Illusions of Presence: Lost Christmas Ghost Stories (ed. Johnny Mains)

 " ... an empty house is an admirable field for the operations of the imagination ..."

-- from "The Haunted Vicarage," by Emeric Hulme-Beaman

9780712355933

British Library, 2025

244 pp

hardcover

Ever since Valancourt Books put out its first book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, reading ghostly tales for the holidays has become a personal tradition.  Now, just in the nick of time—Saint or Old, your choice—for this  2025 Christmas season, I dove into the latest entry in the British Library’s Gilded Nightmares series, Illusions of Presence: Lost Christmas Ghost Stories, edited by Johnny Mains. Known for his knack for unearthing wonderfully obscure tales, Mains pulls from a wide range of old, forgotten sources here, and the result is pure reading pleasure. Rather than sticking to the familiar seasonal standbys (near and dear to my heart though they may be), this collection offers stories reprinted here for the first time, steeped in that irresistible combination of Christmas warmth and the quiet, uncanny sense of dread that I so enjoy. 

Before I get going here with my purely reader's thoughts, if you would care more for a professional review, there's one here by Tim Prasil, who also knows his way around obscure stories and ghostly tales. 

Every story in the collection comes with a short but highly-informative introduction to its author, complete with  context about where and how the tale first appeared.  This volume definitely passes my does-the-first-story-convey-the-tone-of-what's-to-come test, with "In Deadly Peril: A Strange Christmas Story of Mining Life," by John Pendleton (1853 - 1914).   From 1887, it's a fine opener -- dark, eerie, and claustrophobic all at once—offering an immediate plunge into the anthology’s unsettling atmosphere. A dramatist in search of a “strong situation” for his new play, ventures into a coal mine on Christmas Eve. He’s warned he’s chosen a “strange day” for such an expedition and told it’s “not too late to turn back.” Christmas Eve, it seems, is unlucky in this pit—but he laughs it off as mere “nonsense.” Yet as the mine’s shadows deepen and the cold seeps in, it becomes clear that some warnings are best heeded…  

From there,  we move indoors for the most part, inside of houses that have seen too much and where the past lingers in the corners but has a way of making itself known.   "The Ghost at the Red Farm" by Mabel Collins (1892)  first sends us into haunted house mode.   Young Lucy Fielding has grown up motherless at the Red Farm, sheltered from almost all human contact—especially men. So when her father suddenly asks her to prepare a room for an older male visitor, the request unsettles her in a way she can’t quite name. Her unease deepens as the guest stays longer than expected, and she notices the subtle shift in her father—his usual good nature replaced by a “manifestly uneasy” tension.  Despite the unease, Lucy finds herself drawn to him, caught in a mix of fear and “awestruck admiration.” Then comes the chilling proposal: he asks her to marry him. But her father’s warning, spoken on his deathbed, hangs over the tale like a dark shadow, and to quote something I recently heard on British TV, Bloody Norah!    The ending of this story is evidently unending, when all is said and done.  Just plain creepy this one,  as is “The Haunted Vicarage” (1903) by Emeric Hulme-Beaman (1864–1937).  The vicar at Walford  invites his old friend Marsden to visit his home. When the conversation turns to the house being less than ideal for a bride—despite its “recommendations for domestic comfort”—Marsden is initially taken aback.  That was, of course, before he witnessed firsthand (and not forewarned!) the eerie happenings that have troubled the vicar since his arrival.  

