British Library Weird Stuff Checklist

[jamesdoig]

Finally back in Aus after a dreadful long haul flight. Did go to the British Library and bought a few of these - 3 for the price of two, so I'm glad I waited. Here's a couple of pics of the shelves. Nice looking volumes:





A guy on Charing Cross road had a display out for Halloween. The Gollancz Dagon was 220 quid, which I thought was pretty outrageous - you used to be able to pick them up for a few dollars:

[dem]

Oct 22, 2023 20:58:24 GMT jamesdoig said:

Finally back in Aus after a dreadful long haul flight. Did go to the British Library and bought a few of these - 3 for the price of two, so I'm glad I waited.

How long were you in London, James? Nice displays, both of them. What's the book above The H.P. Lovecraft Collection in the - is it Any Amount of Books?- window display?

Have you considered trying BL with an Australian Ghost/ Horror selection for the Tales of the Weird series?

[jamesdoig]

Oct 23, 2023 10:37:09 GMT dem said:

How long were you in London, James? Nice displays, both of them. What's the book above The H.P. Lovecraft Collection in the - is it Any Amount of Books?- window display?

Have you considered trying BL with an Australian Ghost/ Horror selection for the Tales of the Weird series?

Was only about a week in the UK - spent a few days in Wales and about three days in London and drove to Oxford for one of them (was driving happily around the colleges before the lack of other traffic made me realise driving isn't allowed in some parts - plus parking is outrageously expensive). The bookshop was Henry Pordes, just up from Any Amount of Books (which was a bit disappointing - he must keep a lot of stuff elsewhere). Went to quite a few bookshops - Judd was good, it even had a few old-style stalls out the front, Skoob (selling old issues of the Book and Magazine Collector for a quid, but I couldn't remember which ones I don't have), and a few on Cecil Court though prices are over the top. Watkins occult bookshop in Cecil Court was great, but expensive for all those well produced occult/magic books, like slip-cased complete alchemical writings of John Dee and so on. Downstairs they have fiction including some Tartarus titles, and, for some reason, lots of Lovecraft. Foyles was good and I picked up a few things there.

I can see The Travelling Grave behind the Lovecraft books. It looks like one of those Century of anthos with the pumpkin on it.

Hadn't really thought about an Australian selection for the weird series - though I suspect it would be outside their interest, all that colonial stuff is probably a bit on the nose.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Oct 23, 2023 19:51:03 GMT jamesdoig said:

Foyles was good

Foyles was good in the 1970s. It is nothing like it used to be.

[jamesdoig]

Yeah, I remember it was better in the early 90s when I was there, but still worth a visit - and the horror section wasn't bad. I preferred Blackwells - the giant underground room is amazing.

[dem]

Oct 23, 2023 19:51:03 GMT jamesdoig said:

The bookshop was Henry Pordes, just up from Any Amount of Books ... I can see The Travelling Grave behind the Lovecraft books. It looks like one of those Century of anthos with the pumpkin on it.

Sorry, James - I meant the one next along from The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Demonology.

Oct 23, 2023 19:51:03 GMT jamesdoig said:

Shouldn't think that would bother them. From what I've seen of the Tales of Weird series, all titles include the "A note from the publishers" disclaimer/ warning.
Hadn't really thought about an Australian selection for the weird series - though I suspect it would be outside their interest, all that colonial stuff is probably a bit on the nose.

Shouldn't think that would bother them. From what I've seen of the 'Tales of Weird' series, all titles include the "A note from the publishers" disclaimer/ warning.

Hope you enjoyed your visit!

[jamesdoig]

Oct 24, 2023 18:33:39 GMT dem said:

Sorry, James - I meant the one next along from The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft & Demonology.

Shouldn't think that would bother them. From what I've seen of the 'Tales of Weird' series, all titles include the "A note from the publishers" disclaimer/ warning.

Hope you enjoyed your visit!

That's the Folio Soc edition of Poe from 1957 (when they had dust jackets and not slipcases). I've a copy of it here:



Yes, certainly wouldn't hurt to ask. And the UK part of the trip was way too short, but we had a great time.

