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Post by dem bones on Jan 28, 2022 11:44:57 GMT
Duane Parsons [ed.] - The Night Season: Lost Tales from the Golden Age of Macabre (Wildside Press, 2012). Duane Parsons - Introduction
Henry Fothergill Chorley - The Silent Man Leitch Ritchie - The Strange Ormonds Heinrich Steffans - The Mysterious Wedding: A Danish Story Louisa Medina Hamblin - The Burial by Fire Elizabeth Ellet - The Vampyre William Jerdan - The Sleepless Woman Peter Von Geist - A Peep at Death Richard Thompson - Killcrop the Changeling Henry David Inglis - Carl Bluven and the Strange Mariner George Henry Borrow - The Prediction Charles Hooten - The Story of the Unfinished Picture John Rutter Chorley - Eule: The Emperor's Dwarf Joseph Holt Ingraham - The Green Huntsman Nathaniel Parker Willis - A Revelation of a Previous Life Emma Embury - Moods of the Mind: The Old Portrait Charles Fenno Hoffman - A Night on the Enchanted Mountain G. P. R. James - The Living Apparition Alexandre Chatrian & Émile Erckmann - The Three Souls Luise Mühlbach - The Death Watch Letitia Elizabeth Landon - An Evening of Lucy Ashton's Henry William Herbert - The Haunted Homestead William Leete Stone - The Withered Man Louisa Stuart Costello - La Malroche Auguste Vitu - The Three Visits Alexandre Chatrian & Émile Erckmann - Lieutenant Castenac Villiers de l'Isle-Adam - Torture by Hope Lafcadio Hearn - The Black Cupid Mor Jokai - The Bundle of Letters Albert Delpit - Nissa John Galt - The Dream Blurb: Editor Duane Parsons has assembled a treasure-trove of rare macabre stories for lovers of classic fantasy and horror. From ghost of mind and spirit to exotic paranormal tales, each story in this volume has never before appeared in an anthology Another beauty from Wildside Press. This should keep me out of trouble for a bit. Not sure the "each story in this volume has never before appeared in an anthology" claim is accurate but who cares? Attractive cover painting, too.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jan 28, 2022 12:23:38 GMT
Not sure the "each story in this volume has never before appeared in an anthology" claim is accurate It is a lie! The Villiers de l'Isle Adam piece appears in all anthologies.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 29, 2022 10:18:34 GMT
The Three Souls is hardly a stranger, either, but then again, they may be in unfamiliar translations? In any case, the rest look rare enough to me. Editor says he cherry-picked the bulk from "a fine collection of literary annuals from the 1840's" he chanced upon in a library cellar. He doesn't provide details of the original publications, just the year. Henry Fothergill Chorley - The Silent Man: (1832). A conflagration at a Liverpool distillery spreads to a row of neighbouring houses, burning them to the ground. Among the destitute, an old man, Graham, sits in the street, jealously guarding a large chest. The locals ignore him as he's considered a Jonah. The narrator alone takes pity, provides him a roof for the night. Graham is not long for this world, and before he dies, he confides in the good Samaritan. As a young man visiting Paris he prevailed upon the celebrated Sybil, Madame de Villerac, to read his fortune. She prophesied that he would marry an heiress - and that she will kill him. Graham has not had much luck since. Decent opener, final reveal reminiscent of a certain Georgina C. Clark terror tale. Leitch Ritchie - The Strange Ormonds: ( The Beau Monde, 1 March, 1842). Several generations of Ormond men have lived in a sprawling, architecturally insane house for periods of thirty years at a time. When one dies, another takes his place. Now the last of the line lies on his deathbed, the dark family secret is revealed to kindly Dr. S —. A brief, elixir-enabled reanimation before Ormond departs story in spectacular fashion. Author was also was also responsible for early werewolf novella, The Man-Wolf. 'Heinrich Steffans' - The Mysterious Wedding: A Danish Story: (Translation of Die Trauung by Heinrich Steffens, The National Gazette, 1831). The old cure of Roerwig is prevailed upon to conduct the marriage of a Russian couple, Neander and Feodora. "Sir, you have your choice; follow us and take the sum we now offer you - or remain, and this bullet goes through your head." The miserable wedding takes place in the chapel that same midnight before a hateful old hag in a blood red turban and the groom's silent white cloaked entourage. The bride, corpse pale and clearly terrified, behaves almost as though she were facing execution!
