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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 10, 2021 12:41:51 GMT
This has been prompted by Carl Lavoie's "Didactical Spectral: The Use of Parables in R.H. Malden's Nine Ghosts" in Ghosts & Scholars 41. I'm surprised there has been no thread on this. Nine Ghosts by R.H. Malden (Edward Arnold, 1943) is worth reading for "Between Sunset and Moonrise" at least, in which the narrator meets a very strange drove up a drove. I am being grammatically correct.  You don't need to buy it: gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605461h.htmlThis article by Roger Johnson (from Ghosts & Scholars 9) is very good: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveMalden.htmlSo is "A Poor Man’s M.R. James?" by David G. Rowlands in All Hallows 6. |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 13, 2021 11:48:46 GMT
This has been prompted by Carl Lavoie's "Didactical Spectral: The Use of Parables in R.H. Malden's Nine Ghosts" in Ghosts & Scholars 41. I'm surprised there has been no thread on this. Nine Ghosts by R.H. Malden (Edward Arnold, 1943) is worth reading for "Between Sunset and Moonrise" at least, in which the narrator meets a very strange drove up a drove. I am being grammatically correct. You don't need to buy it: gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605461h.htmlThis article by Roger Johnson (from Ghosts & Scholars 9) is very good: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveMalden.htmlSo is "A Poor Man’s M.R. James?" by David G. Rowlands in All Hallows 6. From the first story "A Collector's Company": "'It was getting light when I woke. I got out of bed and unlocked my door. As I waited to be called I naturally thought of my experience of a few hours earlier. The more I considered it the less confident did I become that I had not dreamed the whole thing. I have always been an active and vivid dreamer, but have never had a vision of my head upon my bed worth taking seriously; even by the most nasty-minded psycho-analyst who ever came out of Vienna or anywhere else.'" Why did R.H. Malden feel the need to write that? In any event, re-reading Nine Ghosts starting with what I remember to be the least effective stories, I see that Malden has a very engaging writing style unlike, for instance, A.N.L. Munby who displays no discernible style at all in The Alabaster Hand. |
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Post by helrunar on Mar 28, 2022 22:10:23 GMT
Michael, I just added the electronic edition of this book to my "device" and thus far, I find it quite enjoyable. The style to me is perhaps more reminiscent of E. F. Benson than James but I've only read a bit thus far.
H.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Mar 30, 2022 19:34:02 GMT
Michael, I just added the electronic edition of this book to my "device" and thus far, I find it quite enjoyable. The style to me is perhaps more reminiscent of E. F. Benson than James but I've only read a bit thus far. H. I have literally just discovered an early fanzine article (in Acoylte#13, Winter,1946) about R.H. Malden and have not even read it yet: fanac.org/fanzines/Acolyte/Acolyte13.pdfIn his quite good article (which gives away too many endings), Harold Wakefield refers to an unpublished story longer than those in the book! Without checking, I think Malden had his unpublished writings destroyed. Damn him! |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Mar 31, 2022 12:56:01 GMT
Michael, I just added the electronic edition of this book to my "device" and thus far, I find it quite enjoyable. The style to me is perhaps more reminiscent of E. F. Benson than James but I've only read a bit thus far. H. I have literally just discovered an early fanzine article (in Acoylte#13, Winter,1946) about R.H. Malden and have not even read it yet: fanac.org/fanzines/Acolyte/Acolyte13.pdfIn his quite good article (which gives away too many endings), Harold Wakefield refers to an unpublished story longer than those in the book! Without checking, I think Malden had his unpublished writings destroyed. Damn him! As I found the article ("Little-Known Fantaisistes 9: R. H. Malden") online, I didn't actually discover it. However, I have never seen reference to it in print anywhere. I think it of some interest, worthy of some comment. Maybe in Ghosts & Scholars? |
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Post by helrunar on Mar 31, 2022 14:54:17 GMT
Michael, that fanzine is fascinating. The cover art is first rate--I'm impressed that something of this calibre was printed in a fan pub back in the 1940s.
I'm just slowly looking through the pages and was bemused at the outrage of some book dealer charging $100 for the then recently OP Arkham The Outsider. It's quite comprehensible however that back then, nobody expected HPL to become an author who would ever attract the interest of "the mundane first edition buying public."
I recall circa 1983 seeing a copy of that book on display behind a counter in a Hollywood (California) used bookshop. I believe the price tag was around $1500. Of course today I imagine that would be deemed a bargain.