[helrunar]

I'm unable to locate the appropriate thread for the British Library anthology series--I wanted to pass along, for anyone who is curious, the table of contents for the forthcoming Roads of Destiny: and other tales of alternative histories and parallel realms, due to be published on 23 November. Editor Alisdair Richmond has just shared the list of author and titles on social media, and here it is:

1. The Discovery of the Treasure Isles – Amelia B. Edwards
2. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
3. Roads of Destiny – O. Henry
4. The Bad Lands – John Metcalfe
5. The Death Voyage – Arthur Conan Doyle
6. The Curfew Tolls – Stephen Vincent Benét
7. An Undistinguished Boy – Gerald Kersh
8. Branch Line to Benceston– Sir Andrew Caldecott
9. Diplotopia – Sir Andrew Caldecott
10. He Walked Around the Horses – H. Beam Piper
11. Calmahain – Sarban
12. Exit – Patricia Miles
13. The Rose Wall – Joyce Carol Oates
14. Scarrowfell – Robert Holdstock

Somewhat more offbeat selection than I've seen for some titles in this now quite prolific series.

Hel.

[humgoo]

Nov 2, 2023 3:58:42 GMT helrunar said:

I wanted to pass along, for anyone who is curious, the table of contents for the forthcoming Roads of Destiny: and other tales of alternative histories and parallel realms, due to be published on 23 November.

Thanks a lot Steve! Speaking of which, here is the ToC for Pam Lock (ed.) - Dead Drunk: Tales of Intoxication and Demon Drinks:

Robert Louis Stevenson - The Body-Snatcher
Anthony Trollope - The Spotted Dog
E. E. L. - Kitty's Dream and Its Return
George Cruikshank - The Bottle
_______________ - The Drunkard's Children
Wilkie Collins - The Ostler
Amelia B. Edwards - An Engineer's Story
Rhoda Broughton - Under the Cloak
William Aytoun - How We Got up the Glenmutchkin Railway
James White - The Barber's Supper
Rudyard Kipling - The Mark of the Beast
Lord Byron - Lines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed from a Skull [verse]

George Cruikshank's works are etchings, if I'm not mistaken.

[dem]

Thanks Helrunar and Humgoo. And coming in 2024 (info swiped from Am*z*n.uk from whom they are available for pre-order)

#45. Jo Parsons [ed.] - Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love (British Library, January 2024)

Blurb
'My darling, come to me!’
At the instant when he attempted to embrace her his arms, suddenly turning rigid, remained outstretched. With a shriek of horror, he struggled to draw them back – struggled, in the empty brightness of the sunshine, as if some invisible grip had seized him.'

Enter a world of dark romance, where Gothic tragedy meets tales of transgression against society and where death’s parting of lovers may only be a temporary barrier.

Romantic fiction expert Jo Parsons is the matchmaker between the reader and a carousel of authors from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries whose bewitching, classic short stories explore unearthly passions, ghostings (of the Gothic kind) and demonic dalliances.

#46. Jessie Douglas Kerruish - The Undying Monster: A Tale of the Fifth Dimension (British Library, February 2024)

#47. Aaron Worth [ed.] - Out of the Past: Tales of Haunting History (British Library, March 2024)

Blurb
A tale of callous murder and deranged revenge rings out from fifteenth century Italy. A witch-finder’s great triumph is also the herald of his own doom in sixteenth-century Britain. A prisoner’s fate at the hands of the Inquisition in seventeenth-century Mexico leads to an encounter with the bestial and bizarre beneath the waves.

Readers and writers have been fascinated with the past long before the term ‘historical fiction’ became recognised as its own genre of writing. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, tellers of strange tales saw the weird potential in setting stories within the realms of previous centuries, and the chance to evoke terrors throughout time.

This new collection summons stories from the eras of witchcraft, the English Civil War, tall-ship high seas exploration and ante-revolution New England, with contributions by M P Shiel, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Shelley and many more.

#48. Mike Ashley [ed.] - Fear in the Blood: Tales from the Dark Lineages of the Weird (British Library, April 2024)

Blurb
Sheridan Le Fanu and his niece, Rhoda Broughton. Louisa Baldwin and her nephew, Rudyard Kipling. Nathaniel Hawthorne, his son, Julian, and his grand-daughter, Hildegarde. Joan Aiken and her father, Conrad.