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Post by dem bones on Jan 30, 2022 10:06:21 GMT
This next has been far the best so far. A mini-masterpiece of morbidity.
Louisa Medina Hamblin - The Burial by Fire: (Ladies' Companion, June, 1838). "Let the fondest love pursue in fancy the buried dead — the lips they kiss are foul with decay — the breath that used to part them is changed to the stench of rottenness — the fair bosom on which lay the loving head is alive indeed, for the long slimy, grave worms are feeding on it — the eyes, oh God! Dare imagination picture that eye once beaming with the soul of love, now glowing with the unnatural fire of putrefaction."
Horror in Hastings. As you'll have gathered from above pretty speech, Mary Stuart is no fan of burial, and extracts a promise from her fiance, Dr. William Lindsay, that, on her death, she be cremated to deny the maggots their feast. Walking in on William mid particularly gory dissection does nothing for her mental stability, and the loss of her new born son tips her over the edge. Properly horrible Gothic horror.
Elizabeth Ellet - The Vampyre: (Popular Legends, or Evenings at Woodlawn, 1849). Edgar the orphan, adopted and raised by Sir Aubrey Davenat, is in love with his benefactor's only daughter. Alas, the fair Malvine is promised to corpse-pale young Lord Ruthven, last of the Marsdens, current whereabouts, travelling overseas. Rather than mope about the Castle, Edgar tours Rome, where his life is saved by a corpse-pale fellow Scot, Sir Arthur Dumbrin, who steps in when the youth falls prey to bandits. Dumbrin himself suffers a mortal blow soon after, struck down by the sword of a father whose daughter he exsanguinated - for the fiend is a vampyre! Having sworn Edgar to secrecy, Dumbrin has him carry his gored body to a rock that the moonlight will fall upon his face and restore him to unlife.
Edgar returns home in time for the return of Lord Ruthven. Imagine his horror when he recognises Malvine's husband in waiting as the bloodsucker, 'Sir Arthur Dumbrin'! Dare he break his oath to save the woman he loves? A slightly reworked version [trans; outrageous plagiarism] of Polidori's original, and really, much more fun than it has any right to be.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 31, 2022 14:42:10 GMT
Bit of a dip. Three lighter pieces. Can't say any did a whole lot for me.
William Jerdan - The Sleepless Woman: (The Club Book: Being original tales by Various Authors: Vol I, Harpers, 1831). With his dying breath, the Baron de Launaye again reminds Adolphe, his beloved nephew and heir, that all women are twisted and evil and he should have nothing whatsoever to do with them. These wise words are forgotten when who should move in at the neighbouring chateau but the Marquise de Surville and her incomparably beautiful grand-daughter, Clothilde? Of course, the de Launayes and de Survilles are bitter enemies, but, one glimpse of the girl whose sparkling eyes never close, and Adophe is smitten!
Peter Von Geist - A Peep at Death: (The Knickerbocker, Jan. 1843). Struck dead in a shooting accident, the author's spirit has great difficulty departing the corpse before it is lowered into the cold soil.
Richard Thompson - Killcrop the Changeling: A Legend of Old London: (Tales of an Antiquary, 1828: William P. Nimmo [ed] Popular Tales by Eminent Authors, 1866). Following the death of Jonah Gumption, undertaker, his premises, 'Two Ends' on Pickaxe Street, fall into neglect and number 107 acquires a reputation as a "haunted house." Noah Fluke, veteran seaman, answers a newspaper advertisement to live there rent free for a term as proof that prospective tenants need fear not ghosts and spirits. Fluke duly moves in with his foster son, Basil - only for the elves to take a shine to the little boy, whisk him away to Fairyland, and leave a malevolent changeling in his place! Can meddlesome Horoscope the Astrologer banish the evil goblin and reunite Basil with his stepfather?