from Love to Know

Further hauntings plague the inhabitants of various houses in "Nights of Terror" (1913) by E.J. Thomas, "The Ghost of Moor Hall" (1925) by M.E. Murray and then there's "The Malignant Thing: A Christmas Eve Ghost Story" (1928) by Vincent Cornier which begins with three men sitting by a blazing fire discussing the "pet spook" that lives in the host's (Summerson's) house.   One of the men, Petersham, declares that he only requires “one proof” of the house being haunted, promising a donation to a charity of the host’s choice if it can be shown. Meanwhile, the third, a professor, pleads—“for the sake of two souls”—that their host refuse the offer altogether. It seems that whatever has been lingering unseen yet present in the house has caused an entire wing to be closed, and that this "malignant thing ... a thing of Hell, a demon, a spectre, a shadow..." has been terrorizing people for well over two hundred years.  But a bet is a bet.  Then it's the eerie“The Spectre Bridegroom” by Mrs. Gordon Smythies (1884), followed by Bessie May Tobin-Montague’s “A Christmas Ghost Story” (1901), set during a Christmas hunting party at an inherited country house complete with gargoyles and a bordering Black Swamp. Everything begins pleasantly enough—fires lit, guests assembled—until the hostess starts seeing and feeling things no one else can. Naturally, whispers follow, and both her guests and her husband begin to wonder whether the problem lies with the house…or with her mind. I found this one especially well done, its slightly off-kilter events setting it a bit apart from the rest of the collection.  Even darker is “The Lady of the Mistletoe: A Christmas Ghost Story” by Mary Hall (1902), told from the retrospective point of view of Tom Derston as he recalls a fateful Christmas house party hosted by himself and his wife, Ellice. Their country home—Derston Hall—once belonged to an elderly relative whose presence still seems to cling to the place. One thing missing from the holiday decorations is mistletoe, which (and I won't divulge why) they were told was a good thing.  Unfortunately, an invited guest is unable to attend and instead sends along “a mass” of the stuff. That gift is the beginning of a strange unraveling.   Rich in atmosphere, heavy with supernatural menace, and just a little unhinged, this tale was so much fun to read.  May Wynne's "The Ghost of Cheldon Court:  A Christmas Ghost Story," from 1924, starts two days before Christmas, and gambling man Jack's wife Mollie makes him swear that he'll be back to spend time with her and their children on Christmas Eve.   Jack has resolved to leave by eleven that night, but best laid plans and all that.  While he and the men he is with are trying to figure out something fun to do, one of them comes up with the idea of spending a night at Cheldon Court.   As one of Jack's cronies says, he'll "lay a thousand to eight against any man spending the night tonight in that haunted room."  Despite the horrific things he's told about people who've done it before, Jack decides he'll take the bet.  

from PropertyAuctions

Leaving the haunted houses behind, we have five more tales that move outside home and hearth.   "The Child Who Had Everything But: A Christmas Ghost Story" by John Kendrick Bangs (1911) is a very different sort of ghostly tale, very likely the most poignant of this anthology, "The Ghost of Appledore Pool or The Iron Chest at the Barnstaple Bar," by JYT (1893) is a fine yarn that begins with two siblings asking their grandmother to tell them a story -- "a real good one, a thorough Christmas story..." Evidently, grandma is a terrific storyteller, because one of the children hasn't been able to forget last's year's ghostly tale.  They ask for a "real true one," as well as a ghost story, so she obliges with a tale unsettling enough to satisfy them as well as anyone reading this little piece.  Storms, shipwrecks, a lighthouse and of course, ghosts -- who needs any more than that?  "That Terrible Dentist" (1880)  by an anonymous writer is downright demonic in its own way (hint hint), and while offsetting that experience, more than a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor finds its way into "Claus and Defect by William J. Koen (1927).   

Bringing the anthology to a chilling close is “The Shadows of Evil or The Fatal Dream,” another anonymously published tale from 1871—and easily one of my absolute favorites here. Once again, a grandmother is pressed into service at Christmas to provide a ghostly diversion, and the story she chooses is one that held a “great fascination” for her when she was a girl. It comes from a diary written by her father’s aunt, who, in turn, heard it from one of the very people involved. Certain it won’t “trouble the heads” of her grandchildren, she reads it to them, but it turns out to be one of the most disturbing pieces in the entire book, troubling my own head for a while.   I can’t help wishing I knew the identity of this anonymous author; I’d hunt down everything they ever wrote without hesitation. This story is truly that good.

