Christopher Philippo - Valancourt Victorian Xmas Stories 4

[toff]

Glad you found so many to enjoy!

A slightly earlier story about the haunted sentry box from "Camel Bells," I think an inferior one:

"The Devil's Sentry Box" by Adam C. Haeselbarth (1902)
drive.google.com/file/d/1-UqOgs895I1HjGU6VY3uIF0MXw20rjbi/view?usp=sharing

No Christmas tie-in, though after appearing in newspapers around the US on August 25, 1902 it was reprinted in the December 1902 issue of 10 Story Book.

Haeselbarth revisited the subject in his novel Patty of the Palms: A Story of Porto Rico (1907):

    "We ought to first go and see the garita del Diable—'the Devil's sentry box.' It's a veritable Mecca for tourists and photographers," said Patty. [p.136 onward]
www.google.com/books/edition/Patty_of_the_Palms/A_NEAQAAMAAJ

[dem bones]

Would have been much easier to list the one I didn't much care for (shouldn't be difficult to work out).

I've since found a cheap copy of Tara Moore's series opener, so will get around to that soon-ish — there's a bit of a backlog. Think I'm lacking just the one volume now.

[toff]

Probably one of the poems, unless you mean just among the stories. Chambers, maybe.

I figured on the whole not everybody would be on board for poems, particularly with some of them being a bit of a stretch genre-wise. They're such a big part of the Victorian Christmas tradition generally, though.

I think you got where I was coming from with the selections, at least. 2/3 of the written reviews on Amazon are unkind, both having clearly read the introduction without any comprehension.

There's five numbered VBVCGS volumes, then The Shrieking Skull & Other Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories that's all James Skipp Borlase stories, and I think November Night Tales (1928) by Henry C. Mercer can be considered the same type of story, albeit a later era.

Moore's collection developed out of her research for her book Victorian Christmas in Print, which has a good chapter on "Ghost Stories at Christmas." There's a higher percentage of Christmas-published but not Christmas-set stories in that first VBVCGS volume. On the whole I liked them!

A lingering question for me is if authors (and/or publishers) of the ones that are not Christmas-set tended to save a particular kind of ghost story for publishing at Christmas, certain kinds of themes, or if they're entirely indistinguishable from ghost stories published during the rest of the year. I tend to think indistinguishable, but I haven't made a serious study of it.

Feb 1, 2024 17:29:41 GMT dem bones said:

Would have been much easier to list the one I didn't much care for (shouldn't be difficult to work out).

I've since found a cheap copy of Tara Moore's series opener, so will get around to that soon-ish — there's a bit of a backlog. Think I'm lacking just the one volume now.