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Post by dem bones on Nov 26, 2022 10:53:45 GMT
Peter Haining [ed.] - The Supernatural Tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Foulsham, 1987) Peter Haining - Introduction
The Mystery of Sasassa Valley
The Captain of the "Pole-Star"
The Ghosts of Goresthorpe Grange
The Silver Hatchet
The Great Keinplatz Experiment
John Barrington Cowles
The Ring of Thoth
A Pastoral Horror
De Profundis
Lot No. 249
The Parasite
The Story of the Brown Hand
Playing with Fire
The Leather Funnel
The Silver Mirror
Through the Veil
How It Happened
The Bully of Brocas Court Blurb: Even if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had not created Sherlock Holmes he would have become famous as a writer of macabre and weird stories.
Conan Doyle himself was interested in spiritualism and the occult and professed to "have a hunger after all which is bizarre and fantastic".
If you share that hunger and enjoy a rich fare of the macabre and mysterious - then this book should certainly satiate your appetite!
Peter Haining has collected together - for the first time in one volume - all those masterly and eerie tales which show the author's vaunting imagination at its very best.
Here are stories of ghosts and demons, vampires, werewolves and ghouls - and even reanimated mummies! Spine-chilling tales of the supernatural to make your scalp tingle and your pulse race, Each tale is introduced with an intriguing account of its origin, and sometimes the unbelievably strange but true facts upon which it is based. # Having met with most of these before, will concentrate with those E. F. Bleiler overlooked or deliberately omitted from The Best Supernatural Tales of Arthur Conan Doyle (Dover, 1979).  Dudley Hardy: ( The Idler, March 1892). John Vansittart, partner in a Ceylonese tea export business, meets and marries Miss Emily Lawson in London before returning home by ship, Emily to follow a few days later in the company of his agent, Atkinson, our narrator. On the eve of departure, John is stricken with fever, but insists on making the voyage. As Emily and Atkinson board ship at Falmouth, they learn that John is stricken with smallpox. Emily vows to nurse her husband to health, but the appearance of his disease-ravaged ghost upon the waves confirms he is beyond recovery. The Mystery of Sasassa Valley: ( Chambers's Journal, 6 Sept. 1879). Tom Donahue and Jack Turnbull, young English gold prospectors in S. Africa, learn of the alleged haunting of the shunned Sasassa Valley by a strange, glowing eye. The partners spend the next night ghost hunting — and chance upon a magnificent diamond. Rich at last. Or so they think. Standard rationalised ghost, and a cheery ending. Not one I anticipate revisiting in a hurry. Through The Veil: ( The Strand, Nov. 1910). John and Maggie Brown's visit to Melrose during the excavation of a Roman fort revives memories of Mrs. Brown's past life romance with a Legionnaire and her husband's brutal termination of same. She'll never forgive him! Also included in Haining's 1971 Scottish Fantasy & Horror title, The Clans of Darkness.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 27, 2022 12:06:04 GMT
 Howard Pyle, The Parasite: ( Harper's Weekly 10, 17, 24 Nov. & 1 Dec. 1894). "Here I am gravely retailing the gossip of a woman who tells me how her soul may be projected from her body, and how, while she lies in a lethargy, she can control the actions of people at a distance. Do I accept it? Certainly not. She must prove and re-prove before I yield a point. " That's Professor Austin Gilroy, physiologist, University lecturer, sceptic of all things mumbo jumbo, marvelling at how this gaunt, crippled Miss Helen Penclosa creature can possibly have performed an outrageous feat of hypnotism on his fiancée, Miss Agatha Marsden, without resorting to trickery. Miss Penclosa offers further demonstrations of her uncanny abilities, and, impressed despite himself, Gilroy ignoring the warning of his friend, Charles Sadler, whose brief acquaintance with the medium "left a most unpleasant impression upon my mind," agrees to undergo mesmerism at her home. These sessions become part of his daily routine. So engrossed is he in writing his paper on The Relation Between Mind and Matter ("I should not be surprised if I got my F. R. S. over it."), Gilroy takes an age to realise that the lonely medium has fallen jealously in love with him. When Gilroy spurns her advances (such as they are; this is a respectable Victorian novella) she abuses her powers to destroy all he holds dear. Under the besotted medium's influence, the Professor babbles unscientific balderdash throughout his lectures until the senate have no option but to suspend him. He commits a crime and brutally assaults a friend. When still he refuses to meekly beg her forgiveness, Miss Penclosa arranges for something nasty to happen to dear Agatha ....  Howard Pyle, The Parasite: ( The Strand, Aug. 1908). As a junior partner prepares evidence for an embezzlement trial, the glass is enveloped in mist, which clears to reflect the murder of David Rizzio, private secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, at Holyrood in March 1566, hacked to death by Lord Darnley's assassins before the horrified monarch. Bleiler considered the story too slight for inclusion in his Best Supernatural Tales of ... ( The Parasite presumably omitted for it's length?). |
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Post by helrunar on Nov 27, 2022 14:03:39 GMT
Beautiful Howard Pyle paintings. Thanks for the scans, Dem!
