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Post by dem bones on Mar 31, 2022 12:22:41 GMT
Alastair Gunn [ed.] - The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories: Volume 3 (2018) Front cover: Rudolph Lehmann, William Wilkie Collins, 1880. Back; Eugene Froment, An Old Fashioned Ghost Story, Harper's Weekly, Dec. 1877. Alastair Gunn - Introduction.
Anonymous - The Deaf and Dumb Girl Anonymous - The Picture Bedroom Anonymous - It Is No Fiction Anonymous - Mabel Anonymous - The Bright Room of Cranmore Anonymous - Fisher’s Ghost Anonymous - The Ghost at Heatherbell Abbey Anonymous - The Tale of a Gas-light Ghost Anonymous- Pichon & Sons, of the Croix Rousse Anonymous - Haunted Anonymous - The Ghost at Laburnum Villa Anonymous - The Sergeant’s Ghost Story Anonymous - The Bryansfort Spectre Anonymous - Twelve O’clock, Noon Anonymous - The Story of Clifford House Anonymous - The Ghost in the Bank of England Anonymous - The Carved Mantelpiece of Granton Hall Anonymous - The Invisible Hand Anonymous - The Old Lady in Black Anonymous - Seen By the CoppiceBlurb: Twenty ghostly tales from the supernatural masters of the Victorian age.
Wimbourne Books presents the third in a series of rare or out-of-print ghost stories from Victorian authors. With an introduction by author Alastair Gunn, Volume 3 in the series contains stories published anonymously in America and England between 1839 and 1896. Most of these tales are here anthologised for the very first time. Readers new to this genre will discover its pleasures; the Victorian quaintness, the sometimes shocking difference in social norms, the almost comical politeness and structured etiquette, the archaic and precise language, but mostly the Victorians’ skill at stoking our fears and trepidations, our insecurities and doubts. Even if you are already an aficionado of the ghostly tale there is much within these pages to interest you.
Wait until the dark of the stormy night arrives, lock the doors, shutter the windows, light the fire, sit with your back to the wall and bury yourself in the Victorian macabre. Try not to let the creaking floorboards, the distant howl of a dog, the chill breeze that caresses the candle, the shadows in the far recesses of your room, disturb your concentration. Alastair Gunn - Introduction: But for three pages specific to the stories included herein, this is the same essay, concerning 'the cult of anonymity' as introduces volume eight. Anonymous - The Carved Mantelpiece of Granton Hall: ( Bow Bells, Aug, 1882). Mr. Nethersole acquired the cursed mantelpiece at auction following a death at an old Cumberland house. The ghosts are those of an elderly gent and the young Italian beauty who married and poisoned him for his fortune. The phantom couple replay the fatal episode before a guest, poor Miss Daventry, who never fully recovers her senses. Mr. Nethersole bears unfortunate resemblance to the murdered man. Anonymous - The Invisible Hand: ( The Argosy, Sept. 1884). Narrator and wife are jubilant at acquiring their West Country dream home at such a scandalously reasonable rent. Delight turns to despair once they realise Shufton Villa is haunted by the wretchedly miserable ghost of a father who shot dead his daughter and her lover in a moment of madness before making away with himself. Anonymous - The Tale of a Gas-light Ghost: ( New Christmas Annual, Dec. 1867). Much to the disappointment of his nosy neighbours, Gregory Barnstake, newly arrived in the little farming village at Mapleton, shuns the society of all save Dr. Sweetman, with whom he trades the occasional insult. With the shock news that Mapleton is scheduled for demolition to make way for the railway, a reluctant Barnsdale gracelessly agrees to attend an emergency meeting at the "Seven Stars. To the astonishment of all, he arrives with guest, a sepulchral, three fingered gent given to doom laden pronouncements. Despite Barnsdale's intervention, the railway goes ahead, his own house renovated as the station. He doesn't live to see it. The discovery of a three fingered skeleton in a local lake at approximately the moment he died of fright sheds some light on the mystery. Familiar from Chetwynd-Hayes' excellent Gaslight tales of Terror among others. Mr. Gunn wisely omits final, cop out paragraphs. Anonymous - The Sergeant’s Ghost Story: ( All the Year Round, Dec. 1867). Private Tim O'Loghlin risks the firing squad by deserting his post and refusing to return. When questioned by Sergeant Patrick Monaghan, he claims to have been visited by the ghost of Captain Percival, recently deceased, indicating a figure in the burial ground digging a new grave alongside his own. Tim correctly assumes it is for him.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 1, 2022 15:20:36 GMT
Anonymous - The Deaf and Dumb Girl: (Atkinson's Casket, July 1839). A coach driver reluctantly stops to pick up our corpse-like heroine, whose effect on the jolly passengers is immediate. Handsome young military officer M. Jules, a reformed rake en route to Marseille to wed his sweetheart, is particularly despondent, especially on learning the young woman's name, Ursula. Could it be that she is but one among his many ruined conquests? A minor classic of Gothic supernatural horror.
