The Haunting of Low Fennel/Tales of Secret Egypt, by Sax Rohmer

 

9798886010619

Stark House Press, 2024

292 pp

paperback

(read earlier in May)

I have to confess that I have never read a book by Sax Rohmer before although I own a copy of his Tales of Secret Egypt, one of the two books included in this double-feature edition from Stark House.  I remember buying that one along with a bunch of books after reading Riccardo Stephens' 1912 novel The Mummy, reprinted byValancourt in 2016, but it evidently got shelved and forgotten about, the fate of way too many books at my house.   Once again, like many Stark House books,  this one contains two different short-story collections.  The Haunting of Low Fennel was published in 1918, with Tales of Secret Egypt following in 1920.  

Sax Rohmer came into the world as Arthur Henry Ward in 1883.  Born in Birmingham, he came from an Irish family; his mother (née Furey, another name he would use in his writing) had often told her son that she was descended from a seventeenth-century general and the first Lord Lucan by the name of Patrick Sarsfield, and later after her death in 1901, he changed his middle name to Sarsfield.  His first story, "The Mysterious Mummy" was published under the name A. Sarsfield Ward in 1903 in that year's Christmas edition of Pearson's Weekly, followed by "The Leopard Couch" in January of 1904, appearing in Chambers's Journal. According to the introduction by Mike Ashley, the name Sax (according to Rohmer himself) came from "the Anglo-Saxon word for a knife or blade, and 'roamer' (with an 'a' which he changed to 'h') as the idea of a mercentary, or 'freelance' blade-for-hire."  The first appearance of the name was actually on a piece of sheet music in May of 1908, with a song called "Bang Went the Chance of a Lifetime."  But his wife Elizabeth, according to Ashley, later recalled that when the two first met in 1905, he had introduced himself as Sax Rohmer at that time.  There is much more information on the name "Sax Rohmer" here for anyone who might be interested.  Rohmer and his wife first went to Egypt in 1913 for the honeymoon they never had, and he fell in love with the place, as Ashley says, "soaking up the atmosphere, the history, the culture and the deeper mysteries," resulting in his novel The Brood of the Witch Queen, serialized beginning in 1914. The stories in this volume also reflect how "the power of Egyptian magic" inspired Rohmer.  

first edition, from Abebooks

The Haunting of Low Fennel opens with the titular story in which our narrator, a certain Mr. Addison, has arrived at the house called Low Fennel belonging to Major Dale and his wife Marjorie. After tea in a "delightful little drawing-room," he and the Major retire to the Major's study, where they begin talking about the "real business afoot."  It seems that due to some financial misdealings, Major Dale had to sell the family home, Fennel Hall,  "where a Dale has been since the time of Elizabeth!"  The buyer of the Hall had leased Low Fennel, part of the original estate, to the Dales, who have spent time and money on renovating the place. The story goes that prior to Dale selling the hall, a strange and unexplained death had left no one wanting to occupy Low Fennel, except for the head gardener at the hall.  He and his wife eventually moved out though after his wife had seen "a horrible-looking man with a contorted face" looking at her through the bedroom window.  Since then, the place had become "unlettable," and old stories about the place resurfaced. People were so frightened of Low Fennel that they'd actually go "two miles out of their way" so as not pass by the place at night.  Now, after about two months of living in the place,  it seems that the strangeness is starting up again, with the housekeeper encountering "an almost naked man" ... on the stairs, with "the face of a demon, a contorted devilish face, the eyes crossed and glaring like the eyes of a mad dog!"   As Dale says to Addison, "I've always been a sceptic.... but if Low Fennel is not haunted, I'm a Dutchman, by the Lord Harry!"  So far he's been able to keep it all from his wife, and has called in Addison, a psychic researcher, to figure out what's going on. It doesn't take Addison too long to become embroiled in the otherworldly events that are happening there, which proceed to take their toll on everyone at Low Fennel.  As fun as that story was, for me the gem of this particular collection is "In the Valley of the Just: A Story of the Shan Hills."  Moreen Fayne is on a hell of a "dreadful march" in a caravan organized by her husband, Major Fayne.  Hers was a terrible marriage -- she'd become disillusioned after realizing that the Major had been hiding "the dark, saturnine" side of his character prior to their marriage; her husband hadn't spoken to her in six months except in public, and he'd been "drinking heavily." After he accuses her of having cheated on him, in the middle of the night she is forced by her husband to begin this horrific trek.  The Burmese heat is unbearable and "deathly," she is barely able to keep herself upright in her horse and in immense pain. This march had been going on for days, and as the story begins,  as the group stops to camp, Moreen realized that "collapse was imment," but she refused to show any "sign of weakness" in front of her husband.   When the march stops the next day, the Major takes off leaving the others behind, and as darkness falls, one of her father's trusted servants on this expedition tells her that the men refused to stay in this place because "a spell lies upon all of this valley," and that "no man would come here after dark."  Why that is I'll leave for others to discover, but this is a hell of a good story.  The remainder of the stories in this book are also good -- "The Blue Monkey" is just plain creepy and weird, while in "The Riddle of Ragstaff" a riddle holds the key to a strange mystery, and a "ghoul in human shape" holds the destiny of a young woman in his hands in "The Master of Hollow Grange." The final two stories, "The Curse of a Thousand Kisses" and "The Turquoise Necklace" move the action from British shores to Egypt, where the first of these begins with a man who is given a parchment written by another man who had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth one night in Cairo.  The second opens with an act of kindness which leads to the kidnapping of a woman and the subsequent, impossible search for her across the "four hundred miles of sand" across the desert. 