I think I will hold off reading the Wakefield article until I've finished reading Malden's tales since you say the piece is so spoiler-laden. Perhaps more of Malden's work will show up in an attic someday. He's so obscure however that it's problematic whether anyone who finds it would even know what they're looking at.
cheers, Hel
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Post by Michael Connolly on Mar 31, 2022 16:28:55 GMT
Michael, that fanzine is fascinating. The cover art is first rate--I'm impressed that something of this calibre was printed in a fan pub back in the 1940s. I'm just slowly looking through the pages and was bemused at the outrage of some book dealer charging $100 for the then recently OP Arkham The Outsider. It's quite comprehensible however that back then, nobody expected HPL to become an author who would ever attract the interest of "the mundane first edition buying public." I recall circa 1983 seeing a copy of that book on display behind a counter in a Hollywood (California) used bookshop. I believe the price tag was around $1500. Of course today I imagine that would be deemed a bargain. I think I will hold off reading the Wakefield article until I've finished reading Malden's tales since you say the piece is so spoiler-laden. Perhaps more of Malden's work will show up in an attic someday. He's so obscure however that it's problematic whether anyone who finds it would even know what they're looking at. cheers, Hel Helen Grant (editor of the next Ghosts & Scholars) is interested in my comments on the article by Harold Wakefield. He's so obscure that ISFDB lists only articles by him for The Acoylte, for which his piece on Malden was the last. Wakefield is probably dead. I'll make inquiries. |
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Post by helrunar on Mar 31, 2022 18:09:09 GMT
That's quite cool, Michael. Good luck trying to find out more about Wakefield.
I just did a web search on the first edition of The Outsider. Prices range from $4100 to $7500.
Regards, Hel.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Apr 4, 2022 11:06:57 GMT
That's quite cool, Michael. Good luck trying to find out more about Wakefield. I just did a web search on the first edition of The Outsider. Prices range from $4100 to $7500. Regards, Hel. Believe it or not, I've found an even older contemporary American review of Nine Ghosts that I have never seen cited in print. It's on p.77 of this: fanac.org/fanzines/Fantasy_Comment/Fantasy05.pdfThis gives me more to work with for my Ghosts & Scholars article/letter/whatever. As I've said before, writing any such thing is excruciating for me. At least it keeps me off the streets. |
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Post by helrunar on Apr 4, 2022 17:48:23 GMT
I finished reading the book this morning on my commute. My favorite of the tales is the last one, about the Priest's Brass. Not only was it very well done, it had a more original idea at the center.
I can definitely see that some wouldn't care for Malden's work. I think it is something that is expressive of a very particular kind of temperament, one that is quite leisurely and at odds with the postmodern world, especially where horror is at the present day. Even folk horror seems to require more blatant, forcefully stated, explicit elements to be considered worthy of a reader (or viewer's, in the case of media) time.
I enjoyed all the stories, and the random references to James as well as Stevenson, Dickens, and odd notes about how life had shifted or changed just in the 40 years or so that had passed since the "golden years" as he described them of the late Queen's later years. I've been thinking about how much life has changed since I turned 20 in the late 1970s. The changes, while often quite disconcerting, have somehow been more subtle than those that occurred between 1890 and 1940.
Hel.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Aug 22, 2022 17:21:04 GMT
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Post by helrunar on Aug 22, 2022 17:51:09 GMT
That seemed staggeringly carping and pointless. Also, the person read his text in this rushing, mile-a-minute style of delivery that almost seemed as if he had been challenged by a friend to keep the "review" under five minutes. I thought the stories were leisurely and engaging, and very much of a long bygone era and form of culture I happen to find charming. If you don't find it charming and are simply irked by the "repetitiveness" and failure to explain every jot and tittle--why bother? Link for those who don't use a certain social media platform: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-7u-aoxBNsH. |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Aug 22, 2022 21:56:33 GMT
That seemed staggeringly carping and pointless. Also, the person read his text in this rushing, mile-a-minute style of delivery that almost seemed as if he had been challenged by a friend to keep the "review" under five minutes. I thought the stories were leisurely and engaging, and very much of a long bygone era and form of culture I happen to find charming. If you don't find it charming and are simply irked by the "repetitiveness" and failure to explain every jot and tittle--why bother? Link for those who don't use a certain social media platform: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-7u-aoxBNsH. I did laugh at 2.30. And the "critic" sounds like he's got his fingers stuck up his nose. |
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Post by weirdmonger on Aug 24, 2022 9:51:22 GMT
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Post by weirdmonger on Aug 26, 2022 16:07:25 GMT
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