Alan C. Jenkins [ed.] - Ghosts!

[dem bones]

Alan C. Jenkins [ed.] - Ghosts! An Anthology of Spectral Stories (Blackie, 1971)

David Brown

Acknowledgements
Alan C. Jenkins - Introduction

Sir Richard Burton - The Saving of a Soul
Marguerite Tinayre - The Ghost
Anthony Marsden [Graham Sutton] - Dusk Below Helvellyn
Daniel Defoe - The Apparition of Mrs. Veal
Eden Phillpotts - Crazywell
Edgar Allan Poe - A Ghost Before His Time
Algernon Blackwood - A Case of Eavesdropping
Richard Harris Barham - The Spectre of Tappington
L. P. Hartley - Feet Foremost
Maurice O'Sullivan - Spirit Talk
W. H. Barrett - Ghosts in the Fen
Sir Walter Scott - Wandering Willie's Tale
H. P. Lovecraft - The Music of Erich Zann
P. C. Wren - Fear
Lord Dunsany - The Haunting of Halahanstown
Mark Twain - A Ghost Story
Richard Middleton - On the Brighton Road
A. L. Rowse - The Wicked Vicar of Lansillian
Horace Annesley Vachell - Trodd's Corner
E. F. Benson - The Room in the Tower
Jerome K. Jerome - The Haunted Mill

Blurb:
'To most humans a horror be like a tonic, and they'll go miles for it and take a lot of trouble.... so says the narrator in one of the tales in Alan C. Jenkins's splendid new collection of ghost stories. The reader of this anthology, however, is saved any such trouble, for he has within arm's reach all that he needs in the way of a spine-tingling potion.

Even in this ultra-scientific age, ghost stories still retain their ability to grip the imagination. But you don't have to 'believe in ghosts' to appreciate the quality of this collection. Its criterion, as in Alan C. Jenkins's previous anthologies, is variety equated with rattling good stories. It ranges in time from the seventeenth century to the present day, in place, from the wilds of Dartmoor to the jungles of India, in approach, from the blood-chilling to the comic. Its authors are equally varied and include some of the best-known names on both sides of the Atlantic. L.P. Hartley's urbane horror contrasts with H.P. Lovecraft's fevered imaginings; the wit of Lord Dunsany mingles with the whimsicality of Mark Twain. A remarkable story of a German ghost told by Sir Richard Burton is included almost certainly for the first time in such an anthology. Algernon Blackwood, Eden Phillpotts. P.C. Wren and A.L. Rowse are among the twenty-one authors who contribute to make this book an inspired collection of bugaboo tales.

From a series comprising his own Thin Air: An Anthology of Ghost Stories, Animal Stories. Escape, Spy and Mystery, Brian Netherwood's Terror! and Uncanny, possibly others? Customary blend of the over-anthologised (even at the time) and less familiar material.

W. H. Barrett - Ghosts in the Fen: (More Tales From The Fens, 1964). When word reaches London of a haunting on the River Ouse, a fancy journalist visits Brandon Creek, to see this phantom drowned woman with child/ mermaid for himself. The locals, irked at his condescending attitude, plan a surprise.

A. L. Rowse - The Wicked Vicar of Lansillian: (West Country Stories, 1945). Dramatic, folksy conclusion to the churchyard exorcism of the ghost of Rev. Mark Cowell, murderer, wife abuser and simonist, who, on Christmas Day 1743, murdered the Rev. Nathaniel Tregenza to get his hards on both the vicarage and his comely young wife.

[dem bones]

Sir Richard Burton [trans] - The Saving of a Soul: (The Spiritualist, 19 Sept. 1879). Aka "Veritable and Singular Account of an Apparition, and the Saving of a Soul, in Castle Weixelstein, in Krain", by Johann Weichard, first published in The Honour of the Duchy of Carniola, 1689. The groaning, chain-rattling, hair-pulling ghost of a sinful widow begs assistance from Ankha the serving maid; "I require thirty masses, which must be said at the altar of St. Anthony, in the church of Jaguenz." Only then will her soul ascend to Heaven.

Returned for Chetwynd-Hayes [ed.] Fifteenth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1979.

Marguerite Tinayre - The Ghost: Translated from French by Henry Roche. Claymore, the famous medium and mesmerist, materialises the spirit of Gèrard's late wife Elizabeth at the harpsichord for a recital of Mozart's sonata. The widower is so overjoyed that he rushes to embrace her. Cormières, a sceptic, admits the episode caused him pause for thought.

[dem bones]

Horace Annesley Vachell - Trodd's Corner: (The Cornhill Magazine, April 1904). The Guntrip spinsters lease their dream cottage at Redbridge for a pittance on account of it is haunted by "noises and smells — and dreams." The place is so named after Tom Trodd, brandy smuggler, gibbeted for drowning twin John over love of the local femme fatale. Ann Turlet got a sick thrill pitting the brothers against one another when she'd no intention of marrying either. Tom surrendered to hang and rot in chains, after which no man wanted anything to do with Ann, who, horrified at what she'd caused, fast lost her looks. Nobody is quite sure what became of her, though you can bet the sisters will soon find out.