from Abebooks

Moving on to the second section of this book, Part I consists of Tales of Secret Egypt as narrated by the somewhat unscrupulous Neville Kernaby, an English man who is just as at home at Shepherd's as he is in native attire in the souks of Cairo. Kernaby acts as representative of "Messrs. Moses, Murphy & Co. of Birmingham" in Cairo, a company that deals in fake antiquities of various sorts, and Kernaby is always on the lookout for interesting items either for his company or, in some cases, for himself.   All of these stories feature the mysterious Imám Abû Tabâh, who is sort of a combination of magician, enforcer of laws and an upholder of righteousness, and sometimes secret agent of the Egyptian government.    Let me just say that while it's true that I found several stereotypical references to Egyptians and Arabic-speaking peoples from a white colonizer/imperialist point of view,  it is  actually Abû Tabâh who is the hero of these tales,  saving Kernaby's bacon more than once when Kernaby gets in too deep during his adventures.    The "Tales of Abû Tabâh" are "The Yashmak of Pearls," "The Death-Ring of Snerefu," "The Lady of the Lattice," "Omar of Ispahan," "Breath of Allah," which I might add is laugh-out-loud funny toward the end, and "The Whispering Mummy."   Part II is simply entitled "Other Tales," and I have to say that the first of these, "Lord of the Jackals," is beyond cringeworthy, with a passionate love affair between a young man and a twelve year-old girl.  I don't care how Rohmer spun that one, it's just plain upsetting.  My favorite in this section is "In The Valley of the Sorceress," which not only edges the supernatural but crosses the line right into the thick of it.   The narrator of this tale has an archaeologist friend by the name of Condor who is working on a dig hoping to find the mummy of Queen Hatasu, who during her time, was believed to have practiced "black magic."  Her statues had all been "dishonored," and any mention of her name on monuments had all been erased.  Condor's  troubles, as he describes in a letter to the narrator, began with the arrival of a young woman "claiming protection."  A month later, his entire crew has simply deserted the excavation and were nowhere to be found. Eventually word is received that Condor was taken to hospital, "bitten by a cat" and "died the night of his arrival, raving mad..."  The narrator then decides to take up Condor's work, and not too long after he gets to the site, he is visited by a young woman, asking for his protection.  Who is this "siren of the wilderness," and what does she want?  There are four other tales rounding out this section, "Lure of Souls,"The Secret of Ismail,"  "Harun Pasha," and "Pomegranate Flower," but none (in my opinion) have the creep factor of "In the Valley of the Sorceress," which was just outstanding. 

This is not at all great literature, but it's good fun pulp that ranges from mystery to the supernatural and makes for many hours of laid-back reading.  As I said earlier, you can definitely expect some racial  stereotypes in these stories, but just be mindful that they're there and try to move along to the heart of these tales.  I mean, acknowledge it and don't ignore it, but don't let it be the only thing you see in here because there's so much more.    I've had a thing for mysterious/supernatural/mystical stories set in Egypt since I was a kid, and I'm not sure why I've not read any of Rohmer's work before now.   I still think I'll give Fu-Manchu a big pass, but I have ordered two more volumes of Rohmer's Egypt-based tales from Stark House now that I've discovered him.  My many thanks for my copy along with my apologies for taking me nearly a month to get my thoughts down.  Definitely recommended for serious readers of old pulp. 

Robert Hichens -- one of three -- The Black Spaniel and Other Strange Stories

"These occult things can't always be told of, even when they are known." 

 97886010565

Stark House Press, 2023

245 pp

paperback

Not too long ago the very good people at Stark House Press sent me an ARC of a forthcoming collection of stories by Robert Hichens (1864-1959) entitled  The Folly of Eustace and Other Satires and Stories.  [As a quick sidebar, his name may also be found under the name of Robert Smythe-Hichens, changed to distance himself from the  quartermaster who was at the helm of the ill-fated Titanic.]   I first got a bee in my bonnet about Hichens after reading his "The Face of the Monk" (1897; included in this volume) some time ago, so when I saw that Stark House had published two volumes of this author's short stories, I had to have them, so that ARC is beyond appreciated.    Although he might be a bit purply in the prose department and long in the writing, the man could definitely spin a fine yarn.   He also excels in troubled souls -- this book is riddled with them.  

The title story (and my personal favorite of this bunch) is  "The Black Spaniel" (1905), a novella-length, dark and atmospheric tale that begins as our narrator (Luttrell) introduces two of his friends, Vernon Kersteven and Dr. Peter Deeming,  to each other while on holiday in Italy. Within a short space of time,  the three men become engaged over dinner in a conversation about a particular book written by a woman who also happens to be at the restaurant that evening.  Deeming finds it "wrongheaded and sentimental," noting that the author "appears to wish to elevate the animals above humanity, to take them out of their proper place."  Kersteven, on the other hand, has a great love for animals and cannot abide animal cruelty, saying that he has "known the longing to turn one whom I have been seen being cruel to a pet animal into that animal, and to be his master for a little while."   Deeming reveals that he has a black spaniel; Kersteven reveals that his dog, also a black spaniel,  had been stolen and sold to a place in London that "kept on hand" animals which eventually ended up under the vivisectionist's knife. Later he reveals his belief to Luttrell that intuition tells him that Deeming is cruel, and that he is sure that Deeming's own dog is suffering at the doctor's hands; he wants to actually see the dog for himself.  When he comes to London for that very purpose, things not only make a shift to the strange, but venture completely off into the deep end of weirdness.  I can't divulge too much about this particular story; let me just say that it was well beyond creepy.  Although the ending might be a bit on the foreshadowed side, had this been the only story in this volume, it still would have been worth what I paid for the book.     The second longish tale is  "The Hindu" from 1919.  The opening paragraph reveals that this story was related to the narrator by a London doctor who was a  "famous specialist in nervous diseases," who often tells "stories of the people who consult him," leaving out their real names.  The narrator  has collected some of these "cases" in a book; he is the one who gave the story its title.   After a "great pother about psychical research," a professor "launched an attack" on an investigator for the Psychical Research Society in the paper owned by one of these consultees, the owner, Mr. Latimer, decides to look into "psychic matters" for himself. His wife is a devotee of such things, so without her knowledge, and along with one of his investigators, Latimer attends a sitting with a psychic.  At first the "messages" he received were, as he phrased it, "sheer bunkum," until he got one about his wife.  That's when his troubles begin.  Although he tells the investigator that he didn't believe a word the medium had said, he decides to look into things.  According to what was heard at the sitting via a spirit named Minnie Hartfield, his wife had fallen out of love with him for some time, and she had "come under the influence of an Indian, a Hindu" by the name of Nischaya Varman.  It seems that Minnie had become Varman's mistress, but he'd dumped her when he'd met Mrs. Latimer, but Latimer does not want to bring any of this up with his wife.   It also happens that Varman (known throughout this tale as "The Hindu") had died three months earlier and at the next sitting with the psychic, comes through to speak to him for just a few moments.  Since that time, no matter where he goes or what he does, "The Hindu" is never far behind, but strangely, nobody else can see him.   In the final story in this volume, "Sea Change" (1900),  Sir Graham Hamilton, "a great sea painter," has left London to stay for a bit on a "little isle set lonely in a harsh and dangerous northern sea." It is the home of the Rev. Peter Uniacke, who had come to the island hoping to forget about a certain woman who had "disappeared" from his life.  Inviting Hamilton to stay with him, little by little Uniacke draws out the story of why Hamilton seems so haunted, and why he is "curiously persecuted by remorse." The reverend realizes that Hamilton will find exactly what he seeks on the island, and takes steps to ensure that he doesn't.  This one is an awesome ghost story, more poignant than frightening but still creepy enough to chill the blood.

from Internet Archive

The shorter stories are also well done, all with more than just a tinge of the supernatural.  As mentioned, "The Face of the Monk" is here, as are "The Silent Guardian" which would have been right at home in Henry Bartholomew's recent (and excellent)  anthology The Living Stone: Stories of Uncanny Sculpture (Handheld Press, 2023),  "Demetriaidi's Dream" from 1929 in which an elderly man dreams of horrible happenings in each and every room of the hotel where he's staying and "The Lighted Candles" from 1919, a dark tale of revenge and of course, ghostly happenings.