The greatest storytellers of the weird and uncanny are conduits of the supernatural and macabre, channelling through their writing secret glimpses into the sublime, or into worlds of terror. In this new anthology, Mike Ashley traces the phenomenon of families in which that skill for channelling the weird seems to pass down the bloodlines, cultivating family trees whose output forms a large part of the canon of speculative fiction.

Mike’s selection includes a story from each family member in a given lineage – focusing on tales in which family relationships are a core element – to bestow the reader with the chilling gifts of generations of fearful fiction.

#49. Elizabeth Dearnley [ed.] - Deadly Dolls: Haunting Tales of the Uncanny (British Library, May 2024)

Blurb
'The sleeping wood had wakened. Her pearl teeth crashed against his with the sound of cymbals and her warm, fragrant breath blew around him like an Italian gale.'

Dolls, mannequins, humanoid toys and dummies are the quintessential symbols of the uncanny, referenced by Freud in his foundational essay on the phenomenon of the familiar-turned-unsettling, and remaining a terrifying recurring menace of horror media today.

In this new collection, Elizabeth Dearnley revives a sinister troupe of uncannily animated figures from tales across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by authors including E T A Hoffmann, Angela Carter, Vernon Lee, Algernon Blackwood and Rosemary Timperley.

Terror and nightmares await when the doors of the doll house swing open and its denizens come out to play.[/color]

TOc, nicer cover scans, etc, when available.

[johnnymains]

Nov 3, 2023 12:04:10 GMT dem said:

Thanks Helrunar and Humgoo. And coming in 2024 (info swiped from Am*z*n.uk from whom they are available for pre-order)

#45. Jo Parsons [ed.] - Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love (British Library, January 2024)

Blurb
'My darling, come to me!’
At the instant when he attempted to embrace her his arms, suddenly turning rigid, remained outstretched. With a shriek of horror, he struggled to draw them back – struggled, in the empty brightness of the sunshine, as if some invisible grip had seized him.'

Enter a world of dark romance, where Gothic tragedy meets tales of transgression against society and where death’s parting of lovers may only be a temporary barrier.

Romantic fiction expert Jo Parsons is the matchmaker between the reader and a carousel of authors from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries whose bewitching, classic short stories explore unearthly passions, ghostings (of the Gothic kind) and demonic dalliances.

#46. ?

#47. Aaron Worth [ed.] - Out of the Past: Tales of Haunting History (British Library, March 2024)

Blurb
A tale of callous murder and deranged revenge rings out from fifteenth century Italy. A witch-finder’s great triumph is also the herald of his own doom in sixteenth-century Britain. A prisoner’s fate at the hands of the Inquisition in seventeenth-century Mexico leads to an encounter with the bestial and bizarre beneath the waves.

Readers and writers have been fascinated with the past long before the term ‘historical fiction’ became recognised as its own genre of writing. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, tellers of strange tales saw the weird potential in setting stories within the realms of previous centuries, and the chance to evoke terrors throughout time.

This new collection summons stories from the eras of witchcraft, the English Civil War, tall-ship high seas exploration and ante-revolution New England, with contributions by M P Shiel, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Shelley and many more.

#48. Mike Ashley [ed.] - Fear in the Blood: Tales from the Dark Lineages of the Weird (British Library, April 2024)

Blurb
Sheridan Le Fanu and his niece, Rhoda Broughton. Louisa Baldwin and her nephew, Rudyard Kipling. Nathaniel Hawthorne, his son, Julian, and his grand-daughter, Hildegarde. Joan Aiken and her father, Conrad.

The greatest storytellers of the weird and uncanny are conduits of the supernatural and macabre, channelling through their writing secret glimpses into the sublime, or into worlds of terror. In this new anthology, Mike Ashley traces the phenomenon of families in which that skill for channelling the weird seems to pass down the bloodlines, cultivating family trees whose output forms a large part of the canon of speculative fiction.