While not everyone will love every story, for me the editor's selection of stories for this Christmas ghost-story volume is spot on, and I can only begin to imagine the time and care that went into tracking them down.  While they are perfectly suited to the season, they are also first-rate ghost stories that would feel entirely at home in any anthology of ghostly tales from yesteryear.  So, if you didn't manage to read this one over the holidays, don't fret-- these stories will rattle your nerves and raise your hackles at any time of year.  Very, very highly recommended, especially for those readers who delight in older, darker pleasures.

I loved this book. Absolutely. 

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. 

 

Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny (ed.) Fiona Snailham

 

"The past seems so close here..."

9780712354134

British Library, 2023

279 pp

paperback

I have a serious addiction to the British Library Tales of the Weird series, so much so that I tend to preorder the books often months ahead of  their scheduled release.  I actually just got one in yesterday's mail, The Uncanny Gastronomic (ed. Zara-Louise Stubbs),  which I will likely set aside to read in October when I do a month of spooky reads.   The other book I'm looking forward to landing at my doorstep soon  is The Lure of Atlantis (ed. Michael Wheatley) which sounds like good, pulpy fun and which will likely also be saved for October.   December brings Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rituals (ed.) Kathryn Soar. As long as the British Library continues to publish these books, I will continue to buy them. * 

Today's post  is about Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny, edited by Fiona Snailham, which I finished a couple of weeks ago or so.  The title alone should offer enough of a clue about what you're about to read, but to clarify, the editor spells it out in her introduction, saying that this book

"presents a collection of stories published between 1851 and 1935. The tales offer accounts of holy places filled with horror and believers tormented by terrifying ghosts."  

 The introduction, course, reveals other considerations and various themes to take into account while reading these stories, but I will leave these for prospective readers to discover.  

I've had the pleasure to have previously read six of the eleven tales presented in this book.  Even before opening this anthology and perusing the contents, I just knew M.R. James would be among the authors and I was correct.  The James selection was "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral," a perfect pick for this volume, and a story that never fails to chill me to my bones.  By the way, back in 1971, this story was dramatized as "The Stalls of Barchester,"  the first of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas annual series, and, of course, I had to watch it again. Cue serious spine hackles.  I have it on dvd, but it is available on youtube as well.    "The Poor Clare" by Elizabeth Gaskell and E. Nesbit's "Man-Size in Marble" are also found among the previous-reads.  Nesbit's story has been anthologized so often that although I love it, it's just a bit on the disappointing side to see it here yet again, while "The Poor Clare" runs to novella length at 70 pages,  sort of interrupting the flow of the book as a whole.  Rounding out the remaining three are Le Fanu's "The Sexton's Adventure," an awesome little tale which is one of his Chapelizod stories, "The Face of the Monk," by Robert Hichens [sidebar:  I read this story first in The Zinzolin Book of Occult Fiction (Snuggly Books, 2022;  ed. Brendan Connell) and I really need to read it again] and "The Duchess at Prayer" by Edith Wharton, which is quite good but sadly, I saw the ending of this one coming. 

