British Library Weird Stuff Checklist

[humgoo]

May 25, 2023 11:30:59 GMT dem said:

Does anyone have those for Holy Ghosts?

Just saw it:

Sheridan Le Fanu - The Sexton's Adventure
Mrs Henry Wood - The Parson's Oath
Elizabeth Gaskell - The Poor Clare
Ada Buisson - A Story Told in a Church
Amelia B. Edwards - In the Confessional
E. Nesbit - Man-Size in Marble
Robert Hichens - The Face of the Monk
Marguerite Merington - An Evicted Spirit
Edith Warton - The Duchess at Prayer
M. R. James - The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral
John Wyndham - The Cathedral Crypt

Not sure if it's tempting enough.

[dem]

Jun 7, 2023 7:22:05 GMT humgoo said:

May 25, 2023 11:30:59 GMT dem said:

Does anyone have those for Holy Ghosts?

Just saw it:

Sheridan Le Fanu - The Sexton's Adventure
Mrs Henry Wood - The Parson's Oath
Elizabeth Gaskell - The Poor Clare
Ada Buisson - A Story Told in a Church
Amelia B. Edwards - In the Confessional
E. Nesbit - Man-Size in Marble
Robert Hichens - The Face of the Monk
Marguerite Merington - An Evicted Spirit
Edith Warton - The Duchess at Prayer
M. R. James - The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral
John Wyndham - The Cathedral Crypt

Not sure if it's tempting enough.

Many thanks, Mr. H. Tempting for me, if only to have a hard copy of A Story Told in a Church. Of the rest, the Hichens, Wood, and Merington are unknown to me. I either read or was told that Michael O'Mara would insist that Richard Dalby's ....at Christmas anthologies feature stories by the big hitters - MRJ, Lovecraft, Poe, same dreary crowd - because "that's what people want to read" or words to that effect. Seems BL are pursuing same policy.

[humgoo]

Jun 7, 2023 17:36:09 GMT dem said:

if only to have a hard copy of A Story Told in a Church.

Am I the only one who envies you because you still have physical space to store books? And those BL books look addictive with their uniform covers: you get one and you want to get them all. Anyway, I knew I had to read Ms Buisson's story, but I ended up getting Wimbourne 16 (another Christmas special volume) to read it (which looks like a better bargain). Very good indeed, thanks for the recommendation!

[dem]

Jun 9, 2023 14:26:00 GMT humgoo said:

Am I the only one who envies you because you still have physical space to store books?

If only that were the case. Tiny flat (which I love), so it's about making the most of little available space and letting go any surplus every once in a while. I've few full sets. Couldn't afford and wouldn't want all of, say, the Brit Libs, or Wordsworths, or Years "Best" this, that etc. I've not got hard copies of all the stories commented upon; I use archive, etc., and still loan plenty from the public library and encourage those who can to do so.

Glad you liked A Story Told in a Church!

[dem]

#36 May Sinclair - The Flaw in the Crystal (British Library, Feb. 2023)

Mike Ashley - Introduction
A Note from the Publisher

Where Their Fire is Not Quenched
The Token
The Flaw in the Crystal
The Nature of the Evidence
If the Dead Knew
The Victim
The Finding of the Absolute
The Pictures
Portrait of My Uncle
Heaven
The Intercessor
The Villa Désirée
Jones's Karma
The Mahatma's Story

To simply it, the Wordsworth Uncanny Stories reprint with new introduction and additional six stories;

The Pictures
Portrait of My Uncle
Heaven
The Villa Désirée
Jones's Karma
The Mahatma's Story

[humgoo]

May 25, 2023 11:30:59 GMT dem said:

# 39 Zara-Louise Stubbs (ed.) - The Uncanny Gastronomic: Strange Tales of the Edible Weird (British Library, June 2023)

Just saw the TOC. Looks like a mixed bag of the highbrow, the over-familiar and the unknown:

Robert Browning - The Laboratory
M. F. K. Fisher - The Measure of My Powers
Franz Kafka - A Fasting-Artist
Shirley Jackson - Like Mother Used to Make
Christina Rossetti - Goblin Market
Hume Nisbet - The Vampire Maid
Saki - Gabriel-Ernest
Damon Knight - To Serve Man
Angela Carter - The Company of Wolves
Jim Crace - #54
Virginia Woolf - The Watering Place
Mark Twain - Cannibalism in the Cars
Algernon Blackwood - The Price of Wiggins's Orgy
Lu Xun - A Madman's Diary
Roald Dahl - Pig
Edgar Allan Poe - Berenice
O. Henry - Witches' Loaves
Silvina Ocampo - Lovers
Italo Calvino - Under the Jaguar Sun

[dem]

Jul 27, 2023 9:33:30 GMT humgoo said:

# 39 Zara-Louise Stubbs (ed.) - The Uncanny Gastronomic: Strange Tales of the Edible Weird (British Library, June 2023)
Just saw the TOC. Looks like a mixed bag of the highbrow, the over-familiar and the unknown:

See what you mean about highbrow. As to the overfamiliar, here's Peter Haining's defence for recycling the same story over and over.

It seems strange for an editor who claims that he tries to present rare and new stories to recycle certain stories so many times himself. In his defence, Haining has made the following point. "I think it is very easy for specialists like you and I to fall into the trap of imagining everyone who picks up a horror anthology is as familiar with the genre as we are. Having been producing collections for over a quarter of a century, I have become very aware from letters that each decade brings along new readers discovering the genre afresh. I never want to be accused of overlooking them, and hence my use of certain tales more than once. Your comments are quite fair where those of us who are longer in the tooth are concerned, but each new reader needs a grounding in what makes the genre so popular and enduring, I believe."

— Mike Ashley, Shepherds of Shadow: Peter Haining, Reanimator, Scream Factory #15, Autumn 1994.

I'm curious as to the TOC of this British Library hard cover, due next month.

Nicole C. Dittmer [ed.] - Penny Bloods: Gothic Tales of Dangerous Women (British Library, Aug. 2023)

Her cheeks were pale, and her eyes had the wild and stolid glare which Rodolph had observed when she awakened from the slumber of the grave; she quitted the castle, and after gazing around her, as if uncertain which way to go, she proceeded towards the village.

In the mid 1800s, the inexpensive publications known as penny bloods were all the rage in Britain. Spinning tales of high Gothic drama, violence and monstrosity, this literary phenomenon was significant for its depictions of dangerous and transgressive women which inspired such milestone Gothic works as Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla.

Collecting ten tales from classic – and truly obscure – penny publications and featuring newly edited text and insights from Dr Dittmer’s research, this new volume revives a company of witches, femme fatales, vampire mistresses and deadly criminals to enthrall a new generation of readers.

[dem]

Penny Bloods: Gothic Tales of Dangerous Women delayed until next month. One we overlooked;

Emily Alder, Jimmy Packham, Joan Passey (eds.) - Our Haunted Shores: Tales from the Coasts of the British Isles (British Library, June 2022)

Sandra Gomez

Emily Alder, Jimmy Packham, Joan Passey - Introduction
A Note from the Publisher

Mary Robinson - The Haunted Beach
Charlotte Smith - Two Sonnets
Anon - Narrative of a Fatal Event
Anon - The Strange Student
Anon - What Was It?
Frances Hodgson-Burnett - One Day at Arle
James Bowker - Two Folk Tales
Charlotte Riddell - The Last of Squire Ennismore
H. D. Lowry - Legends
Francis Prevost - A Ghost of the Sea
Bram Stoker - Crooken Sands
H. G. Wells - The Sea Raiders
Algernon Blackwood - The Sea Fit
Lord Dunsany - Where the Tides Ebb and Flow
Sophia Morrison - Four Folk Tales
Arthur Machen - Out of the Earth
E. F. Benson - A Tale of an Empty House
Robert W. Sneddon - On the Isle of Blue Men
Hugh Walpole - Seashore Macabre: A Moment's Experience
Christina Rossetti - A Coast-Nightmare

[bthom]

Anyone have the TOC for The Lure of Atlantis?  Thanks!

[humgoo]

Sept 8, 2023 14:00:06 GMT bthom said:

Anyone have the TOC for The Lure of Atlantis?  Thanks!

