Fifty-One Tales

Lord Dunsany
Serenity Publishers

I've never really properly dug into Dunsany's writing before beyond an anthology short or two but this collection called to me (despite it's hideous cover art) and proved to be something entirely wonderful.

The title sums up the book concisely and almost perfectly except it could potentially have utilised the word 'Tiny' as most of these tales are very short indeed - between half a page and three pages each. Most are written as a morality fable of sorts, often with an environmental theme, and read as a block they get to feel a little preachy but spaced out, a couple at a time, they proved to be miniature imaginative marvels with some absolute gems amongst them like, 'The Tomb of Pan' and 'The Prayer of the Flowers' that made for a perfect introduction to the worlds of Dunsany's imagnation.

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Short Story: The Tomb of Pan

"Seeing," they said, "that old-time Pan is dead, let us now make a tomb for him and a monument, that the dreadful worship of long ago may be remembered and avoided by all."

So said the people of the enlightened lands. And they built a white and mighty tomb of marble. Slowly it rose under the hands of the builders and longer every evening after sunset it gleamed with rays of the departed sun.

And many mourned for Pan while the builders built; many reviled him. Some called the builders to cease and to weep for Pan and others called them to leave no memorial at all of so infamous a god. But the builders built on steadily.

And one day all was finished, and the tomb stood there like a steep sea-cliff. And Pan was carved thereon with humbled head and the feet of angels pressed upon his neck. And when the tomb was finished the sun had already set, but the afterglow was rosy on the huge bulk of Pan.

And presently all the enlightened people came, and saw the tomb and remembered Pan who was dead, and all deplored him and his wicked age. But a few wept apart because of the death of Pan.

But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed.

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Lord Dunsany 
from 'Fifty-One Tales', 1915

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The Pledge

Based on 'The Highwaymen' by Lord Dunsany, 'The Pledge' is the story of an agreement by the three compatriots of a hanged highwayman to ensure him a place in heaven by burying him in consecrated ground.

Made in 1981 by director Digby Russell who had and would adapt a number of tales from the classic era of supernatural fiction, two others by Dunsany along with stories by Ernest Bramah and Robert Louis Stevenson.  It's a tiny little tale with little substance to it but it's beautifully made with echoes of the 'Witchfinder General' in it's setting and in it's focus on superstition and inhumanity over the supernatural.  Russell is obviously very proud of his corpse and gibbet and shows it repeately usually to the sounds of Michael Nyman's occasionally melodramatic score but his setting, his cast and his willingness to play with the narrative at the beginning make for an interesting macabre curio. 

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Short Story: The Prayer of the Flowers

It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going Greecewards.

"The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the land.

"The cancrous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their lairs continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night.

"The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou art far, O Pan, and far away."

I was standing by night between two railway embankments on the edge of a Midland city. On one of them I saw the trains go by, once in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by twice in every five.

Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them wore the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever.

The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beating musically up wind, the voice of Pan reproving them from Arcady—

"Be patient a little, these things are not for long."
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Lord Dunsany 
from 'Fifty-One Tales', 1915

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The 2nd Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories

Robert Aickman
Fontana Books

Robert Aickman "Introduction"
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Playing With Fire"
Edith Nesbit "Man-Size in Marble"
Robert Hichens "How Love Came to Professor Guildea"
Elizabeth Bowen "The Demon Lover"
Sir Max Beerbohm "A. V. Laider"
Edgar Allan Poe "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"
Lord Dunsany "Our Distant Cousins"
Robert Aickman "The Inner Room"
Perceval Landon "Thurnley Abbey"
John Metcalfe "Nightmare Jack"
Ambrose Bierce "The Damned Thing"
Edith Wharton "Afterward"

It's been a while since I stuck my head into one of these Fontana anthologies but tonight I had the craving.

Aickman has put together an admirable collection with only 3 of the 12 stories being of the 'Oh, it's that one again' variety; E. Nesbit's 'Man Size in Marble', Elizabeth Bowen's 'The Demon Lover' and Edith Wharton's 'Afterward'. All great tales and all solid choices but one's I've become very accustomed to skipping past.

Lord Dunsany

A few of the stories here proved to be an absolute delight; Conan Doyle's 'Playing With Fire' with it's cautionary tale of reaching beyond ones abilities, Robert Hichens' superbly crafted 'How Love Came To Professor Guildea' and Aickman's own supremely creepy 'The Inner Room' are all deliciously bewitching,

A few others, such as Lord Dunsany's 'Our Distant Cousins', with it's odd little scfi-fi tale very much in the spirit of both Wells' 'Time Machine' and C.S. Lewis' 'Out of the Silent Planet', and Poe's 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar' provided an enjoyable distraction. Whilst others like Sir Max Beerbohm's 'A.V. Laider', Perceval Landon's ghostly 'Thurnley Abbey', John Metcalfe's almost Sherlockian 'Nightmare Jack' and Ambrose Bierce's 'The Damned Thing' filled both time and pages without too much complaint or distraction.

As with the other volume - I have them all here but am eking them out - Aickman proves himself the consummate anthologist. Each story, even the ones I didn't overly enjoy felt as though they belonged, as though they were at home in the collection and it proved for the most part to be a hugely enjoyable read.

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Great Ghost Stories

Readers Digest

A volume which brings together 46 of the very best ghost stories ever written and includes classic works from masters of intrigue like M. R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Nesbit and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

Readers Digest is one of those things that exists around you without ever really making any noticeable impact on your life.  I see their books occasionally and I remember a Simpsons episode where Homer got hooked on one but apart from that they're just one of those companies that exist somewhere doing something for someone who isn't me.  So, it was a bit of a shock when I stumbled upon this fantastic tome of an anthology.