the Barchester Stall cat carving, from Cathode Ray Tube

From  Mrs. Henry Wood comes my first unread story, "The Parson's Oath" (1855), a tale that involves two young people in the village of Littleford.  Vicar  John Lewis and school teacher  Regina Winter discover they have feelings for each other.  The problem is a certain Brassy Brown, who has designs on Regina and has "sworn" to marry her, and will keep his promise "by fair means or foul."   She wants nothing to do with him and just knows that "he will kill me, some of these days," and jokingly makes the vicar swear an oath to give her a "Christian burial" if that should happen. The vicar believes it's a joke, at least at first ...  I knew where this was headed as well,  and the same happened with "A Story Told in a Church," by Ada Buisson.  This story was first published in 1867 in Mary E. Braddon's  Belgravia Annual for Christmas, and would be a good choice for modern anthologies of Victorian Christmas Stories.   It's Christmas Eve and it seems that a governess, Miss Montem,  and a few young girls in her care have been the victim of "dreadful boys" who have locked them inside of a church while they'd been "decking" the place "with holly-wreaths and shining laurel."  Night is on its way, and while rescue is certainly at hand, Miss Montem is "deadly pale" and  ill at ease.  When prompted to tell a story, she takes the girls back ten years to when she and her fellow schoolgirls were "obliged" to remain at school over Christmas.  The schoolmistress, not wishing for anyone to feel disappointed, arranges a small party with a few local village families.   Miss Montem remembers that that  Christmas Eve began "joyously," and she'd "never since" laughed "with such freehearted joy."  The night takes a very dark turn, however, with the arrival of the fiancé of one of two cousins, who decides to invite himself to the party and proceeds to be less attentive to his betrothed than to her cousin.   "In the Confessional," by Amelia B. Edwards (1871) is a much stronger story, which begins as a man who prefers to amble in less tourist-oriented places finds himself in Rheinfelden, an "old walled town" where the inhabitants are preparing for a fair.  Trying to find an inn, he comes to a "little solitary church" where he stops for a while.  It is near the altar that he sees a plaque commemorating a certain priest by the name of Chessez and finds himself captivated by its final line --  "He lived a saint; he died a martyr."   On the way out of the church, he decides to take a look at the confessional, opening the door.  To his surprise he encounters a priest within with "fixed attitude and stony face," with "terrible" glaring eyes, saying absolutely nothing.  The encounter disturbs our narrator to the point where he decides he must discover something of this man's life.  What he finds is murder, madness and of course, a ghost. 

from Wikipedia

Rounding out the final two, sadly I actually didn't care for "An Evicted Spirit" by Marguerite Merington, but choosing to save John Wyndham's (yes, that John Wyndham) "The Cathedral Crypt" to finish off Holy Ghosts was brilliant;  at only seven-and-a-half pages, it packs a powerful punch that really highlights the notion that (as expressed in the introduction) "holy settings" are not always places of sanctuary.  Married for only three weeks, Clarissa and Raymond are in Spain and come upon a medieval cathedral.  Clarissa finds it frightening, unlike Raymond, who wants to go inside and take a look around.  Putting aside her fears, she accompanies her husband inside but still has "an overwhelming desire to get back to the familiarities of noises and people."  Unfortunately, by the time it's time to leave, they find themselves stuck inside with no way out. That is all I'll say, except for this: Clarissa is sadly on the money when she notes that "the past seems so close here ... Somehow it hasn't been allowed to fade into dead history."

I love the concept behind this book, as well as the majority of the editor's choices for inclusion.  There is something here for everyone in the range of uncanny tales presented, including the weird, the strange and the ghostly.  Do not miss the introduction; I didn't go into it as much in this post as I would have liked to for time reasons, but really, it's best discovered on one's own.  The first story definitely whets the appetite for more and sets the tone of what's coming next, and the book as a whole was certainly most difficult to put down.   I've sung the praises of this series so often that all I have left to say is that this volume is a no-miss, especially for regular fans of these books published by the British Library and for  aficionados of older ghost stories.  It's an anthology I can most certainly and without hesitation highly recommend.  

**********

*If you're in the US and you want paper copies of these books but don't want to wait for them to be published here, Blackwell's is a good place to pick them up.  Like the now defunct  😢 Book Depository, shipping to the US is free.  

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. 

The Horned God: Weird Tales of the Great God Pan (ed.) Michael Wheatley

 

9780712354967

British Library, 2022

312 pp

paperback

Some time ago I read Paul Robichaud's nonfiction work called Pan: The Great God's Modern Return and at the time I noted that someone would really be doing a favor for readers like me if they'd collect and compile every known story written about the great god Pan and then publish them in book form.  Well, it's like someone heard my plea; although there are only seventeen "Pan-centric" stories/poems in this book, it's a great start.  The best news is that outside of Machen's original Pan story included here (which is frankly one of the creepiest tales ever), I hadn't come across any of the others except for E.M. Forster's excellent "The Story of a Panic" which more than epitomizes the theme that so clearly runs throughout the book.  As the editor notes in his introduction, the stories in this book focus "on the representation of Pan during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century," ranging from 1860 to 1949.  Wheatley's selections include not only the "sinister Pan," but cover interpretations from the Plutarchian, the Renaissance, and the Romantic.  And as Pan serves as the "guardian of the natural world," these stories, again quoting the editor, "suggest a way to return to a primeval state of being, as embodied by Pan and his wilds."  

After  the book's opener,  Oscar Wilde's  "Pan: A Double Villanelle,"   in which Wilde beseeches the goat-footed god to "leave the hills of Arcady" because England in his grey, contemporary world "has need of thee,"   this anthology starts storywise with Machen's superb novella "The Great God Pan,"  a true masterwork which I never tire of reading.   The first story new to me here is George Egerton's "Pan" (1897) set in the Basque country.  Young Tienette  has been troubled ever since a wedding held at Easter time when she heard a fiddler play for the first time. His music, it seems, "must have held witchery in its cadence," and "her senses had quivered and tickled strangely" playing "upon the lute strings of her soul all through the months."   She felt that it had 

"a strange call in it, like a fervid love-whisper in the dusk, and a power like the grip of a master-hand forcing one's head back to find one's mouth. It held man's need of woman, and woman's yearning for man, the primal first causes of humanity; and it had struck upon the most sensory fibres of her being ..." 

Unfortunately, the feelings conjured up by the strange music weakens her resistance to a brutish suitor, with tragic results.  Barry Pain's solidly creepy "Moon-Slave" (1901) centers around  a young, newly-betrothed princess who doesn't feel alive unless she is dancing.  Wandering around, she discovers the entrance to a maze, and heads right to its center where the moon is shining brightly and she calls for music so that she can dance; she is mysteriously obliged.   One night, when the moon "called her," she grabs her dancing shoes and heads to her new secret dancing space, where suddenly a shadow passes over the moon during an eclipse; much to her detriment, she "heeded it not."  Her solo dancing is interrupted when suddenly she realizes she is no longer alone.  The last sentence in this story gave me a case of the serious shivers.   Another really, REALLY good one is Saki's "The Music on the Hill" (1911), in which a young woman who is determined to get her way with her new husband Mortimer convinces him that they should leave town life behind and live at his country house.  The land there has a wildness to it, so much so that Sylvia remarks that "one could almost think that in such a place of worship of Pan had never quite died out."  Mortimer tells her that it hasn't died out at all, and that he is not "such a fool as not to believe in Pan when I'm down here," and cautions her not to disbelieve "too boastfully" while she's in "his country."   Oh, Sylvia... if you had only listened...

from Internet Archive

The stories just get better from there, especially the gothic "The Devil's Martyr" (1928) which is just downright weird (a good thing) which is more than likely why it appeared in Weird Tales.  Its author is Signe Toksvig, who is the great aunt of Sandi Toksvig, the host of one of my favorite British quiz shows, QI.  That is neither here nor there, of course, but worth mentioning just as matter of personal interest.   The young Erik, Count of Visby, was made a ward of the Bishop upon his parents' death and taken in by an order of monks, where Father Sebastian (who is really into self-flagellation) has been preparing him for the novitiate.  His plans are upset when a stranger by the name of Michael of Lynas comes along, having gained permission from the bishop to take Erik away to his castle for a month.  Erik is more than ready to go, while Father Sebastian views Lynas as "Prince of the Air, robed in the red of eternal fire," about to carry off a soul with whom he'd been entrusted.  It doesn't take long until Lynas begins initiating the young Count into the worship of a deity immortalized as the statue of a "tall, young, beautiful, smiling god with his head turned and his chin tilted a little, as if he were following the echoes of the air he had been playing on the reed flute in his right hand," complete with horns.  In the introduction, the editor notes that here, Pan has been aligned with "his satanic sibling, Baphomet." One can only imagine what the good monks will have to say about young Erik's new calling.  