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Post by dem bones on Feb 2, 2022 18:57:14 GMT
Henry David Inglis - Carl Bluven and the Strange Mariner: ( The Museum of Foreign Literature and Science , Dec. 1832). An impoverished fisherman strikes a pact with Kahlbranner, spectral mariner of the great whirlpool known as 'the Maelstrom.' In return for power and prosperity, Carl Bluven promises his daughter in marriage to the inordinately tall fellow's son. This strikes Bluven as an extremely favourable deal as he is yet to become a father, although this is soon to change. Eighteen years later, with chief magistrate Bluven now far the richest merchant in Bergenhuss and his daughter, the fair Carintha to wed the Governor-in-waiting, the demon Kahlbranner returns to collect his debt. George Henry Borrow - The Prediction: ( Tales of the Wild and Wonderful, 1825). A few pages in, it dawned I'd read this before. Sure enough, it's the story Peter Haining mistakenly attributes to 'Anne of Swansea' in The Magic Valley Traveller, and 'Dick Donovan' plagiarised as The Cave of Blood! Charles Hooten - The Story of the Unfinished Picture: A German Artist's Tale: ( New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, Nov. 1846). Compact with the devil with a neat slant. Weigel, a gifted artist, insists that he would gladly trade his soul to the Devil if it ensured relief from a life of poverty. One night a kindly stranger proposes a deal. Waiting for Weigel at the studio is a subject worthy of his talent. If he can complete a portrait of this model, to his own satisfaction, within a year, the stranger will purchase it for a sum sufficient to keep him in luxury for the rest of his days. But should he fail, Weigel must accompany the mystery man into the dark woods. John Rutter Chorley - Eule: The Emperor's Dwarf: (The Countess of Blessington [ed.], Heath's Book of Beauty, 1838). Folksy fairy tale. The dwarf enables Albrecht to obtain an enchanted ring from the castle at Heidelberg and win the fair Christine in return for his liberation from centuries of servitude.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 4, 2022 9:09:55 GMT
Joseph Holt Ingraham - The Green Huntsman; or, The Haunted Villa: A Christmas Legend of Louisiana: (The Ladies' Companion June, 1841). Personal favourite of book after The Burial by Fire. Each Christmas Eve, Don Ronaldo Osormo, a fantastically wealthy, hideous deformed Castilian noble, sets out with hounds to hunt down the woman he will wed, a maid of Castilian birth, "perfectly beautiful and perfectly blind." He finally locates this Madonna — or thinks he does — in the cell of a monastery in the Pyranees valley. One swift abduction later and imagine his despair on arriving at the villa to discover his terrible mistake - the lady is with sight!
Enter an evil, cycloptic demon dwarf, who assures Don Ronaldo that he can strike her beloved blind on the spot — at a price. "The terms are the souls of the children she may bring thee." In the excitement of the moment, the huntsman rashly agrees. His bride — they are married with a modicum of fuss — is a fertile woman. Every Christmas Eve for seven years she births a daughter. The years fly. It is now the eldest girl's eighteenth birthday and she is taking a husband to celebrate. A stranger arrives at the wedding feast .... Nathaniel Parker Willis - A Revelation of a Previous Life: (Dashes at Life with a Free Pencil, 1847). A chance meeting in Gratz between the narrator and Margaret, Baroness R —, at 45 still "the handsomest widow in Styria" despite spending the past 25 years in mourning for her soul mate, Rudolph Isenberg, who died on their wedding day. Both feel as though they've known each other for ever - narrator has vivid memories of their shared joys before he was even born, the day Rudolph departed this life promising that death would not divide them.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 4, 2022 16:42:58 GMT
