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Post by dem bones on Mar 7, 2012 19:19:43 GMT
August Derleth – When Graveyards Yawn (Tandem, 1965; originally Mr. George and Other Odd Persons, Arkham House, 1963) Introduction
Mr. George
Parrington’s Pool
A Gentleman From Prague
The Man On B-17
Blessed Are The Meek
Mara
The Blue Spectacles
Alannah
Dead Man’s Shoes
The Tsanta In The Parlour
Balu
The Extra Passenger
The Wind In The Lilacs
Miss Esperson
The Night Train To Lost Valley
Bishop’s Gambit
Mrs. ManifoldBlurb Have you ever
Felt an unseen presence?
Lived through the same moment before?
Felt a sudden chill when there was no draught?
Heard your name called when there was no-one near?
Known something would happen before it does?
The superb stories in this collection by August Derleth will confirm your worst fears. A Gentleman From Prague: (August Derleth [ed.], Sleep No More, 1944: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). As the Nazi's overrun Europe, Simon Dekrugh returns to London from Prague after a successful grave-robbing spree on behalf of a wealthy client. Dekurgh has lifted a gold plaque from the tomb of 17th century occultist Septimus Halos. The corpse - "a stinking old bloke" according to one London cabbie - pulls on a tall hat and trench-coat to hide his mouldering bones, travels the continent to reclaim his property. The Tsanta In The Parlour: Ernest Ambler, the bane of his uncle Theophilis’s life, has been missing hoped dead in Ecuador these past seven years, when he writes to the old boy announcing his return to the States. By way of a peace offering he encloses a macabre gift: the shrunken head of a Jivaro Indian. As he awaits Ernest’s impending arrival, the old man’s patience is tested to the full by inexplicable gibbering from the parlour at night and a headless figure which shadows him on the stairs …  A. R. Tilburne: ( Weird Tales, Jan 1947: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). Mr. Arodias murders his eccentric uncle Thaddeus, unaware that he is a powerful Warlock. Fleeing the scene of the crime on the night train, he is irked to discover a dark and silent character sharing his compartment ...  Boris Dolgov: ( Weird Tales, July 1949: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). My favourite so far. After a life spent collecting rare artefacts, Jesse Brennan learns he has only days to live and sets about redistributing his curio's among his few friends. Who should he trust with the Blue Spectacles? The old mandarin warned they could only be worn by a man without sin or the consequences would be too horrible to contemplate! Jesse heeded his words and has never been tempted to try them on. After much thought he decides New Orleans museum curator Alain Verneil is the nearest thing he's met to a saint. Jesse's final act is to put his parcel in the mail, but his handwriting isn't the most legible, and it arrive instead at the office of Mr. Alain Verneal, the randy divorce lawyer. Venreal wears the blue spectacles to carnival where he's waylaid by a gorgeous young woman who lures him to a hall. The lecherous lawyer is brought before a spectral jury and tried for sex-crimes committed in a previous life!
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Post by dem bones on Mar 9, 2012 5:08:45 GMT
Still, he was a skilled craftsman; he always kept things fast and punchy. My thinking is that he was at his worst when he was aping or "collaborating with" Lovecraft and at his best when he wrote small-scale horror in more of what I assume to be his own voice. Among his best in my book: The Night Train to Lost ValleyDevil worshipers! Mrs. ManifoldMorbidly obese woman vs. really icky supernatural agent of vengeance!!!! Agree, these are both wonderful. I particularly like the former's train journey undertaken in complete silence. Mrs. Manifold is essentially A Gentleman From Prague improved upon in every department.  Vincent Napoli: ( Weird Tales, Jan, 1948: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). Derleth/ 'Grendon's bargain-bin Young Goodman Brown (in case you're new to this, that's a compliment). Mr. Wilson, travelling salesman, makes the mistake of boarding the Lost Valley-Brighton train after dusk on May Day Eve. He's been friendly with its crew for ten years and yet now they're acting all surly toward him. It's very hurtful! As an out of towner he isn't to know that this is the night when the residents of the small New Hampshire community don their robes and travel en masse to the Sabat for the annual child sacrifice. Mrs. Manifold: (Anon [ed.], The Girl with the Hungry Eyes, and Other Stories, 1949: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). Robinson, down on his luck, takes a job as clerk at The Sailors Rest, Wapping, clientèle 'the dregs of mankind' from neighbouring Whitechapel and Limehouse. The landlady, Mrs. Manifold, is a terrifying, shapeless 300lb mass of blubber squeezed into what appears to be a child's frock. Ten years ago, she and her husband ran a thriving rooming house in Singapore, but Ambrose Manifold hit the bottle and eventually ran off and left her, or that's what the authorities were told. Mrs. Manifold's one strictly enforced house rule is that no-one drinks wine on the premises, as it is a too painfully reminder of her evil-reeking sot of a spouse. Wilson is on duty when a rancid old geezer books in at The Sailor's Rest, intent on settling an old score ....  Matt Fox ( Weird Tales, May, 1950 ) : ( Weird Tales, May, 1950: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). When Tod Denning inexplicably vanished from Hungerford, his distraught lover Louis Malone took her own life. Now their vengeful ghosts have Denning's murderer trapped on the narrow bridge over the gorge in the path of an oncoming train. Narrated by the driver who, understandably, can't believe what he and the crew have just witnessed. |
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Post by dem bones on Sept 14, 2021 8:35:45 GMT
Boris Dolgov, Mr. George. Fred Humiston, Parrington's Pool. Mr. George: ( Weird Tales, March 1947: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). A child must be guarded in its tender years against those who follow false gods down dim paths to oblivion. Now they're rid of George Newell - quite a relief when the Doctor agreed his weak heart ultimately did for him - all that stands between the three Leckett's and his $300, 000 fortune is the little girl he doted over, Pricilla, their late sister's daughter. Wouldn't it be terrible if something fatal happened to her, say, she got locked in the trunk in the attic, or hit by the edge of a swing, or tripped downstairs? Lucky for Pricilla, Mr. George takes his guardianship as seriously in death as he did in life. Parrington's Pool: ( Weird Tales, July 1947: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). Only two came to this place, and then one, and the none — but that was only the beginning. Judge Cadman Hawley is jealous of Tom Boyle's superior prowess as an angler. Boyle's alcohol dependency gives the magistrate excuse to have his beloved daughter, Jennie, taken into fostering. Her unhappy father goes into decline, serves a jail term, vanishes, presumed drowned, in Parrington's Pool. Soon a ghost takes to trout fishing on the lake ... If Mr. George is among Derleth's most accomplished supernatural horrors, Parrington's Pool is possibly his most generic ghost story by numbers.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 14, 2021 18:34:14 GMT
 Boris Dolgov: ( Weird Tales, Jan. 1949: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). A cat has nine lives — exchanging one with a human is not too great a sacrifice. William Bayle, ten, recently orphaned with the loss of his explorer father, moves in with widowed Aunt Thea and her eleven-year-old son, Harold. William brings with him a big black cat, Balu, who hails from ancient Egypt. Aunt Thea and Harold take an instant dislike to Balu and would prefer to be rid of him. Harold is stupid enough to show it. Black magic, soul transference, etc. Blessed Are the Meek: ( Weird Tales,Nov. 1948: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). There are powers in the fairy tales of children unguessed at by sceptical adults. Mrs. Hassell, Kenneth's harridan stepmother, is forever yelling at Grandpa Cowell for filling the boy's head with fantasy and fairy tale. Visiting the seashore early one morning, Kenneth finds a bottled Djinn. Stepmother's reign of terror is over. Mara: ( The Arkham Sampler, Winter 1948: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). The narrator, a thirty year old author and bachelor, builds a house at Waterbury and hires a live-in stenographer, Mara, who, sensing his loneliness, seduces him. They are lovers for six months, when Mara, who is promiscuous, falls pregnant by his driver, Arthur. The author insists they marry, provides them with money to do so, but can no longer find it in him to retain either as employees. The union is short and miserable. Arthur has no love for Mara, the baby is stillborn, and Mara throws herself in the river. Ten years after her death, she returns to haunt the house at Waterbury to resume her amorous relationship with the author as a ghost.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 15, 2021 8:59:28 GMT
 A. R. Tilburne: ( Weird Tales, March. 1945: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). Any sensitive, imaginative child lives in a world of make believe — at least "make believe" is what the prosaic mind calls it. Vermont. Mrs. Steward is a cold woman who denounces five-year-old son Maurice as a compulsive liar on account he insists there is a lovely lady lives in the black waters of the pool at back of their house. Governess, Miss Kerlsen, who is patient with the lonely boy, is far from convinced. The previous owner of the house drowned herself when husband Jack deserted her when it was confirmed she couldn't have children. Even in death, Alannah is desperate to embrace motherhood, even if the child belongs to someone else. The Wind In The Lilacs: ( The Arkham Sampler, Spring 1948: as by 'Stephen Grendon'). Miss Alice Glennon train travels from Missouri to Castleton, Vermont, to visit sister-in-law, Emma. It's been three grinding years of struggle since Benjamin vanished - Emma insists, and elder sister Teresa agrees, that he did a runner on learning she was barren; just another four to endure before they can have him declared legally dead, sell the house he built and live! It's plain to Alice that she is an unwelcome guest. The sisters are also suspiciously adamant she give the lilac bush on the East side a wide berth — so she doesn't. Benjamin's ghost cries out to her on the breeze. Crom reviews the same book in it's earlier, Mr. George & Other Odd Persons[/i] incarnation HERE. |
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