Anthony Marsden - Dusk Below Helvellyn: (Evening Standard Book of Strange Stories, n.d., c. 1934: Evening Despatch, 5 Jan 1935). A cockney climbing Dunmail Rise encounters a mad old bastard who claims to have witnessed a phantom army fishing King Dunmail's crown from the tarn. His account of a bloody murder hereabouts is more impressive still.

Princess TuvStarr kindly forwarded a revised version, credited to Graham Sutton as opposed to his pseudonym, which appeared in Katherine C Chorley [ed], The Journal of the Fell & Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District #38, 1944. This post-Blitz edit drops the line "We Cockneys have no abiding city; I shall go home next week and find new landmarks" and narrator is now a London man, region unspecified.

Maurice O'Sullivan - Spirit Talk: (Twenty Years A-Growing, 1933). Great Blasket, 1913. The wake of 100-year-old Kate Liam sets O'Sullivan senior to reminiscing on the ghosts he of parishioners past, culminating in a local legend, the sinful woman of Ventry, whose corpse was collected from the church by the 'old fellow' in person.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Sept 9, 2023 8:52:05 GMT dem bones said:

Horace Annesley Vachell - Trodd's Corner: (The Cornhill Magazine, April 1904). The Guntrip spinsters lease their dream cottage at Redbridge for a pittance on account of it is haunted by "noises and smells — and dreams." The place isr, though you can bet the sisters will soon find out.

Anthony Marsden - Dusk Below Helvellyn: (Evening Standard Book of Strange Stories, n.d., c. 1934: Evening Despatch, 5 Jan 1935). A cockney climbing Dunmail Rise encounters a mad old bastard who claims to have witnessed a phantom army fishing King Dunmail's crown from the tarn. His account of a bloody murder hereabouts is more impressive still.

Princess TuvStarr kindly forwarded a revised version, credited to Graham Sutton as opposed to his pseudonym, which appeared in Katherine C Chorley [ed], The Journal of the Fell & Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District #38, 1944. This post-Blitz edit drops the line "We Cockneys have no abiding city; I shall go home next week and find new landmarks" and narrator is now a London man, region unspecified.

www.lwcurrey.com/pages/books/117259/graham-sutton/fell-days

"Sutton, Graham. FELL DAYS. London: Museum Press Limited, [1948]. Octavo, 24 illustrations, cloth. First edition. Short stories and articles about climbing and Fellwalking in the Lake District of Northwest England. "Dusk Below Helvellyn" is a ghost story. "If A and B--" is an amusing story whose title alludes to mathematical word problems."

I wonder if this includes the revised version from the journal.

[dem bones]

Sept 9, 2023 11:15:57 GMT 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr said:

I wonder if this includes the revised version from the journal.

It does seem likely he'd go with the most recent edit.

P. C. Wren - Fear: (Rough Shooting , 1938). A traveller through unadministered Southeast Asian jungle territory puts up for the night at a dak bungalow, evidently abandoned in haste by the previous occupant. An avowed sceptic, still the combination of phantom, doom-laden piano chords, the raucous laughter of party goers, and a terrible scream are enough to drive him out into the night. Sixty miles on, he meets the Rev. Dr. Gates, an American Missionary who was on terms with Geoffrey Walsh-Kurnock, the man who built the bungalow, and knows of its "haunted" reputation. For him, the 'phenomena' is easily rationalised; the pianist was likely a civet-cat dropping from the ceiling, the scream that of a white owl, etc. How silly our man feels, until Gates then confides his own terrible experience of the place in the aftermath of the plantation owner's bizarre and horrible death. A terrific shocker (so too is Trodd's Corner), also available in Chetwynd-Hayes 10th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories and Mary Danby's 65 Great Spinechillers.

Against my expectations, Ghosts! has so much more going from it than a glorious cover painting.

[dem bones]

Eden Phillpotts - Crazywell: (Peacock House and Other Mysteries, 1906). "The fame of it got far and wide, so that a lot of people gathered there day by day, hoping for sensation. For to most humans a horror be like a tonic, and they'll go miles for it and take a lot of trouble, though to see a seemly thing they wouldn't travel across the road."

Sheepstor, Dartmoor. Woodman Wickett, a labourer, and Henry Borlase, a wealthy farm owner and churchwarden, are in love with Lydia White, who holds a deep affection for both. Eventually, to the surprise of all, and the disgust of her widowed mother, she favours Woodman. Henry is magnanimous in defeat, although he is adamant his beloved has made the wrong choice - and so it seems when, early in the marriage, Wickett deserts his wife for Australia, leaving behind a letter explaining that he is off to build the life they dream of, that he will write again soon once he's made his fortune.

