One of my latest fads is a series from an English publisher, Wordsworth Editions. The series is "Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural. "
Can't you just hear the sinister laughter going "Bhahahabwaaahaaa!" in the background.
I found this paperback series on Amazon. I spend a lot of time surfing Amazon, for various reasons.
I've been a ghost story fan since college. This year I have re-read most of my ghost story collections by October.
So finding "new" writers who were Victorian or Edwardian or early 20th Century ghost story writers was tremendous. I sorted out the wish list. I didn't want to buy books with stories I could find elsewhere. I bought a few at a time. They are GREAT! Not every single one, but considering the state of books nowadays, I'm grateful.
Wordsworth Editions is sort of like Dover used to be--a company that publishes books that have fallen out of copyright. Wordsworth doesn't sell a lot of books in the US. I'm not sure if this series of books is meant to be sold in the US.
Judging by the Amazon release dates, the series started a few years ago. Several of the books are out of print or not in stock at Amazon. I went to the publisher's web-site. Not a lot available there. Some that Amazon doesn't seem to have. ?
I sometimes like a challenge. Finding old books is easier now with the variety of stores on the web. Back in the old days you had to just go into bookstores and browse and go back and browse and go back and browse. During which you often received quite an education.
There are books that are still nearly unobtainable. Try finding some Bulwer-Lytton novels anymore.
I'm not used to "new" books that are so hard to find.
The best "Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural" entries I've read so far is "The House by the Churchyard" (1863) by J. S. LeFanu. He was an Irish writer roughly contemporary with Dickens. LeFanu wrote the classic mystery/suspense novel, "Uncle Silas." He also wrote "Wylder's Hand," which I have in an old Dover edition. His ghost stories were collected in a Dover edition that I also have.
Dover . . . ??*)&%#
Why doesn't Dover do what it used to do?
Re-issue old books in Permanent bindings and covers. Now they print what they call "Thrift Editions" OF EVERYTHING.
OK--cheap is good, but sometimes you are getting ripped off when the publisher spent nothing on the book and didn't have an introduction written. Penguin and Oxford Editions try to "add" something to the old novels they publish--to help you "get" it. Sometimes you don't need to have them explain to you that the Thames is a river, but then again, it doesn't hurt.
So Dover has gone to dark side.
I get it. New owners. Competition from the internet. Competition from Print on Demand. Competition from itty bitty publishers.
So I bless Wordsworth Editions for sticking to the course SO FAR.
To get back to "House by the Churchyard" by J. S. LeFanu. It is published as a "horror" novel when they include it in this series.
By the way, Wordsworth found really creepy cover art for these books, dripping blood and embossed black skulls and paintings of cemeteries. It's delightful!
" The House by the Churchyard" has a chapter that is often published in anthologies as a "ghost story" but mostly it's a rollicking little satire set in a small Irish town back in Napoleonic Wars era. There is a villain and the second half deals with him. However, if you can read Dickensian English---it's funny.
Some of these TofM&S titles are genuinely scary. A lot are interesting. I was reading Marjorie Bowen's collection, entitled "The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories" this week. The cover describes Marjorie Bowen's early life supporting a terrible family.
??? How Victorian?? How Dickensian???
I then found and read an online article by Jessica Amanda Salmonson which gives more details from Bowen's autobiography. We are all going by the autobiography, as far as information. By the way, Marjorie Bowen is a pseudonymous author. She wrote under several names and Marjorie Bowen is not her real name.
She came from a poor family and her father drank himself to death after leaving the family penniless. Marjorie's mother was a strange character who could support a servant but moved the family often to avoid bill collectors. She was a failed playwright who had bohemian friends. Back in the days when you had be careful choosing your friends.
Marjorie ends up publishing a novel when she is 18 or so. From this point on, she writes constantly to support her mother, sister, and the apparently inept and slovenly servant. They spend her money on frivolity and supporting useless friends. She nearly starves to death. They never say that they are grateful. Ever. Ever.
When she is a little older, she marries an Italian engineer and moves to Italy. There she has one baby that dies and one that lives. Her husband contracts a lung disease and she nurses him forever. She falls in love with his doctor.
The doctor becomes ill after her husband dies and encourages her to move on. He, naturally, is the great and only love of her life.
???
Marjorie marries and has more sons with a new husband. He isn't quite the disaster of her first husband, and eventually she pensions off the inept servant, her mother dies, and her sister . . . . leaves. . . .
Leaves??? What, she is never heard from again?? She gets a job at the age of 40? She finds a man to support her??? She falls into the gutter??? She becomes a governess??? She joins a cult???
Does any of this sound like real people? Margerie's son gave permission to Wordsworth to publish the stories. He also wrote an introduction in which he begins by claiming that he can't write, is an engineer, has no imagination, etc.
Then he includes a tiny ghost story . . . in the style of his dead mother.
So I found a book that creeps me out more because of the author than because of the fiction. And the Marjorie Bowen stories are pretty . . . creepy. If anybody says, "Even Death will not keep me from . . . " apparently Death is mightily acccommodating.
Well, if you like ghost and haints and Victorian stuff, dig up the Wordsworth series.
No comments:
Post a Comment