Anonymous - The Woman in Black: (Argosy, Jan. 1894). "An episode of Monte Carlo." Dear sweet saintly newlywed Georgie Luscombe takes pity on an elderly Russian widow on a dreadful losing streak. At the end of the night Georgie has her husband 'accidently' stuff her own winnings into Princess Zaterinski's wallet which she has left behind at the table. Two years later, on the Luscombe's return to the casino, Georgie insists on a flutter at the roulette table. The ghost of Princess Zaterinski repays her debt. How unsporting! Benign ghosts - away with ye!
At least there's no lack of guilt, self-loathing and misery about this next.
Anonymous [Sarah Agnes Dicken ?] - It Is No Fiction: (Blackwood's, Sept. 1844). Unreliable testimony of a madman. Haunted from childhood by a shadowy fiend, Sir Frederick B----------, one-time golden boy of Parliament, is committed to a lunatic asylum following the death of Lady Julia Tracey, with whom he is still besotted to the point of all-consuming obsession. It's clear from the account that Sir Frederick stalked the girl of his dreams around the clock, though her death looks to have been due to natural causes.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 3, 2022 15:35:59 GMT
Thomas Morton, The Ghost of Heatherbell Abbey, London Society, Dec. 1862. 'Dalton' [R. H. Barham ?] - The Picture Room: ( Bentley's Miscellany, Jan. 1840). "Either my eyes deceive me,' he said after a pause, or there is some change in the tints of that picture since yesterday; the eyes, the lips, and cheeks have a hue of life and freshness - in short, the whole countenance appears to me brighter and more ruddy than when we before examined it together." Vane stared at his friend, and uttered something very like the monosyllable 'fudge.'" When Sir John dies interstate, his considerable worldly goods pass to Alfred, a wastrel grandson he did not live long enough to disinherit. On his arrival at Heatherstone Hall, despite all warning, Alfred claims the most luxurious, allegedly haunted chamber as his own. He is no sooner moved in than the heir comes under attack from "handsome Sir Walter," who nightly steps down from his portrait to feast on his descendant's blood! Anonymous - The Ghost of Heatherbell Abbey: ( London Society, Dec. 1862). Christmas at the old abbey on the remote moors. Miss Eunice Frith, the cruelly beautiful young live-in governess, has designs on Clarence Holme. Sadly for her, the son and heir only has eyes for his sainted childhood sweetheart, Miss Ariel Forrest. Furious that he would dare deny her, Miss Frith goads Clarence to prove his manhood by riding across the ever-treacherous, now snowbound Elfin Span after nightfall. As you'd imagine, he doesn't make it ... but which of the three is doomed to haunt Heatherbell? Anonymous - Twelve O'clock, Noon: ( London Society, Aug. 1877). A hard up young lawyer takes over a small practice thirty miles from London. It fails, as does his one side romance with Miss Clara Stanton, a beautiful, doomed, woman in black, recently bereaved of her fiancé. All he has to show for the episode is a miserable supernatural experience; "... never you assert again, old man, that it is impossible for a ghost to appear by daylight." Thomas Morton, The Ghost of Heatherbell Abbey, London Society, Dec. 1862.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 5, 2022 16:24:48 GMT