Elizabeth Jane Howard

Handily presented in alphabetical order the book provides us with a veritable who's who of ghostly fiction with stories from the likes of Robert Aickman, Algernon Blackwood, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, both the James' (M.R. & Henry), Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker most of whom can be pretty much expected to make an appearance alongside less common compatriots such as Lord Dunsany here represented by the lovely 'Autumn Cricket', Cynthia Asquith's tale of redemption in 'The Corner Shop', Walter de la Mare's 'Seaton's Aunt' and the Chinese whispers of Emile Zola's 'Angeline, or the Haunted House'.

There's also a fine selection of stories by writers I was utterly unfamiliar with like Shamus Frazer whose 'Florinda' is a wonderfully macabre tale of an angry and vengeful spirit, Elizabeth Jane Howard who tells in 'Three Miles Up' an intriguing tale of friendship, enigmatic strangers and the perils of journeying into the unknown or Marghanita Laski whose short but terrifying 'The Tower' is a real highlight in a book filled with creepy delights.

Marghanita Laski

This is a book that offers a veritable cornucopia of goodies and achieves an easy balance between the old, the new, the classic and the unknown.  It doesn't let itself get too hidebound by the word 'Ghosts' in the title and includes stories - like 'The Tower', 'Three Miles Up' or 'Ringing the Changes'- that are far from typical of the genre yet are intrinsically part of it's very fabric.

Opening the book and seeing the huge number of authors I knew I was going to enjoy working my way through it.  Just how much I enjoyed it though was a real treat to discover.

Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery

Various authors
Puffin Books

"Good evening, and welcome to Alfred Hitchock's Ghostly Gallery..." So begins the introduction to this marvellous book for young readers presented by none other than the master of the macabre himself, Alfred Hitchcock. Following his invitation to "browse through my gallery", readers will find ghoulish ghost stories "designed to frighten and instruct" -- instruct, that is, about the strange existence ghosts must endure! Stories include Miss Emmeline Takes Off by Walter Brooks; The Valley of the Beasts by Algernon Blackwood; The Haunted Trailer by Robert Arthur; The Truth About Pyecraft by H.G. Wells; The Isle of Voices by Robert Louis Stevenson; and more. Parents and kids can't help but chuckle at Hitchcock's comment, "I don't want to appear disloyal to television, but I think reading will be good for you."

Bit of a classic this one.  It's one of those books that loads of folks seem to have owned back in their youth.  I didn't, I wasn't a horror book reader as a kid, films yes, books no.  I was all about the sci-fi books and it's only in the last few years that I've got into exploring these old horror folks which is one of the things that make these 1970s Puffin (and the like) reprints such a draw - the other reason is I'm a sucker for the wonderfully lurid cover art.

A.M. Burrage

So, as you'd probably expect from a book with that title this one is heavy on the big names but also has a pleasing selection of stories that aren't common fodder in anthologies.

After a short and silly introduction by the man with his name on the top the book opens properly with a story I've seen pop up in a few places, A.M. Burrage's 'The Waxwork' where a reporter endeavours to spend the night in a house of horrors.  It's a pretty nondescript little thing that feels old fashioned and a bit weak in it's ending.  This is followed by the first of several humorous stories that are littered throughout the book, 'Miss Emmeline Takes Off' by Walter Brooks (the creator of the 'Mister Ed' stories).  A tale of witchcraft, friendship, social climbing and money.  It's entertaining enough in it's way but not something I have any particularly desire to read a second time.

Algernon Blackwood

The ubiquitous Algernon Blackwood tale follows and it's one of his American adventure stories, 'The Valley of the Beasts', where a belligerent, arrogant and wasteful Englishman meets native American spirituality and both loses and wins which is a fate that also befalls the hapless lead in Robert Arthur's, 'The Haunted Trailer'.  Arthur actually provides three stories to the book which is no surprise as he was the actual compiler of the contents with Hitchcock's name added purely as a selling point.  His other two stories, 'The Wonderful Day' and 'Obstinate Uncle Otis' are both as whimsical and readable as the first but all three come across as very disposable and a little like a comedy back-up tale from an old 'Vault of Horror' comic or some such.

Lord Dunsany

F. Marion Crawford is another of those authors that turns up regularly in these things as does this particular story, 'The Upper Berth' as a ship-board traveller is disturbed by a ghostly presence on an Atlantic crossing.  Following this there's a run of humorous stories topped and tailed by the two Robert Arthur stories I mentioned earlier.  H.G. Wells', 'The Truth About Pyecraft', is a pretty dreadful little tale about one unpleasant little man and one unpleasant bigger one.  Henry Kuttner tells of a mysterious bird cage in 'Housing Problem' and, of most interest to this reader, a chance to finally read something by Lord Dunsany in the form of 'In a Dim Room' an amusing little tale about a tiger.

Closing the book is one of Robert Louis Stevenson's south sea islands stories of greed, magic and cannibalism on 'The Isle of Voices'.  These sort of stories aren't of great appeal to me as my anthropology degree starts yelling in my head and it all gets a little uncomfortable but the story itself is obviously written with a fondness for both people and place.

This is very much a book for those with a marked fondness for amusing, lighter stories or simply a need for an occasional smile.  For me it was a reasonably entertaining way to pass an afternoon.