 Major applause to Stark House for putting these stories back into print.  I can most certainly recommend it very highly.   At the moment I am just on the edge of finishing a second Stark House volume of Hichens' tales, How Love Came to Professor Guildea and Other Uncanny Tales, which is also fantastic.  The Black Spaniel and Other Strange Stories is a delight for fans of older darkness (especially the title story),  and while the writing is definitely best left to the most patient readers and true-blue admirers of strange,  the stories themselves are created such that the horror contained within them slowly escalates, drawing the reader in deeper and deeper by the moment. They also delve deeply into the inner realm of the human psyche, which may be just as frightening.    It does take some time to get fully into these stories before the weirdness begins, but I didn't mind at all --  the wait was well worth it.   

I will be posting about How Love Came to Professor Guildea next week -- so far I'm loving it. 

Haunters at the Hearth: Eerie Tales for Christmas Nights (ed.) Tanya Kirk

 

9780712354271

British Library, 2022

305 pp

paperback

It's been a while since I've been here -- vacation and then a subsequent case of covid have sucked up my time pretty much since Thanksgiving and I'm just now feeling up to posting again.  I couldn't let the year go by without reading at least one volume of Christmas ghost stories, which, ever since Valancourt launched its first book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories  has become a tradition I've followed as the holiday approaches.   Sadly, they haven't published  one in a while, but luckily for me, the British Library Tales of the Weird came up with Haunters at the Hearth: Eerie Tales for Christmas Nights, edited by Tanya Kirk.  These stories are not limited to the Victorian era; in this volume there are actually only two in that particuar category, with the entries spanning a whopping 110- year range from 1864 to 1974.   In my very humble reader's opinion, this is one of the best Christmas anthologies the British Library has to offer.

There are a few stories in this book I'd encountered before -- "The Phantom Coach," by Amelia B. Edwards (1864), "Bone to His Bone," by E.G. Swain (1912)  "The Cheery Soul," by Elizabeth Bowen (1942) and Celia Fremlin's "Don't Tell Cissie" from 1974.   As for the highlights here, the most unexpected story and hands-down winner of my own award for most disturbing comes from American writer Mildred Clingerman (1918-1997), an author whose name I'd not heard before.  "The Wild Wood" (1957),  which I had to read twice because I couldn't believe wtf I'd just read, is worth the entire price of this book and inspired me to buy a collection of this author's work called The Clingerman Files, so be prepared for a post about that one in the near future.   Tanya Kirk notes in the brief introduction to this story that "The domestic horror of a seemingly wholesome 1950s scene can be likened to the work of Clingerman's contemporary, Shirley Jackson," but if you ask me, "The Wild Wood" is creepier than anything Jackson ever wrote in her short stories.   Pardon the overused cliché here, but it is like reading Shirley Jackson on steroids ... jeez! It all begins when Margaret Abbott, a mom of two small children, decided that her young family needed to establish its own Christmas traditions, starting with buying a tree.  By the time the kids had become teens, the tradition of buying the tree at Cravolini's which had started when her daughter was just four had "achieved sancrosanctity" over the years, but it is a family custom that Margaret does not look forward to at all.  While "Wild Wood" begins on the mundane side, once the family walks into Cravolini's the first time, things start to take a strange turn as Margaret gets a serious case of déjà vu, knowing "this has happened before." To say any more would be absolutely criminal, but let me just say that it's been a while since a story has punched me in the gut like this one did.  

from Cincinatti Enquirer

Another story that stands out comes from D.H. Lawrence.  "The Last Laugh," first appearing  in 1925 could be an entry in my entirely mythical complete book of Pan-related stories, even though his appearance is  not specifically stated here.  A bowler-hatted man with a faun-like face and a young, "nymphlike" deaf woman leave a house just as the midnight bell is striking, making their way through the snowy streets of Hampstead.  The man hears someone laughing, "the most extraordinary laughter" he'd ever heard; not long after she sees someone she describes only as "him" in the same holly bushes where the laughter had originated.  Strange, inexplicable occurrences follow. Obviously there's more happening here under the weird bits in this tale, but all signs definitely point to the return of the goat-footed god.   And speaking of weird, Eleanor Smith's story "Whittington's Cat" certainly fits that bill.  A young man named Martin is writing a book called Pantomime Through the Ages, although he knows absolutely nothing about the subject.  His interest was sparked after a visit to a curiosity shop where he'd picked up "a series of spangled prints representing characters from popular pantomimes."  Since then he'd developed  "pantomime mania," spending each and every night watching Dick Whittington (which is evidently still going strong) at the Burford Hippodrome.  Martin's life takes a strange detour after one particular performance when it's his turn to be the victim of Dick Whittington's Cat as it did its regular  thing, climbing up to a stage box where "it was wont to engage one or other of the spectators in badinage, much to the delight of the entire audience."    "Whittington's Cat" appears in Smith's collection of stories Satan's Circus, which I will now be pulling from its shelf after reading this tale, which beyond its weirdness is also laced with more than a bit of humor.   Perhaps the most Christmas-y of all of these stories is "Christmas Honeymoon" by Howard Spring (1939), which follows the strange adventure of a couple who have chosen to hike in Cornwall for their honeymoon.  I really can't say too much about this one without giving away too much, but clearly the term "Christmas miracle" applies.    The rest of these tales are also very good, perfect for Yuletide.  You can find the entire table of contents here. 

from The Newark Advertiser

There is not a bad story in this anthology, ranging from ghosts, possessions, hauntings and dark humor to  other strangeness, so really, there is something for everyone to be found here.  The book joins my highly-revered, personal collection of British Library Tales of the Weird volumes, to which I've just

today added two more books (well, pre-ordered them anyway).   I can't speak highly enough of Haunters at the Hearth, and once again Tanya Kirk has done a great job selecting terrific stories for the holiday season.  Very highly recommended. 

