BOOK REVIEW
Anthologies: Best Ghost Stories, The Haunted Hour, and Devil Stories by various authors
Anthologies: Best Ghost Stories, The Haunted Hour, and Devil Stories by various authors
These
anthologies are my meagre contribution to Friday's Forgotten Books over at
Patti Abbott's blog Pattinase.
"Mortal,
mock not at the devil, life is short and soon will fail, and the 'fire
everlasting' is no idle fairy-tale." — Heine (a reference to the 19th
century German poet Heinrich Heine, I think.)
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I
haven't done a serious review of a forgotten book since Friday, August 10. I
have been taking the easy way out by reading and writing about vintage
comic-books, in the main the economy series by the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York (August 23) and To The Last Man
by Zane Grey (August 31) and, more recently, a historical work, The Story of the Outlaw, by western
author Emerson Hough (September 3). Varied stuff, nonetheless.
This
Friday is going to be no different because I still haven't read a forgotten novel.
I just finished reading Gun Man by
Loren D. Estleman, am nearing the end of Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, have read the initial ten pages of Black Dice by Mack Bolan (Don
Pendleton), and am tempted to pick up a Lawrence Block, either A Walk Among the Tombstones or Like A Lamb to Slaughter.
Mack
Bolan and his allies, Able Team and Phoenix Force, can be considered as
forgotten books except for one thing: people like me still read them. Together with Nick Carter, Ian Fleming, Carter Brown, and James Hadley Chase.
So
then, this week I bring you previews of three anthologies I discovered at
Project Gutenberg and ManyBooks, which have been kind enough to reserve a
permanent seat for me over at their ebook libraries. The anthologies by various authors pertain to ghost
stories and they are Best Ghost
Stories (1919) with an introduction by Arthur B. Reeve, the American
mystery writer; The Haunted Hour (1920),
a collection of ghost poems compiled by Margaret Widdemer who doesn’t require
an introduction; and Devil Stories (1921)
edited by Maximilian J. Rudwin who, I think, is a German writer of fantasy and
horror.
All
three anthologies have contributions by some of the finest writers known to you
and me. Here’s how each of the collections stack up…
Best Ghost Stories
Man is
incurably fascinated by the mysterious. If all the ghost stories of the ages
were blotted out, man would invent new ones.
— Arthur B. Reeve in his introduction
01. The
Apparition of Mrs. Veal by Daniel Defoe
02, Canon
Alberic's Scrap-Book by Montague Rhodes James
03. The
Haunted and the Haunters by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
04. The Silent
Woman by Leopold Kompert
05. Banshees
06. The Man
Who Went Too Far by E.F. Benson
07. The
Woman's Ghost Story by Algernon Blackwood
08. The
Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling
09. The Rival
Ghosts by Brander Matthews
10. The Damned
Thing by Ambrose Bierce
11. The
Interval by Vincent O'sullivan
12. Dey Ain't
No Ghosts by Ellis Parker Butler
13. Some Real American Ghosts
The Haunted Hour
I have not
considered as ghost-poems anything but poems which related to the return of
spirits to earth.
— Margaret
Widdemer in her preface
The
Far Away Country by Nora Hopper Chesson
“The
Nicht Atween The Sancts An' Souls”
All-Souls
Katherine by Tynan
All-Saints'
Eve by Lizette Woodworth Reese
A
Dream by William Allingham
The
Neighbors by Theodosia Garrison
A Ballad of Hallowe'en by Theodosia
Garrison
The Forgotten
Soul by Margaret Widdemer
All-Souls'
Night by Dora Sigerson Shorter
Janet's
Tryst by George Macdonald
Hallows'
E'en by Winifred M. