicted boredom." Efficiency is God, love, humanity and all that other sentimental garbage is despised as frivolity. Sorting through the family heirlooms, he discovers a pill box containing seeds ten centuries old. What if he were to plant them? Meanwhile, the Venusians have perfected intergalactic television and tonight will broadcast directly to their great friends on earth .... Sci-Fi with occasional when insects attack horror interludes. Algernon Blackwood - An Egyptian Hornet: ( Reedy's Mirror, 19 March 1915). Rev. James Milligan plays unholy bathroom trick on a despised fellow guest at a desert hotel. Clue in title. Slight, but great line. "All men, except those very big men who are supermen, have something astonishingly despicable in them."
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jul 7, 2021 12:10:20 GMT
Algernon Blackwood - An Egyptian Hornet: ( Reedy's Mirror, 19 March 1915). Rev. James Milligan plays unholy bathroom trick on a despised fellow guest at a desert hotel. Clue in title. Slight, but great line. "All men, except those very big men who are supermen, have something astonishingly despicable in them." I love that line! It's so true! |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jul 7, 2021 12:12:47 GMT
Algernon Blackwood - An Egyptian Hornet: ( Reedy's Mirror, 19 March 1915). Rev. James Milligan plays unholy bathroom trick on a despised fellow guest at a desert hotel. Clue in title. Slight, but great line. "All men, except those very big men who are supermen, have something astonishingly despicable in them." I love that line! It's so true! I changed my signature a bit. can you see? |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jul 7, 2021 12:24:18 GMT
Algernon Blackwood - An Egyptian Hornet: ( Reedy's Mirror, 19 March 1915). Rev. James Milligan plays unholy bathroom trick on a despised fellow guest at a desert hotel. Clue in title. Slight, but great line. "All men, except those very big men who are supermen, have something astonishingly despicable in them." I love that line! It's so true! I love supermen, but really most are terrible. Sir Richard Burton was all action, but very demanding. This is what Aldous Huxley had to say about Newton: "If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb." Even his great rival Leibniz, who had one of the most universal minds of all-time, was obsessed with status. I can't think of any supermen who aren't despicable in some way. |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jul 7, 2021 13:17:59 GMT
Algernon Blackwood - An Egyptian Hornet: ( Reedy's Mirror, 19 March 1915). Rev. James Milligan plays unholy bathroom trick on a despised fellow guest at a desert hotel. Clue in title. Slight, but great line. "All men, except those very big men who are supermen, have something astonishingly despicable in them." Reedy's Mirror. St. Louis, Missouri literary journal. 1891-1944 Here are some of the covers: cdm17210.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p17210coll6 |
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jul 7, 2021 14:01:15 GMT
I love that line! It's so true! I love supermen, but really most are terrible. Sir Richard Burton was all action, but very demanding. This is what Aldous Huxley had to say about Newton: "If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb." Even his great rival Leibniz, who had one of the most universal minds of all-time, was obsessed with status. I can't think of any supermen who aren't despicable in some way. Except maybe Christiaan Huygens. |
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