Many thanks to Anna Tuvstarr for clearing up the mystery of just who wrote The Prediction ... ***** "The Fatal Prediction does indeed appear in Tales of the Wild and Wonderful. However the attribution is to Mary Diana Dods. Dods published under a male name David Lyndsay, but also assumed a male identity in real life. So that's four author claims: Dods, Borrow, Ann of Swansea, and "Dick Donovan". There is another too apparently, as according to archive it was also attributed to William Stephens Hayward, a Victorian sensation novelist. Tales of the Wild & WonderfulDods is the correct author. This explains the Borrow attribution: Re; the 'Anne of Swansea' attribution. Maybe Haining knew it was by a female author, but wasn't sure who, and we know that the identity of David Lyndsay was only rediscovered in 1978, that's four years after that Haining collection came out. Also that work and the author is still obscure, even in today's age where female novelists from the past are gaining recognition. Maybe he never had access to it, or relied on someone checking for him in a university collection and received the wrong information. He was probably a trailblazer as a non-academic researching forgotten gothic Literature. But he also seems, like with Sweeney Todd, to just make things up. I read Dods had at least six stories published in Blackwood's magazine. Maybe some appear in collections you have. I can't check now, but wiki has the titles. ***** This explains the William Stephens Hayward, it is a separate book altogether. Tales of the Wild & Wonderful, by W.S.H. Contemporary reviews (no author given): The Monthly ReviewThe Scot's MagazineThe Literary Chronicle & Weekly ReviewHere in The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley we find proof of the author: You can post this info if you want. Goodnight. Anna Tuvstarr"
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Post by dem bones on Feb 6, 2022 9:54:06 GMT
Emma Embury - Moods of the Mind: The Old Portrait: ( The Columbian Lady's & Gentleman's Magazine, Feb 1844). Throughout her life, Mrs. L — has been troubled by vague memories of a dark and troubled previous life in England. While visiting the showroom of a picture seller, she stops dead before the portrait of a man with a cruel smile dressed in eighteenth century attire. The most unwelcome flashbacks suggest he murdered her back in the reign of George II. Charles Fenno Hoffman - A Night on the Enchanted Mountain: ( The Magnolia: An Illustrated Annual, 1836 [as by 'The Author of 'A Winter in the West']: Bentley's Miscellany, Sept. 1838). Appalachian ghost story. Narrator is reunited with his dead first love, risen from a pool in a grotto to lead him to Paradise. Or Hell. Same story appears in Ronald Curran's The Weird Gathering and Other Tales, 1979) as by anonymous. G. P. R. James - The Living Apparition: ( The Golden Rule & Odd-Fellows Family Companion, Jan 17 1846). An impoverished Italian student in Hamburg, boarding at the roomy but dangerously dilapidated abode of the widow Gentner. One night he is persuaded against entering the crumbling building when his double precedes him through the door. Next morning he discovers that the ceiling had collapsed above his bed - had he slept there, he'd have been crushed beneath a stone cherub.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 7, 2022 11:29:27 GMT
More from Princess Anna Tuvstarr - to whom grateful thanks - on Mary Diana Dods the remarkable author of The Prediction ...***** I found more information. The letters [of Mary Shelley] say (p 586): Mary Diana Dods was a prolific writer and translator of stories, and at one point she tried her hand at a tragedy, which she expected to be presented by Charles Kemble (Lyndsay to Blackwood, 23 March 1823). Although the stories Mary Shelley forwarded to Alaric A. Watts on behalf of her friend were too late for inclusion in the Literary Souvenir (the preface of the 1827 edition notes Watts’s regret that the articles received from "Mr. David Lindsay” and the author of Frankenstein were too late for inclusion), perhaps it was Mary Shelley who placed "Lyndsay’s” "The Three Damsels: A Tale of Halloween” and "The Bridal Ornaments: A Legend of Thuringia” in Ackermann’s Forget-Me-Not for 1827 (pp 79-86 393- 416). But it is in an actual biography of Mary Diana Dods by the editor of the letters that we get more information on how the Tales of the Wild and the Wonderful were linked to Lyndsay, and thus to Dods (pp 23-25): Mary Shelley's second Lyndsay letter was to Henry Colburn, the publisher of her novel The Last Man. Written at about the same time as the Watts letter, this one is a proposal, an attempt to sell Lyndsay. Mary Shelley assumes that Colburn has of course heard of Mr. Lyndsay as the author of Dramas of the Ancient World and Tales of the Wild and the Wonderful. The earlier work, especially, was successful and highly spoken of in literary circles. "It is indeed a production of genius," she says, somewhat escalating her April 1822 opinion of DramasIt was Mary Shelley's second David Lyndsay letter that opened the trail that February. Because of the books mentioned, I began