You can find the remainder of the stories listed here; and while in the US for some reason the publication date shows March of 2023,  you can purchase a Kindle copy now.   I originally did that, but before I had time to start reading, I found my paper copy at Book Depository, available now.  As always, I offer major praise for the British Library Tales of the Weird series as a whole, and praise for this volume, which more than satisfies my strange addiction to tales of the goat-footed god.   Do not miss Michael Wheatley's introduction, which is excellent and provides a lot of insight into what you are about to read.  

Very highly recommended.  

The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, Volume 2 (eds.) James D. Jenkins and Ryan Cagle

 

9781954321069

Valancourt, 2022

336 pp

hardcover, #19

(read in April)

There is a review of this book by Sean Guynes in the  March 2022 issue of World Literature Today  where he writes that this 

"... anticipated second volume is the after-party everyone wanted and more ..." 

 I'm including myself in that "everyone" because I hadn't even finished Volume One before hoping that Valancourt would do a second book, just like now I'm hoping that they will do a third. If that's not a recommendation, well, I don't know what is.  

 

 

When the stories are as good as they are here, it's just plain difficult to single out a favorite, or even a group of favorites, but I'll try.  Bora Chung's story "The Mask," a dark tale of obsession, addiction and the undoing of a man and his family and translated by Anton Hur (who also translated her fantastic  Cursed Bunny) is in my top two, along with "The War" written by Wochiech Gunia from Poland.  "The Mask" begins "with a noise" that seems to be coming from the ceiling of a couple's apartment, but above them is only the roof.  On inspection though, the roof's steel door is not only locked but has a chain wrapped around its handles.  The husband eventually gets up there with help from a boy he thinks has been sent by maintenance,  and just before going back down sees a woman just standing there five stories up.  She comes to him, and just as he reaches out his hand to her, she's no longer there.  The roof noises stop but the wife later notices a dark stain that "had spread widely" on the wall in the master bedroom, accompanied by another noise that eventually she just tunes out.  Her husband, who works nights and sleeps days, also encounters the stain -- and his life and that of his family will never be the same.   "The War," translated by Anthony Scicsione is truly a masterpiece and I do not use that word lightly.  This one I won't discuss here because it's one that absolutely needs to be experienced, but after reading in the editors'  introduction to this tale that two of the author's "major literary influences" were Kafka and Ligotti, let's just say I was not at all surprised.   I read this one twice, and it doesn't get any easier the second time.  Another one that particularly stood out for me was Yasumi Tsuhara's "The Old Wound and the Sun," translated by Toshiya Kamei, which has more than just a touch of the surreal about it, concerning "a couple who died at the same time."  A woman falls hard for a "twenty-something kid" from Ishigakijima, and rents a vacation house on the island where the two meet on weekends.  Once things start rolling in the relationship, she finds not only that he's not all she thought he would be but also that he is haunted by the past.  It seems he'd been in a fight at some point, leaving him with an old wound "from his navel across his abdomen to his side under his ribs."  One night she wakes up to discover that even though there are no lights on, the room is "dimly lit;" on further discovery she realizes that the light is coming from his now-open wound.  What follows is, as the narrator of this tale reveals,  "bizarre, otherworldly and disturbing."  The less said the better on this one.   James D. Jenkins himself translated "Lucky Night," by Gary Victor from Haiti,  which comes from a collection called Treize nouvelles vaudou  (Thirteen Voodoo Tales, 2007), which is at this moment on a shelf in my house just waiting to be read.  I can guarantee it won't be a long wait after having read this story.   "Lucky Night" is the story of Kerou,  who has climbed "the ladder from the lowly post of assistant mayor in a remote Haitian village," making his way into the Chamber of Deputies and now running for a seat in the senate.  Throughout his political career, he has relied on the help of a certain Ti Pat, a "sorcerer" who tells him now that there is only one way to get the attention of "the forces" that would help him get there "without a fight."   He must look for "a beggar in the vicinity of a cemetery on the night of a dark moon," and from there he has to "sleep with the beggar" or else his career is over.  That is not an option for our senate hopeful who knows that once in office, his votes traded for cash would allow him and his family to "be free from want in this fucking country that he couldn't care less about." 