Polar Horrors: Strange Tales from the World's Ends (ed.) John Miller

9780712354424

British Library, 2022

340 pp

paperback

It's time for another book in the British Library Tales of the Weird series.   This time we're off to the remoteness of the Arctic and the Antarctic with Polar Horrors: Strange Tales From the World's Ends.  My geek self has a particular fascination with the history of polar exploration, which after a while led to a particular fascination with fiction set in these locations as well, so this book is tailor made.   With the exception of one story from 2019 that editor John Miller has chosen to include here, the remainder of the stories range from the 1830s through the 1940s, with the earliest in the section entitled  "North," reflecting, as Miller notes in his introduction, the "earlier arrival of the Arctic than the Antarctic into European and American writing."  

 Surprisingly, there were only two stories that I'd read before, leaving nine here that are new to me.  The first of these is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's well-known "Captain of the Pole Star," followed by Harriet Prescott Spofford's "The Moonstone Mass," in which a young man decides to attempt the Northwest Passage.  About that one, all I will say is that anyone should think twice before setting sail on a ship named Albatross, especially when heading into unknown territory.  My favorite stories (in order of appearance) begin with  "Skule Skerry" by John Buchan (1928), from his The Runagates Club, which I own but haven't yet read.   An island at  "61° latitude in the west of the Orkneys" is where this story is situated.  The narrator of this story is an ornithologist, Anthony Hurrell,  one of a group of men at a gentlemen's club in London who regale each other with their stories.   He had gone to the Norland Islands one year for the spring migration of certain birds, but unlike other people who "do the same," he had in mind something quite different.  Taking his cue from prior research he'd done and using the Icelandic Saga of Earl Skuli as a guide, he'd  found  a reference to a certain "Isle of the Birds," which was located "near Halsmarness ... on the west side of the Island of Una."  Further research nets a mention of "Insula Avivum... quae est ultima insula et proximao, Abysso," by a "chronicler of the place."  Intrigued, he made his way to Una, and finds exactly the place that had "been selected for attention by the saga-man," Skule Skerry.  He is told that it has an "ill name" --  that "Naebody gangs there," and that "the place wasna canny." While highly atmospheric, it's really all about the journey in this one.  Next on the list and deserving of top honors is the incredibly unsettling "The Third Interne" by Idwal Jones (1938), which appeared in Weird Tales in January of that year, listed as "A brief tale of a surgical horror in the Asiatic wastes of northern Russia."   As Miller notes about this tale, the setting "outside the established limits of civilisation" is perfect for the secretly- unfolding of "darker enterprises." In this story, a group of three science "internes" who had studied under Pavlov set their sights on working with "a far greater scientific man than he,"  a certain Dr. Melchior Pashev, "a brilliant worker in neurology."  Dr. Pashev, as "the third interne" relates, had once cut off a dog's head and managed to keep it alive for three years. It had "functioned beautifully," barking, drinking water, blinking its eyes "in affection," just like a normal dog despite the lack of a body. The three worked hard and saved the money they made in their jobs and finally borrowed enough to get them to Yarmolinsk, where Pashev was busy with his work.  Welcomed warmly, after a while their devotion grows to the point where it knows no bounds.  And that's about all I will say about this one, except that the ending turns things back on the reader, where he or she must judge between two alternatives.   This is one of the strangest and most eerie mad scientist stories I've ever encountered, and not only gave me the shivers but made me feel queasy.   Also deserving of high marks is  John Martin Leahy's "In Amundsen's Tent" from 1928, a story of an horrific series of events left behind in an account "set down" by Robert Drumgold, a member of the Sutherland expedition aiming to be the first to the south pole at the same time that Scott and Amundsen were vying for the same honor.  It begins with a question that asks

"What was it, that thing (if thing it was) which came to him, the sole survivor of the party which had reached the Southerrn Pole, thrust itself into the tent, and issuing, left but the severed head of Drumgold there?" 

Having discovered and read the journal left behind by Drumgold, the narrator of this story and his comrades had decided to suppress the parts that dealt with "the horror in Amundsen's tent," so as not to "cast doubt upon the real achievements of the Sutherland expedition."   But he's decided that it is now time to release it to the world, and thus his story of horror begins.  Don't be surprised if you find something familiar in this one.  

from Patrick Cullis Photography

Three more stories of note,  presented here in no particular order,  deserve a mention.    Although modern (2019),  Aviaq Johnson's  " Iwsinaqtutalik Pictuc: The Haunted Blizzard" is a reminder that there is more than a measure of truth in indigenous legends, which in this case, have seemed to have been forgotten by all except children and elders, with disastrous consequences. I am always  happy to see indigenous literature in any volume, so cheers to the editor.   "A Secret of the South Pole" by Hamilton Drummond (1901) begins with a visit to a former sea captain during a downpour.  The captain loved to tell stories, and on this day, what he's about to say has to do with a strange artifact he calls "the gem of my whole kit."  If any one could tell him what it is, he has offered to give that person "the whole shanty." All he knows about it is that it's "a bit o' the South Pole" and launches into a story about how it came to be in his possession. Once upon a time he  and two fellow sailors were stuck out in the ocean  in an open boat, when they encountered a derelict ship and decided to go on board.  As he tells his attentive audience, "what came after was queer, mighty queer, that I'll admit."  No Flying Dutchman lore here, just weirdness.   Mordred Weir's "Bride of the Antarctic" (1939) centers on an "ill-fated expedition" headed by "Mad Bill Howell," who had forced his wife against her will to go with him to the coast of Victoria Land.  Legend has it that Howell was a cruel man, and during his expedition all perished during the long Antarctic night except Howell and the cook, who were both saved when the ship came to pick them up.  Now another expedition has come to the same place, where strange happenings begin just as the winter darkness falls.  