a search of library catalogs to see if they revealed anything more about the author: From the largest collections, like the British Library, Oxford's Bodleian Library, The Library of Congress, to small holdings, all they listed were Dramas, and one or two short stories. Oddly, none appeared to note Tales. The National Union Catalog indicated that Dramas was available only in a handful of rare book collections, the closest a distance of 150 miles from my home. Though curious, I decided that reading Lyndsay at that point seemed an over-expenditure of time for a relatively simple matter. Surely Lyndsay would surface some other way. The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), that twenty-two-volume compendium that lists the personages of Britain from ancient times through the nineteenth century, contained nine David Lindsays or Lyndsays, among them a renowned Scottish poet who lived between 1490 and 1555. Clearly, not Mary Shelley's David Lyndsay. But in March, rereading the letter and some notes, I realized not only that Lyndsay had the same name as the Scottish poet, but that the book catalogs indicated Dramas was published by William Blackwood, the prestigious Scottish publisher. I hadn't found Lyndsay in England or the United States. Perhaps Scotland was the answer. In March, Alan Bell, a colleague and then assistant keeper at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, responded with exciting news: In addition to Dramas, Blackwood had also published some of Lyndsay's contributions to Blackwood's Magazine in 1821-2; the library owned a number of letters from Lyndsay to Blackwood dated 1821-29, typical of "literary aspirant's," mailed from a variety of in-care-of addresses in London. Alan had glanced at the letters and sent brief summaries of a few, among them one that mentioned Lyndsay's acquaintances included Mrs. Shelley, the author Charles Lamb ("but not as Lyndsay"), and Dr. Kitchener. The most interesting information for Alan was a Lyndsay letter of May 5, 1825, indicating that Hurst and Robinson were publishing Lyndsay's Tales of the Wild and the Wonderful. This proved that Tales, published anonymously, was not an early work of the important Victorian author George Borrow, as literary critics believed. The Tales would now rightfully be attributed to David Lyndsay. Lyndsay's cover was blown. And now it was clear why Tales was not listed under Lyndsay's name in library catalogs; it was listed among the many works of George Borrow. Reading Dramas and Tales moved from the bottom of my list to close to the top. Mary Diana Dods, a Gentleman and a Scholar, by Bennett, Betty T. (William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991). Re Mary Shelley, a request. Can anyone provide her Harrow address from May 1833 to March 1836? Thank you.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 7, 2022 16:37:30 GMT
Two excellent horror melodrama's. Alexandre Chatrian & Émile Erckmann - The Three Souls: (Publication date given here as 1859). Heidelberg, 1805. Kasper (or Kaspar: it fluctuates) Zann falls in with Wolfgang Scharf, a fellow student with a dangerous passion for metaphysics. Scharf insists that, unique among living creatures, man has three souls - animal, vegetable and human - and one day he will prove as much. A week after the strange disappearance of an elderly confectioner, Wolfgang invites a reluctant Zann to his attic room to participate in a harmless experiment. The forgotten attic annexes a tiny windowless cell, in the corner of which lies what Kasper at first takes to be a heap of stinking rags - until it stirs with a horrible groan. Since her abduction, the cake trader has been deprived of food and water. Scharf closes the door and locks them in together. "No one will ever have an idea of searching for you here. It is all up, Kaspar, it is all up. Your last resource is this poor Catherine Wogel — or rather, you are the last resource of each other." An earlier translation than that by Eithne Fearnley-White in Hugh Lamb's Victorian Nightmares, 1977 (EF-W sets the story in 1815). Luise Mühlbach [Clara Mundt] - The Death Watch (Die Todtenuhr): (Editor dates this story 1847). The dying Karl gifts Count Manfred his pocket watch "for the love you have shown me; all the kindness and consideration." A fine way to repay loyal, selfless friendship! The time piece is cursed — whenever it winds down, the owner can be sure a catastrophe is imminent. Infidelity, murder, a skeleton under the floorboards, ghosts, and abject misery, The Death Watch has the lot.
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peedeel
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 61
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Post by peedeel on Feb 8, 2022 8:38:57 GMT
Re Mary Shelley, a request. Can anyone provide her Harrow address from May 1833 to March 1836? Thank you. It's my understanding that Mary Shelly took up residence in Harlow [not Harrow] in May 1833. I don't have an address, unfortunately. Her son Percy Florence had attended school there since September 1832. Mary moved to 14 North Bank, Regents Park in April 1836 while her son was placed to board with Mr. Morrison, Vicar of Stoneleigh, nr Leamington, Warwickshire.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 8, 2022 16:17:13 GMT
It's my understanding that Mary Shelly took up residence in Harlow [not Harrow] in May 1833. Thanks, Mr. P. Do you have a source for this? It's just that, those books consulted are agreed on Harrow-Hill, Mary evidently keen that her son be educated at Byron's old school, provided he did not have to endure fagging [apparently, she was assured he would not, which seems unlikely given the school's appalling reputation, and this even before the headmastership of the sainted Dr. Vaughan, forced to resign when J. A. Symond's father threatened to make public his decades of child molestation (he took another financially rewarding post up North and, presumably, carried on where he left off). Anyway; Letitia Elizabeth Landon - An Evening of Lucy Ashton's: ( The Emerald Annual, 1830). Distressed at seeing young Lucy so miserable over a failed romance, old Dame Addison the nurse thinks to cheer her spirits, with the ghastly tale of handsome, Count Ludolf, the young rich cavalier. Taking a shine to young Bertha, Ludolf lured her from her father, only to quickly tire of his irksome, peasant bride and drown her in the river. The Count next relocated to Venice, working his charms on a gorgeous mystery reveller at the Festival of San Marco. He offers her a wedding band she recognises only to well, having been the last to wear it ... Henry William Herbert - The Haunted Homestead: ( The Ladies Companion & Literary Expositor, serialised over Aug, Sept, & Oct. 1840). A traveller arrives at Hartley's Hawkness, a mountain inn on the Vermont - New Hampshire border, during a terrific storm. The well-dressed stranger makes schoolboy error of flashing his stuffed wallet at the bar. On leaving, he is duly throat-slashed by a Good Samaritan and thrown from a bridge into the raging Ashuelot river. Henceforth, his fiendish yells and appalling laughter haunt the guest house beside the tavern every night. The hard-drinking regulars desert, Hartley is ruined, his neighbours believing him guilty of a murder he could not possibly have committed. Old Dirk Ericson the hunter turns (non-psychic) detective to identify the real culprit and lay the ghost. A patchy murder mystery, striking in part, but so long and drawn out it seems that, come the final episode even the author has forgotten the name of whodunnit. William Leete Stone - The Withered Man: A Tale of the Highlands: ( Tales and Sketches: Such as they are: Vol 1, 1834). A phantom bark on the Hudson river, steered by the ghost of a deformed, shrivelled old man. 'The withered man' was murdered by pirates and dumped at the bottom of a pit. for what little it matters, I found An Evening of Lucy Ashton's enjoyable, the others not so much.
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Post by samdawson on Feb 9, 2022 11:01:13 GMT
I'd suggest a polite email or letter to the local museum and local history society. Someone within one or both is sure to have researched the address (and whether or not it still exists). It would be good to keep it short and to a single inquiry, though, as such bodies tend to be labouring under the weight of multiple requests for family history. www.stanmore-harrow-historical.org.ukheadstonemanor.org/
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Post by dem bones on Feb 9, 2022 11:42:26 GMT
I'd suggest a polite email or letter to the local museum and local history society. Someone within one or both is sure to have researched the address (and whether or not it still exists). It would be good to keep it short and to a single inquiry, though, as such bodies tend to be labouring under the weight of multiple requests for family history. www.stanmore-harrow-historical.org.ukheadstonemanor.org/ Thanks so much, Sam. I visited Headstone Manor shortly before lockdown #1 in relation to some other inquiry, been looking for an excuse to return. The manor house - home to the museum is perhaps the most comprehensively haunted building in Harrow. "Following an overnight vigil in June 2008, members of The London Paranormal Society reported all manner of phenomena including poltergeist activity, eerie cries from the old nursery, a staircase wanderer, the mandatory spectral monks, and the ghost of a sack-cloth wearing man." etc. Can't believe I've not previously annoyed the Stanmore Hist Soc, so will put that right this evening.
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