Lydia never hears from him again.

Rock that he is, dear, loyal Henry offers unconditional support through the intervening weeks, months ... Mother has her dying wish. Lydia marries Henry, and lives the next five years in fear of husband Mk.1 arriving home on the doorstep. But there is yet worse to concern her; these past days Henry has not been right in the head. He has taken to shouting threats and curses into the night, demanding of his predecessor that he leave him be, stop summoning him out mid-moor to Crazywell Pool, that ".... queer, lonely hole .... a couple of miles or so from Sheepstor village. 'Tis an old tin mine works they say - a pit in the heath, where half an acre of water lies over the depths below. The old folks held the pool to deep to measure, and 'twas said that all the ropes from Sheepstor church belfry wouldn't plumb the depths tied together ..."

Henry eventually goes missing. The locals drag the tarn with inevitable, grim results. Not that the author is done with us yet. Fifty years on from the twin tragedy, the dying Lydia gave Henry Borlase's diary into his care.

[dem bones]

L. P. Hartley - Feet Foremost. (The Killing Bottle, 1932). Housewarming party at Charles and Mildred Ampleforth's newly renovated Low Threshold Hall, Suffolk, is gatecrashed by the family wraith, Lady Elinor Stortford. During the War of the Roses, sixteen-year-old Elinor married Lord Deadham, a bad hat who "ill treated her, drove her mad with terror and finally killed her." The servants have been warned against admitting strangers - to gain entry, the ghost must first be helped across the threshold - but the message doesn't reach our gallant late arrival, Antony, son and heir to the estate.

Edgar Allan Poe - A Ghost Before His Time: Cataleptic narrator lives in constant terror of regaining consciousness in the tomb. Can his elaborate precautions save him from so terrible a fate? A truncated version of The Premature Burial, possibly unique to this selection?

Daniel Defoe - The Apparition of Mrs. Veal: (A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next Day after her Death: to one Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury. The 8th of September, 1705, 1706). Two years after moving to Dover, Mrs. Veal returns to her old patch for a last call on Mrs Bargrave before embarking on a long "journey." Mrs Veal never enjoyed good health, so her dear friend can be forgiven for mistaking the ghastly pallor as par for the course. "Don't you think I am mightily impaired by my fits?" "I think you look as well as ever I knew you." Mrs Bargrave casually admires her friend's scoured silk gown (which later proves crucial in confirming the truthfulness of her testimony)A condensed version of the report as it appears in original pamphlet. The action (such as it is) takes place during broad daylight in a mundane location. It would take Walpole, de Sade, Lewis, Radcliffe & others to drag in the castle ruins, torture chambers, lewd monks, sex-mad nuns, and rotting corpses.

[dem bones]

Lord Dunsany - The Haunting of Halahanstown: (Argosy, June 1942: Fourth Book of Jorkens, 1947). Holiday adventure for Jorkens on a fishing trip in the West of Ireland. When Lord Halahanstown refuses to loan back eight acres of land allegedly stolen from her family, a starving Mrs. O'Rooney raises a mist ghoul against his castle, which falls to ruin inside two years.

Algernon Blackwood - A Case of Eavesdropping: (Pall Mall, Dec. 1900; The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories, 1906). Down on his luck in New York, Jim Shorthouse takes work on a local newspaper, using the last of his money to rent a cheap room. According to the landlady he'll be sharing a floor with "an old gentleman" who keeps to himself. Late one night Jim arrives back to hear raised voices from the room next door — a German father and son arguing over money. The old man is facing ruin should his misuse of a trust fund be discovered before he can replace the missing cash. The son has recently wed money but refuses to tap his bride for a loan. The row turns violent and terrifying .....

[helrunar]

Nice to see the inclusion of a Jorkens tale. I listened to an interesting talk about the very large oeuvre of Lord Dunsany on youtube a few weeks ago, and was intrigued by what the speaker shared with regards to the Jorkens series. I've probably read at least one of them, but the books have been quite elusive. The large academic library in which I toil does hold a few volumes--I may have to visit the stacks to go borrow one.

According to an online retail site, a couple of the books had electronic editions issued back in 2021, but neither is currently available. I wonder if the Dunsany estate had the editions deleted if they were unauthorized.

Hel.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Sept 29, 2023 19:48:49 GMT helrunar said:

Nice to see the inclusion of a Jorkens tale. I listened to an interesting talk about the very large oeuvre of Lord Dunsany on youtube a few weeks ago, and was intrigued by what the speaker shared with regards to the Jorkens series. I've probably read at least one of them, but the books have been quite elusive. The large academic library in which I toil does hold a few volumes--I may have to visit the stacks to go borrow one.

According to an online retail site, a couple of the books had electronic editions issued back in 2021, but neither is currently available. I wonder if the Dunsany estate had the editions deleted if they were unauthorized.

Hel.

Delphiclassics.com has the complete works of Dunsany available. And much else besides.