from ScienceNewsExplores

And now the difficult part, where I'm left with three stories that I just did not care for, but your mileage may, of course, vary.   To be fair, they all certainly fit the bill of "Strange Tales," they are set at one of the "World's Ends," and the main characters of these stories did technically experience some sort of polar horror, each in his or her own way.  Therefore, the editor did his job.  But  as a reader of the weird and the strange, these three just left me cold and unfazed.   In my way of thinking, the opening story of an anthology should set the tone for what's to come, making  me excited about getting to the rest.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen here.  "The Surpassing Adventures of Allan Gordon" by James Hogg started out well, but its novella length and a polar bear with the name of Nancy saving the main character's skin time after time just didn't do it for me.  Quite honestly, this isn't the story I would have led with.    "Creatures of the Night" by Sophie Wenzel Ellis and Malcolm M. Ferguson's "The Polar Vortex" are, like "The Third Interne," tales which concern themselves with rather outré science for the time, but while Jones' story had the power to seriously disturb, these two were lacking in that department.   

from my own designated British reading room

That's the thing about anthologies, though -- they truly are a mixed bag so you don't know what you're going to get.  The eight stories I did enjoy were still well worth the price of the book, so I can't complain too much.   And then there's this:  I've read and loved two other anthologies in this series edited by John Miller (Tales of the Tatttoed: An Anthology of Ink and Weird Woods: Tales From the Haunted Forests of Britain)  so if I wasn't exactly enamored with three stories  in this book, he's still provided me with hours and hours of solid reading entertainment, as has the series as a whole.  

Recommended. 

 

Strange Relics: Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural, 1895-1954 (eds.) Amara Thornton and Katy Soar

 

"We do not know what queer intricate effects the human soul may have on inanimate things. A physical environment may be charged with psychical stuff as a battery is charged with electricity, and, when the right conductor appears there may be the deuce to pay."

    

      -- John Buchan from "Ho! The Merry Masons"

9781912766581

Handheld Press, 2022

227 pp

paperback

Strange Relics is another fine anthology of strange tales from Handheld Press,  this time linking archaeology to the supernatural.    As the editors reveal in the introduction to this volume, "all but one of the authors ...  called Britain home,"  where remains of the past were "being researched, mapped and excavated,"  spawning not only  historical and archaeological societies but also awakening different writers to the link between the uncanny and the remnants of the past.  Margaret Murray acknowledged that connection in her autobiography noting that "due to the nature of their work, archaeologists were essentially assumed to have supernatural encounters."  And then, of course, there's the fact that many of these stories were written during a time of great interest in "psychical research, spiritualism and the occult," involving intellectuals across a range of different disciplines. The  stories in Strange Relics, as the editors explain, move well beyond the "discovery-led trope in which a naive (white male) scholar/excavator brings to light that-which-should-be-left-buried," instead focusing on capturing  " 'fantastic' ; one might say magical, encounters with the material remains of the past..."  and it is through these encounters that "the barrier between the present and the past becomes thin, and strange happenings result." 

Strange happenings indeed!   I'm sure the people in these stories would never have been the same after experiencing the weird phenomena that crops up throughout the book via "horrible" relics

 "from a Neolithic rite to ancient Egyptian religion to Roman battle remains to medieval masonry to some uncanny ceramic tiles in a perfectly ordinary American sun lounge..."

 and much, much more.  

Readers who are well into weird fiction will recognize pretty much all of the authors whose work appears here; I only found one whose work I'd not read before,  Alan JB Wace,  and it's likely because he was an archaeologist, not a writer of weird tales, whose wife had put together a book called Greece Untrodden after his death containing stories that he and his field colleagues would tell each other after their evening meals.    I've previously enjoyed seven of the twelve stories found here, but rereading them in Strange Relics was  a pleasure:  "The Shining Pyramid" by Arthur Machen, "Through The Veil" by Arthur Conan Doyle,  "View From a Hill" by MR James, "Curse of the Stillborn," by Margery Lawrence (which I must say is a great tale in which someone truly gets what they deserve) as part of her Number Seven Queer Street,  "The Cure" by Eleanor Scott (from her Randall's Round) and  "Cracks of Time" by Dorothy Quick, which I first encountered in The Horned God: Weird Tales of the Great God Pan,  edited by Michael Wheatley and published by the British Library just this year and finally, "The Ape," by EF Benson.   

from Tea and Rosemanry

Speaking of Pan, he is well represented here.    HD Everett's "The Next Heir"  concerns a young man, Richard Quinton, who answers an advertisement proclaiming that he may hear something to his advantage if he meets with a solicitor representing another Mr. Quinton, a relative in England.   It seems that the elder Mr. Quinton is looking for an heir to whom he might pass on his estate, but as young Richard will come to learn, there are certain conditions that must be met for this to happen.  In this story, the author approaches the great god Pan differently than in any other story I've read about him; I won't say how but it is certainly unique as well as thought provoking. "Roman Remains" by Algernon Blackwood also contains a Pan figure, and we are clued in to this right away as we're told that "Queer things seem to go on in a little glen called Goat Valley" and that the "superstitious" locals avoid it in the daytime.    Enough said about this one except that it is truly a gem among Blackwood's tales.  

Not a Pan-related story, in "The Golden Ring" by Alan J.B. Wace a man is gifted a golden ring on a string of yarn by three women and given orders not to lose, sell or cut it.   He finds the whole thing "rather silly" but trust me, there is nothing at allsilly about what happens next.  This story delves not only into mythology, but academic debate as well.  

The Stone Tape from Freedonia

 I positively loved John Buchan's "Ho! The Merry Masons." Edward Leithen (now with the Thursday Club, the successor to the Runagates Club) relates a bizarre incident that happened to him on a visit to his friend Barnes Lacey ("with an antiquarian conscience") at his house named Scaip.  While on a walk to see a nearby church with "several Lacey tombs" at Fanways,  Leithen finds the village with its "string of ancient homesteads, each sending up its drift of smoke from its stone chimneys"  to be "snug and comfortable," but this description does not extend to the church.  His host finds it "A noble house of God," but swears that "the Devil had a good deal to do with the building of it."  Turns out that the medieval masons may have been "under the special protection of the Church," so as to secure a heavenly afterlife, but it wasn't exactly Christianity that served as their inspiration as much as "Pagan miscreants."  What does one do, exactly, when the associated rites of these masons find themselves embedded into the "very framework" of one's medieval-era home, "built out of the heart of darkness," the mortar "wet with tears and blood, and death had plied the mallets."     Think Stone Tape  -- I first encountered this term earlier this month while reading Will Maclean's novel The Apparition Phase then watched the film/teleplay written by Nigel Kneale and was seriously blown away.  That was 1972; evidently Buchan had figured it out in 1933, and the concept goes back even further -- apparently in 1911 (according to the introduction), as one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research had recognized that "those now living" who may be "endowed with some psychic sensitiveness" might pick up on echoes or phantoms in places where "some kind of imprint on material structures" has been left.  