cheers, Hel.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 30, 2022 11:58:12 GMT
How It Happened: ( The Strand, Sept 1913). Protagonist recalls crashing his brand new 30 horsepower Robur into the gates at the foot of Claystall Hill. Communicated via a medium .... Selecting A Ghost: The Ghosts of Goresthorpe Grange: ( London Society, Dec. 1883). Silas D'odd ('Argentine' to wife Matilda) loves his recently acquired feudal mansion, it's sewage-reeking moat, battlements, dungeon and torture chamber. Yet still the Grange lacks that last, classy touch — a resident ghost. Matilda consults her wide boy cousin, Jack Brocket, who does not disappoint. Jack reckons he knows just the fellow can get hold of a selection of the finest phantoms and offer them dirt cheap. Presently a stranger carrying a massive tool bag calls at Goresthorpe ... Also included in Haining's Supernatural Sleuths From elsewhere on board, will have to do. A Pastoral Horror: ( People, 21 Dec. 1890). " ... unless this mysterious and bloodthirsty villain is captured, the place will become deserted. Flesh and blood cannot stand such a strain. He is either some murderous misanthrope who has declared a vendetta against the whole human race, or else he is an escaped maniac." Bavaria, May and early June, 1866. A killer is at large in a quiet Alpen village, felling his victims with a single pickaxe blow. The attacks centre around Grüner Mann public house whose landlady, Frau Bischoff, fortuitously survives an attack, clawing her assailant's wrist in the process. A celebrated detective arrives from Vienna. The murderer's mattock and thick woollen muffler are recovered. Father Verhagen celebrates a mass giving thanks for Frau Bischoff deliverance, but a final revelation dampens the jubilant mood. Narrated by Englishman on the spot, John Hudson, for whom at least, there is a happy ending. ACD's own Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Nov 30, 2022 12:28:39 GMT
I suppose "The Horror of the Heights" is not a supernatural tale, then, but rather describes actual facts of the natural world.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 1, 2022 11:31:30 GMT
I suppose "The Horror of the Heights" is not a supernatural tale, then, but rather describes actual facts of the natural world. Bleiler omits it from his Best Supernatural Stories of, too. It's possibly more suited to a selection of his science fiction and fantasy shorts? Haining was certainly aware of the story as he includes it in Mysterious Air Stories. |
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 2, 2022 0:43:14 GMT
I suppose "The Horror of the Heights" is not a supernatural tale, then, but rather describes actual facts of the natural world. I don't think it would have been out of place in this volume. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Dec 2, 2022 9:50:55 GMT
I suppose "The Horror of the Heights" is not a supernatural tale, then, but rather describes actual facts of the natural world. I don't think it would have been out of place in this volume. That was my thought also. |
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Post by dem bones on Dec 2, 2022 12:00:47 GMT
Comparing Haining's selection with Bleiler's Best Supernatural Tales of ..., both volumes have these stories in common.
The Captain of the "Pole-Star"
[Selecting a Ghost]: The Ghosts of Goresthorpe Grange
The Silver Hatchet
The Great Keinplatz Experiment
John Barrington Cowles
The Ring of Thoth
Lot No. 249
The Story of the Brown Hand
Playing with Fire
The Leather Funnel
The Bully of Brocas Court
These stories are exclusive to Haining's.
The Mystery of Sasassa Valley
A Pastoral Horror
De Profundis
The Parasite
The Silver Mirror
Through the Veil
How It Happened
These stories are exclusive to Haining's.
J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement
A Literary Mosaic
The Los Amigos Fiasco
The American's Tale
You could certainly argue against the inclusion of The Mystery of Sasassa Valley (rationalised haunting) and A Literary Mosaic (it was all a dream!) over The Horror of the Heights. Not sure A Pastoral Horror is really a "supernatural" story, either? How about The Terror of Blue John Gap; should it have been considered for inclusion? Adventure of the Sussex Vampire?
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