Anonymous [John Lang?] – Fisher's Ghost: ( Household Words, March 1853: Harpers New Monthly, May 1853). Penrith, New South Wales. The word is that Fisher has returned to England, leaving friendly neighbour Mr. Smith to run his farm. Nobody gives the matter much thought until old Ben Weir meets Fisher's ghost, face all bloody and gored, sat on a fence, as was his custom when awaiting visitors. Eventually Fisher's weighted corpse is recovered from a stagnant pond by Aborigine trackers. Smith, charged with murder, at first proclaims his innocence, confident that no jury will convict on the "proof" of a silly ghost yarn .... This is the identical version of the story as appears in Rex Collings [ed's] Classic Victorian & Edwardian Ghost Stories, where it is attributed to John Lang. Anonymous – Haunted: ( A Stable for Nightmares: Tinsley's Christmas Annual, 1868). Colonel Demarion avenges the murder of a wealthy traveller by a treacherous friend, ridding a riverside inn on its bothersome ghost in the process. Story notable for Jawsdropping conclusion to episode at sea. Reappeared earlier in Richard Dalby's much loved Mammoth Book of Victorian & Edwardian Ghost Stories. Anonymous – Pichon & Sons, of the Croix Rousse: ( A Stable for Nightmares: Tinsley's Christmas Annual, 1868). A small town in the Lyon suburbs during the Reign of Terror. Paul de Sénarges, orphaned by the revolution as a child — his father was killed in the September massacre, his mother perished on the guillotine — is offered shelter by Pichon the stonemason and family, only to be murdered his riches. They bury the corpse beneath the foundations of a stairway leading to the town, but can't prevent Paul's ghost from keeping a promise to his fiancée; "Whether I am living or dead, Berthe, I will come to you again ..." When the Pichon men finally complete the stairway, it collapses on top of them.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 8, 2022 6:01:19 GMT
Another deaf and dumb girl and a fashion victim. Mr. Gunn in great peril of joining dem list of twenty all-time favourite horror & supernatural anthologists.
Anonymous - Mabel: (London Journal, 13 Jan. 1848). No sooner has our mute, orphaned at fifteen heroine inherited Hazelwood Manor, than she is forced into unhappy marriage with grasping Richard Dugdale, a nephew of her supposedly devoted guardian, Dame Suky Colthurst. Mabel's solitary consolation is a new born baby (sex withheld), until the conspirators remove it to their care under the pretence it has measles. Only when Mabel sign over the estate to Dugdale will they return the child. A struggle ensues. Mabel grabs baby and dashes out into a snow blizzard. Their frozen corpses are recovered the following day. The ghosts of mother and child return to exact revenge.
Anonymous - The Bright Room of Cranmore: (Fraser's magazine, Jan. 1850). It's common knowledge that Lady H —— bitterly disapproves at her son's recent marriage, so there is much surprise when she invites the newly-weds to spend Christmas at the manor house. The dowager has an ulterior motive. At the New Year's Eve masquerade, she torches her daughter-in-law's white lace gown. The charred bride survives just long enough to inform husband of his mother's treachery.
After the funeral, the young lord leaves for Paris, where he dies in a madhouse. The "bright lady"s ghost haunts the guest room at Cranmore long after she has settled the score with her murderess.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 9, 2022 10:45:15 GMT
Anonymous - The Ghost at Laburnum Villa: (Belgravia, Aug. 1870). A single night alone in the house in a semi-rural London suburb is enough to send a prospective buyer, Paul Withers, back home to Llanfairfechan as far as the mail train can carry him. Focus of the disturbances, the framed photograph of a young woman, Laura Steel, who wed a blackguard in secret, earning the undying contempt of her father. Abandoned by her husband, Laura died giving birth to a stillborn child.