 

from CapriTiberio Palace

My vote for most disturbing story in this anthology goes to Rose Macaulay's "Whitewash."  While vacationing in the Mediterranean on the Isle of Capri, a woman reading The Story of San Michele expresses to her aunt  that "it's nice to know what an excellent man Tiberius actually was, after all one was brought up to think of him."  Evidently, Suetonius was all wrong about him -- as she notes, "Tiberius has been cleared" and he was in truth a "saintly" emperor.  But after what was supposed to have been a refreshing swim in one of the caves ...   Super shivers from this one, and even better, the aunt's take on whitewashing is more than relevant to our present.

 

Editors Amara Thornton and Katy Soar have selected some great stories for inclusion in this volume; I can only imagine the huge amount of time and effort they've put into making their choices.  I have to say that  Handheld Press is fast becoming one of my favorite small indie presses, and each of their  "Handheld Weirds" that I've had the pleasure to have read have turned out to be absolutely awesome.  I have discovered many new-to-me authors from the past and  many stories I'd not previously encountered, which is of course something I always look forward to in my reading.   Strange Relics is a must read for anyone who enjoys weird tales or strange fiction; in this book the added angle of archaeology takes these stories to another level indeed.  

definitely recommended.  

Spectral Sounds: Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird (ed.) Manon Burz-Labrande

 

9787012354172

British Library, 2022

308 pp

paperback

In this anthology, as the editor of this volume says in her introduction,  "unexplained noises take centre stage."  I would think that at least once in someone's life, he/she/they would have experienced strange aural phenomena -- I know I have.  When I was about seven, we had a heater in our house that made strange noises now and then which reminded me of footsteps and I would just lay there at night in bed frozen to my core from fear.  I've been awakened at night more than once by someone distinctly calling my name,  bolting straight up in bed, only to find my sweet spouse still snoring away.  I could list others, but let  me just say that compared with what happens in these stories, my experiences are minor.  

Burz-Labrande divides this book into four thematic sections.  The first is  " 'I Heard a Noise, Sure Enough' : Living with Audible Presences"  and you  have to love an editor who starts her book with a selection from Florence Marryat (1833-1899), whose short stories, novellas and novels have given me hours of entertainment, especially her bizarre The Strange Transformation of Hannah Stubbs (1896) and The Blood of the Vampire (1897),  republished in 2009 by Valancourt.  I love her weird stuff so much that I bought the two-volume set of work from Leonaur, The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Florence Marryat, and I always rejoice when I find a collection of ghostly tales and find one of her stories in the contents.  Getting back to Spectral Sounds,  the Marryat piece included here is  "The Invisible Tenants of Rushmere" which made its debut in her The Ghost of Charlotte Cray and Other Stories published in 1883.  A London doctor who believes he's on the edge of a breakdown and is looking for a few months of "complete quiet," finds a house "on the banks of the Wye, Monmouthshire" that promises "excellent fishing," rounds," and a nominal rent.  It is, he thinks, "the very thing we want," and the family soon takes up residence in the place.  It is a bit on the isolated side, and this worries his wife, but as time goes on there are more pressing matters to deal with as the family begins to experience some strange but unseen phenomena.  In conversation with the landlord of a nearby pub, the doctor learns that  "No one who lives at Rushmere lives there alone," but the doctor refuses to listen to "any such folly."  As always, he probably should have taken the word of someone who knows.  It is a fine opener, the perfect haunted house story to read at night by booklight during a noisy thunderstorm, which is how I did it.   Also included in this section is B.M. Croker's "The First Comer"   and The Day of My Death" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, which unlike the previous two, takes place in America. 

from Sublime Horror

The second section, " 'I Had Heard The Words With Painful Distinctness': Perceiving Ghostly Voices"  begins with  "The Spirit's Whisper," by an unknown author but often attributed to Le Fanu.  You can be the judge as to whether or not it reads like a Le Fanu story.   My favorite in this section is "A Case of Eavesdropping" by Algernon Blackwood, which first appeared in his The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories from 1906.  Shorthouse,  down on his luck, left high and dry "in an American city" talks his way into a week's trial writing for a newspaper.   Forced by circumstance to live in a rooming house, he keeps irregular hours, thereby never meeting the "old gent" on the same floor.  Although "it seemed a very quiet house," well.... The remaining stories in this section are "A Speakin' Ghost" by Annie Trumbull Slosson, "The Whispering Wall" by H.D. Everett and "No Living Voice," by Thomas Street Millington. 

from Wikipedia

The work of four very well known authors makes up section three, " 'I Jumped Awake to the Furious Ringing of My Bell' : Sonorous Objects and Haunting Technology."  Edith Wharton's "The Lady Maid Bell" is first up before  Barry Pain's very short "The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit;"  Rosa Mulholland follows  with one of my all-time favorite tales "The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly" and H.D. Everett's "Over The Wires" rounds out this part.   "The Lady Maid Bell" (1902) wins for most atmospheric, as a young woman who's come to the end of her money after a bout of typhoid takes a job  at a country house on the Hudson.  She is warned before taking the job that it is "not a cheerful place,"  with the mistress of the house alone for most of the time after losing her two children and having a husband who is rarely there. When he is there, she is told, "you've only to keep out of his way."  Although the job suits her, even as isolated as she is there, she does wonder why her employer, Mrs. Brympton, doesn't use the bell to summon her but sends a maid to fetch her instead.  Let's just say she will definitely find out why in the course of things, but not before she is witness to some rather extraordinary phenomena.  

from Litbug

And last, but by no means least, two stories bring us to the end of this volume in the final section, "Sounds and Silence: Acoustic Weird Beyond the Ghostly."  The first is a tale by Edgar Allen Poe, "Siope"  which I have to admit that I'd never read before; the book ends with  "The House of Sounds," by M,P. Shiel, which the editor refers to as "a masterpiece of the acoustic weird."  I wholeheartedly concur.   On an isolated island off the Norwegian coast, the narrator of this story has been called to the home of his friend.  The noise of the waves is not only constant, but along with the fierce howling of the gales tends to drown out other sounds so that the conversation between the two has to be conducted largely via written notes.  While I won't go into any detail here (if ever a story needed experiencing this is it)  think family curse, a strange machine, altered states of consciousness and time ticking down toward a very palpable doom.  The editor mentions its comparison to Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher," but this story goes well beyond Poe into something entirely its own.  It is truly one of those tales that once read, will never be forgotten. 