  In their introduction, the authors note that 

"American horror writers have been using Haitian themes in their work for decades, from curses to voodoo dolls to zombies.   But what would a voodoo-themed story look like if written by a Haitian author?"

Well, hats off to Gary Victor for letting us see firsthand.    Rounding out my top five is  writer Brazilian author Roberto Causo's "Train of Consequences"  another story translated by James D. Jenkins.  Sergio Lopes is journeying by train on the proverbial dark and stormy night, when he notices something weird.  Although he thought he was in the last car, looking out the window he sees another behind him, and makes his way there to check it out.  In a seat on the back wall he sees a man "who looked like a high-contrast drawing done in black and red" and that the car is filled with people smoking, "producing strongly scented crimson clouds.  That's not the strangest thing -- it seems that the man and the passengers in that car know not only who he is, but also that he'd been part of a crackdown on guerillas in Araguaia during the period of Brazil's military dictatorship that he'd been involved in torture and "summary executions" and more.  As he's told, they know "everything" about him, including the fact that Lopes is plagued by memories that he "can't get rid of."  Expecting that "someone connected with his victims" would catch up with him some day, he's sure that blackmail looms, but he's assured that it's not blackmail but rather "more like a business deal" he's being offered -- a Faustian sort of exchange that will allow him to forget.   The question is, what is his end of the deal to be?  As the editors state, this is a story that is "as timely as ever," given Brazil's political situation.  

 The remainder of stories included here are also very well done, and my vote for most disturbing goes to two stories which were dark, gut-stabbing ohmygod tales. Don't get me wrong: the writing was great, but these two tales went well beyond my horror-reading comfort zone. These two, "The Bell" by Steinar Bragi from Iceland and  "The Nature of Love" by Luciano Lamberti from Argentina,  were the reading equivalent of putting my hands over my eyes during a truly discomforting horror film scene.  These  you can read without any hint from me -- first, you wouldn't believe me anyway, and second, I don't think I have the stomach to go back and reread either one.  

With something for every horror reader, because after all, mileage does vary,  Volume 2 showcases the work of twenty-one authors from twenty countries (Brazil is represented twice) which, according to the Editors' Foreword, were originally published in sixteen different languages.   And M.S. Corley's illustrations are gorgeous, capturing in drawings some of the horrors found in this book.   As much as I loved reading this anthology and its predecessor, in the bigger picture, the best thing  is that these two volumes of horror fiction in translation even exist.  I am a huge, huge  advocate of works in translation, especially in the horror/weird genres which, unlike the books that make their way each year onto longlists for awards honoring translated literary fiction,  seem to be extremely underrepresented.  I would like to think things are slowly changing in this arena:  last year I was over the moon happy when Tartarus published Nicola Lombardi's excellent The Gypsy Spiders and Other Tales, then came Bora Chung's positively mind-blowing Cursed Bunny published by Honford Star, which ended up on not only the longlist for this year's International Booker Prize, but the shortlist as well.   So once again my grateful thanks to Valancourt for both volumes of World Horror Stories.  Anyone who has read Volume 1 will definitely want to make this after-party; as I said on my initial reaction at goodreads, Valancourt has once again knocked it out of the park.   

 Very highly recommended -- and I will be among the first to order Volume 3. Hint hint. 

ps/ Valancourt's international works can be found at their website here.