Mike’s selection includes a story from each family member in a given lineage – focusing on tales in which family relationships are a core element – to bestow the reader with the chilling gifts of generations of fearful fiction.

#49. Elizabeth Dearnley [ed.] - Deadly Dolls: Haunting Tales of the Uncanny (British Library, May 2024)

Blurb
'The sleeping wood had wakened. Her pearl teeth crashed against his with the sound of cymbals and her warm, fragrant breath blew around him like an Italian gale.'

Dolls, mannequins, humanoid toys and dummies are the quintessential symbols of the uncanny, referenced by Freud in his foundational essay on the phenomenon of the familiar-turned-unsettling, and remaining a terrifying recurring menace of horror media today.

In this new collection, Elizabeth Dearnley revives a sinister troupe of uncannily animated figures from tales across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by authors including E T A Hoffmann, Angela Carter, Vernon Lee, Algernon Blackwood and Rosemary Timperley.

Terror and nightmares await when the doors of the doll house swing open and its denizens come out to play.

[/color]

TOc, nicer cover scans, etc, when available.

[/quote][/div]

FEAR IN THE BLOOD is going to be a really good book, with (hopefully) a surprise in it that will no doubt delight members of the Vault (it did me) and I was over the moon to help Mike with a miniscule bit on it.

[dem]

Out now —

Katy Soar [ed.] - Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites (British Library, Dec. 2023)

Sandra Gómez

Introduction
A Note from the publisher

Sarban - An Extract from Ringstones
E. F. Benson - The Temple
Jasper John - The Spirit of Stonehenge
H. R. Wakefield - The First Sheaf
Algernon Blackwood - The Tarn of Sacrifice
Stuart Strauss - The Shadow on the Moor
Frederick Cowles - Lisheen
Arthur Machen - The Ceremony
Mary Williams - The Dark Land
J. H. Pearce - The Man Who Could Talk with the Birds
A. L. Rowse - The Stone That Liked Company
Nigel Kneale - Minuke
L. T. C. Rolt - New Corner
Lisa Tuttle - Where the Stones Grow
Elsa Wallace - The Suppell Stone

Blurb
There was no sleep for him that night; he fancied he had seen the stone — which, as you know, was a couple of fields away — as large as life, as if it were on watch outside his window.

The standing stones, stone circles, dolmens and burial sites of the British Isles still resonate with the mystery of their primeval origins, enthralling our collective consciousness to this day. Rising up in the field of weird fiction, ancient stones and the rituals and dark forces they once witnessed have inspired a wicked branch of the genre by writers devoted to their eerie potential.

Gathered in tribute to these relics of a lost age — and their pagan legacy of blood — are fifteen stories of haunted henges, Druidic vengeance and solid rock alive with bloodlust, by authors including Algernon Blackwood, Lisa Tuttle, Arthur Machen and Nigel Kneale.

KATY SOAR is a Senior Lecturer in Classical Archaeology at the University of Winchester whose research explores the resonance of archaeology in culture. She has contributed to Hellebore magazine, and co-edited (with Dr. Amara Thornton) the Handheld Press anthology Strange Relics (2022).

[Swampirella]

Oct 22, 2023 20:58:24 GMT jamesdoig said:

Finally back in Aus after a dreadful long haul flight. Did go to the British Library and bought a few of these - 3 for the price of two, so I'm glad I waited. Here's a couple of pics of the shelves. Nice looking volumes:





A guy on Charing Cross road had a display out for Halloween. The Gollancz Dagon was 220 quid, which I thought was pretty outrageous - you used to be able to pick them up for a few dollars:

What great photos! Never got an email notification about this post so only seeing them today by chance. Thanks for posting.

[andydecker]

Dec 12, 2023 16:47:05 GMT dem said:

Out now —

Katy Soar [ed.] - Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites (British Library, Dec. 2023)

Sandra Gómez

I have this on the maybe list. The line up looks interesting, nothing over-anthologized as far as I can see.

[helrunar]

I haven't checked yet to see if there's an electronic edition of Circles of Stone; I definitely have it on my list of books to stash away for my week in darkest South Florida visiting my mother and sister. I need frequent doses of creepy old Pagan horror tales whenever I'm stuck down there.

Hel.