I love these spooky tales from yesteryear and I really enjoy the British Library Tales of the Weird Series, offering readers the opportunity to find authors and their works which they may not know, as well as incorporating more famous (and often anthologized) strange tales into the mix.  Not all of these stories floated my boat but the ones that did provided several hours of enjoyment, chills up the spine and often left me thinking about them well into the night.  I definitely recommend this volume as well as the complete series of books from the British Library.   And since it's October, these stories are more than perfect for Halloween, but they can be enjoyed any time of year.  I am truly in my element here, happy as a clam and wanting the show to go on long after the book is finished and the booklight goes off. 

From the Abyss: Weird Fiction, 1907-1945 by D.K. Broster (ed.) Melissa Edmundson

 

"C'est le Grand Abîme, voyez-vous -- fini!"

9781912766567

Handheld Press, 2022

296 pp

paperback

Handheld Press is back with yet another collection of eerie tales  by a woman writer from yesteryear.  From the Abyss focuses on the work of author D.K. Broster (1877-1950),  whose stories in her 1932 collection A Fire of Driftwood caught the eye of critic HC Harwood who said (as quoted in Melissa Edmundson's introduction) that 

"In Miss Broster's short stories there is ... a lot of kick. I refer more particularly to 'Clairvoyance' and 'The Promised Land;' either of which should have established the author as a really first-rate horrifier; a petticoated Poe."

Both of those stories are found in this book, and yes indeedy, there most certainly is a "lot of kick,"  so let's just start there.  As in the best weird stories, these two tales (and for that matter all of the tales included here) tend to start out in the realm of the ordinary and the mundane, but Broster inches the reader ever so slowly to  that point where ordinary takes a strange detour.  

  In "Clairvoyance"  an Australian man and his wife have moved to England, where they are in the process of house hunting.  Mr. Pickering can't believe that the house they're looking at as the story begins has remained unoccupied for five years -- it is completely furnished and chock full of beautiful antiques, complete with a lake view.  The estate agent tells the couple that there's been plenty of interest, but there was "always a something" that turned prospective buyers or tenants away.  Mr. Pickering is all for taking the place, but Mrs. Pickering senses that not all is right there, and reminds her husband of the frightened look they got from a girl when they'd asked for directions to the place, asking him if it's "supposed to be haunted."  Pickering laughs it off, at least at first, until Mrs. P notices a strange stain underneath a rug and asks about it.  Her reaction is so strong that she begs Mr. P to get her out of there, and to have nothing "to do with the house" as "something dreadful has happened in this room."   Mr. P, noting that "she was not by nature an hysterical or fanciful woman," then becomes frightened himself, and away they go.  Evidently the Pickerings had never heard of the "Strode Manor Tragedy," which all started with that "business ... what the devil is called? -- clairvoyance."   By now I've read countless haunted house stories, but this one, well, expected the completely unexpected.  "Kick"? For sure.    "The Promised Land" starts out innocuously enough with a small group of people ("specimens of the truly cultivated traveller")  admiring the famous "Swoon of Saint Catherine" in the Church of San Domenico in Siena, interrupted by the arrival of two "middle-aged ladies," one of whom chases the group away by quoting out loud from her Baedeker.  Talking about it shortly afterwards, one of the three notices that the second woman "didn't look as though she were enjoying Siena much."  Quite observant on her part, actually, because Ellen (the woman about whom she was talking), was not having a good time at all, a surprise since going to Italy, for her "The Promised Land,"  had always been her dream.  For years she'd waited, and her opportunity had finally arrived.  Unfortunately for Ellen, her dream had become a nightmare in the company of her domineering, smothering and browbeating cousin  Caroline Murchinson, who had taken  it upon herself to accompany Ellen on her travels.   For Ellen the trip to Italy 

"should have been the one shining oasis in the sand of a dull life, and instead it been but a bitter mirage"

because "Everything that Caroline touched lost its charm, its beauty, its freshness." From Siena the plan is to travel to Florence, which is "to Ellen's expectation the crown of all their seeing," but she knows instinctively that Caroline will ruin the experience.  That night, sleeping under a mosquito net, she realizes that she must have some breathing space  and listens to the mosquito that begins to talk to her all through night.  While this one has nothing of the supernatural about it, it's still one of the most powerful stories in the book, since sometimes the earthly horrors we face are far, far worse than their unearthly counterparts.   

 

the author, Dorothy Kathleen Broster

While there isn't a single story in this collection that I did not like, my favorite is the titular "From the Abyss," largely because it's so visible in my head from the first page onward and also because it is so out there, a definite plus.   Four friends come together for dinner and conversation at the flat of one Stephen Ellison, where the topic on the table is "dissociated personality."  The talk is obviously making Ellison uncomfortable, and when two of the friends leave without the third, he goes on to explain why.  It seems that some three years earlier, his fianceé Daphne Lawrence, had decided to go on vacation at the French Riviera with her friend Mary.  They had stopped in Nice, not as a destination per se but because it was central to any number of expeditions they might choose to undertake.  Daphne had told Ellison not to expect much in the way of writing from her end, as she and Mary planned to stay busy doing all manner of things, helped out by a young American guy with his own car, "which he more or less put at their disposal."   The next week he was shocked to see her face on a newspaper under headlines that told of an "English girl in fatal Riviera motor smash" in which the driver and the car had gone down into a "bottomless ravine."  Mary, it seems, had been thrown clear after the driver had collided with a motorcoach, and according to her father, was now on her way home after the accident.  Daphne gets home fine, but Stephen notices that she's changed, and not for the better.  Some time goes by with Stephen still trying to figure out what's up with Daphne (who now doesn't even want to marry him), when Daphne's father comes to visit with some strange news from a friend near Nice.  It seems that a young woman with a British accent  swears that she had gone down with the driver into the ravine, and yet had managed to climb up a nearly sheer precipice deemed "quite unscaleable." She can't remember much else due to memory loss.     About the time that Stephen decides he'll travel to France to investigate, Daphne tells him of her strange dreams in which she sees "a girl like me -- only she is not me --"  For me, this one just screams weird, and I seriously had to think about that ending for a while. 