Just saw it:

Jules Verne - A Submerged Continent
Joel Martin Nichols Jr. - The Lure of Atlantis
H. P. Lovecraft - The Temple
Will Smith and R. J. Robbins - Under the N-Ray
Donald Wandrei - The Lives of Alfred Kramer
Frances Bragg Middleton - Once in a Thousand Years
Edmond Hamilton - Child of Atlantis
Robert E. Howard - The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune
Clark Ashton Smith - A Voyage to Sfanomoë
Henry Kuttner - Spawn of Dagon

[humgoo]

Jul 27, 2023 15:48:42 GMT dem said:

I'm curious as to the TOC of this British Library hard cover, due next month.

Nicole C. Dittmer [ed.] - Penny Bloods: Gothic Tales of Dangerous Women (British Library, Aug. 2023)

I paid a short visit to the British Library and took a look at this tome, among others, in the bookshop. Did not note down the TOC (sorry!), but remember that the biggest chunk of the book is taken up by Sweeney Todd. One story by Eugène Sue, and a few others.

With their covers based on old railway posters, the BL Crime Classics are truly most eye-catching when on display. I ended up getting three Crime Classics (priced 3 for 2, impossible to resist etc) instead of the weird stuff!

[andydecker]

Sept 30, 2023 9:04:22 GMT humgoo said:

I paid a short visit to the British Library and took a look at this tome

I pray it was not about those noises in the attic.

[dem]

Sept 30, 2023 9:04:22 GMT humgoo said:

I paid a short visit to the British Library and took a look at this tome, among others, in the bookshop. Did not note down the TOC (sorry!), but remember that the biggest chunk of the book is taken up by Sweeney Todd. One story by Eugène Sue, and a few others.

With their covers based on old railway posters, the BL Crime Classics are truly most eye-catching when on display. I ended up getting three Crime Classics (priced 3 for 2, impossible to resist etc) instead of the weird stuff!

Thanks H. Quite a few of the Crime books turned up at the market last summer via a shop clearance. I read Leon Gribble's The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, yet to get around to this one;

Martin Edwards [ed.] - Murder by the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles (British Library Crime Classics, 2021)

Mary Evans Picture Library

Martin Edwards - Introduction
A Note from the Publisher

G.D.H and M. Cole - A Lesson in Crime
E.C. Bentley - Trent and the Ministering Angel
Nicholas Blake - A Slice of Bad Luck
S.C. Roberts - The Strange Case of the Megatherium Thefts
Phillip MacDonald - Malice Domestic
A.A. Milne - A Savage Game
Julian Symons - The Clue in the Book
Gladys Mitchell - The Manuscript
Roy Vickers - A Man and his Mother-in-Law
Michael Innes - Grey's Ghost
Christianna Brand - Dear Mr. Editor...
Marjorie Bremner - Murder in Advance
Victor Canning - A Question of Character
John Creasey - The Book of Honour
Edmund Crispin - We Know You're Busy Writing...
Ngaio Marsh - Chapter and Verse

Blurb:
"If much of the action is set in a bookshop or a library, it is a bibliomystery, just as it is if a major character is a bookseller or a librarian.’ - Otto Penzler

A bookish puzzle threatens an eagerly awaited inheritance; a submission to a publisher recounts a murder that seems increasingly to be a work of non-fiction; an irate novelist puts a grisly end to the source of his writer’s block.

There is no better hiding place for clues – or red herrings – than inside the pages of a book. But in this world of resentful ghostwriters, indiscreet playwrights and unscrupulous book collectors, literary prowess is often a prologue to disaster.

With Martin Edwards as librarian and guide, delve into an irresistible stack of tales perfect for every book-lover and armchair sleuth, featuring much-loved Golden Age detectives such as Nigel Strangeways, Philip Trent and Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. But readers should be warned that the most riveting tales often conceal the deadliest of secrets …"

[helrunar]

Wonderful selection there. I will have to see if there's an edition available for ye olde electronic device.

cheers, Hel.

[jamesdoig]

Was at the SF/fantasy Blackwells in Oxford today - they had a bunch of these but not Johnny's book, which I was after. What's going on?