Anonymous - The Bryansfort Spectre: (Belgravia, Dec. 1874). Completely out of the blue, the Rev. Bryansfort, parish priest of of St. Georges (Shadwell?), inherits Bryansfort manor house from a notoriously parsimonious distant relative. Alas, it comes complete with resident portent of doom. According to local simpletons, the ghost walks whenever tragedy is to befall the family; on the third visit, she indicates the door of he or she soon to die. Absolute piffle, of course, and of no interest whatsoever to 21-year-old Miss Marjory, engrossed in elaborate preparation for an Easter wedding.
Anonymous - Seen at the Coppices: (Argosy, March 1896). Having spent most of his 34 years in the Colonies, Hubert Stanton, the new squire of Fenceshire Hall, is entirely clueless as to English rural custom. Following his late predecessor's lead, he decides the best policy is to ingratiate himself with the local hunt, and duly joins the chase. Fast tiring of the tedious exercise - "what rot the whole thing is" - he allows himself to be distracted by a young woman riding a black horse at pace. Diana Wellwood, fifteen years dead, lures the newcomer out toward the fatal chalk pit ....
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Post by dem bones on Apr 15, 2022 16:48:27 GMT
"Your brown silk, ma'am? It is rather cold this evening for that cream-coloured grenadine."
Anonymous [M. E. Braddon?] - The Story of Clifford House: (The Mistletoe Bough, Dec. 1878). George and Helen Russell lease a property at a fashionable London address at the usual suspiciously modest rent. Alas, they can't keep servants on account of the upstairs dressing room and staircase are haunted by the ghost of a tall, cruel-eyed woman with wild stacked hair and a stranglers fingers. On being informed of the matter, George chides his wife and the cringing domestics as simpletons, but when he too is attacked and badly injured by the phantom, he realises that perhaps a Hertfordshire home is infinitely preferable after all. Alastair Gunn suggests Mrs. Braddon as possible author on the grounds that she edited and wrote for this Christmas annual, which was her husband, John Maxwell's next project after selling Belgravia magazine. Anyway, some parting advice from Mrs. Russell. "... of course, I determined.... to back up entreaties, arguments, and authority with the prettiest dress I could put on. I cannot tell why wives, and young wives too, will neglect their personal appearance when 'only one's husband' is present. It is unpolitic, unbecoming, and unloving; and men and husbands don't like neglect — direct or implied, be sure of that, ladies — young, middle-aged, or old."
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Post by dem bones on Apr 16, 2022 9:47:12 GMT
Finally for volume III;
"A prisoner who talks is leading counsel for the crown"
Anonymous [Wilkie Collins ? !!!] - The Ghost in the Bank of England: (London Society: Grand Christmas Number, Dec. 1879). Partially based on an authentic haunting, that of Sarah Whitehead, 'the Bank Nun of Threadneedle Street.' In 1812, her brother, Philip, a cashier at the Bank of England, was hanged for forgery. Thereafter, Sarah, insane with grief, would daily visit his workplace and enquire of staff "have you seen my brother?" The routine is said to have continued long after her death.
In this reworked version, the spectacularly cadaverous, bony fingered ghost is that of conniving Isaac Ayscough, who framed a young colleague, Fred Hawes, for embezzlement. Ayscough believed that, with her brother out the way, the girl of his dreams would be his for the taking, but it didn't work out that way at all. Following in Sarah Whitehead's footsteps, each morning Nancy Hawes would call at the pay counter and ask "is my brother, Mr. Frederick, here today?" until carted off to the asylum. Ayscough kept his job, but ravaged with guilt and ostracized by his once friends, died lonely and broken in a Hackney lodging house. His spectre sporadically haunts the desk where he toiled, and, all these years later, his actions almost send a second innocent man, our narrator, to the gallows ...
Where does Wilkie Collins fit into this? "The English scholar Andrew Smith has pointed out many similarities, both stylistically and materially, of this story with the writings of Collins."
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