Admittedly, those stories are on my top tier of favorites, but there are still eight more to enjoy; out of these the only one I'd read previously is "Couching at the Door"  but its inclusion here didn't dampen my enthusiasm for another read.  Three weeks after Decadent poet Augustine Marchand returns from Prague, he finds himself being stalked by what looks like at first a "piece of brown fluff" that eventually grows into something like a fur boa.  Now that might sound a bit silly, but there's nothing at all silly about what happens when Lawrence Storey, an illustrator, goes off to discover "les choses cachées" that Marchand reveals will "liberate" his "immense artistic gifts from the shackles which still bind them."  Seriously awesome story with an even more awesome ending.   And then there's "The Taste of Pomegranates" which wins my vote for most disturbing, in which two sisters vacationing in the Dordogne make a date with a French archaeologist to visit his current project, a cave by the name of the grotte de la Palombière. On the appointed day, the two women show up, along with a writer doing research in the area for his book on the Hundred Years War, but there's no sign of the archaeologist.  After a while the writer goes off to look for him, leaving the sisters behind. Rain forces them to take cover, and while they wait, one of the sisters decides she wants to explore the cave.  Absolutely not a good idea, as it happens, but of this one I will say no more.  

I seem to have joyfully landed  in my reading element here with this book, with its blending of the supernatural, the weird, obsession, history, art and social commentary but more to the point, with the discovery of an author from long ago whose work is new to me.  My many thanks to Handheld Press for my e-copy; while their website offers August 9th as the release date, I found a hard copy at Amazon which now sits with the other books I've bought from this publisher.  Some day I would love to just sit and chat with Melissa Edmundson, who somehow manages to find the best authors from bygone days, bringing them to the attention of modern readers.   From the Abyss is truly a gem of a collection that should absolutely not be missed by readers of the weird and the strange; it is also a book I can certainly and highly recommend.  

Weird Woods: Tales From the Haunted Forests of Britain (ed.) John Miller

 

9780712353427

British Library, 2020

238 pp

paperback

I've gushed many a time over the books in the British Library Tales of the Weird series over the last few years so I won't do that here -- suffice it to say that I've never been disappointed with any of these books and my current read,  Weird Woods: Tales from the Haunted Forests of Britain, is no exception.  The editor, John Miller, is also responsible for one of my favorites in the series, Tales of the Tattooed.  This time, however, he turns to 

"tales of whispering voices and maddening sights from deep in the Yorkshire Dales to the ancient hills of Gwent and the eerie quiet of the forests of Dartmoor." 

No teddy bears' picnics here; instead there are twelve tales which celebrate "the enduring power of our natural spaces to enthral and terrorise our senses."  

The names listed in the table of contents are familiar to any aficionado of strange or ghostly  tales from yesteryear, here ranging from the 1880s through the 1930s.  Aside from Arthur Machen's "N" which I will gladly read any time, two stories top my list of favorites: E.F. Benson's "The Man Who Went Too Far" and Algernon Blackwood's beyond excellent "Ancient Lights."  The first is set in the New Forest of Hampshire, where one "gets the sense that many presences and companions are near at hand."  The people of the village of St. Faith's know well enough not to "willingly venture" there after dark since

"it seems that a man is not sure in what company he may suddenly find himself..."

 Indeed, it may be the ghost of a young artist, recently deceased, haunting a "certain house, the last of the village, where he lived."  But this is not a haunted house story by any stretch; it seems that the artist, a certain Darcy, has been engaged in "the deliberate and unswerving pursuit of joy,"  but what starts out as an ode to the blissful wonders of the natural world soon takes a darker turn.    Spending years communing with nature, it is his belief that will ultimately become one with it -- and then he hears the "sound of life," aka the pipes of Pan.   At first fearful, he eventually comes around; now, as he tells his friend, there's one more step -- a  "final revelation."   Lots of covert subtext in this story, and it's truly one of the best in the book.  There is also much to discover in Blackwood's "Ancient Lights," which highlights one of the main themes in much of his work -- the insignificance of humans among the towering presence of nature.   A surveyor's clerk looks forward to a "day of high adventure" as he enters a "copse of oak and hornbeam" near Southwater, Sussex, and gets that and more as well.   The owner of that wood has decided to cut this area down for a "better view from the dining-room window," and the clerk is there ahead of the project.   The trees, though,  have other ideas.  

from A Bit About Britain

I came across three stories new to me. First, "An Old Thorn," by WH Hudson, set in the South Wiltshire Downs focuses on a tree described by the editor as "the Satanic double" of the famous Glastonbury thorn.  This particular tree has a very long memory, forgetting absolutely nothing, no matter how much time has passed.   Next is the atmospheric, very nicely told "The White Lady," by Elliott O'Donnell, represented as a true story by the narrator, who as a boy decides to hide in a tree one night to see the infamous White Lady of Rownam Avenue.  He gets much more than he bargains for.  Last but by no means the least of these, in Mary Webb's "The Name-Tree," it is said of the name tree that if it dies,"you die. If you sicken, the tree withers. If you desert it, a curse falls."  After seeing the "real, vital savage passion" young Laura has for her much-beloved cherry orchard, the site of her name tree, the new owner of Bitterne Hall laments that it's all wasted on nature.  It seems that he too has developed quite a passion, not for nature but for Laura.  He offers her a deal as a way to keep the house, the orchard and her name tree, but there will be a cost.  So very good, but oh, so harrowing at the same time. As the editor reveals, this is a story in which "patriarchal authority" is "painfully amplified among trees."  

The remainder of these stories in this volume  I've read before -- Edith Nesbit's "Man-Size in Marble," "The Striding Place," by Gertrude Atherton, "He Made a Woman --," by Marjorie Bowen, "The Tree," by Walter de la Mare, and "A Neighbour's Landmark," by M.R. James -- but no matter, since all are well worth reading again.   

As Miller notes in his introduction,

"Haunted woods are places where narrative and environment are merged, where the imagination and landscape are rooted together,"

and this theme as well as others runs through each and every story in this book.  In some cases the idea of "woods" might seem a bit stretched, but it didn't matter to me.   Just reading these tales brought back many moments I've spent in forests both day and night, remembering all of the creaks and groans of the trees, the crackle of movement by woodland creatures, and the sense of being in an unworldly place where the sky is hard to see through the canopy.  Recommended mainly to those readers who, like me, love these older creepy stories from the past, and to those readers who are fans of the British Library Tales of the Weird series in general.     Don't miss the introduction (but do save it until the end), and be sure to check out the cover art as well.

I'm now psyched for a cool day and a hike through the woods -- and for whatever I may encounter there.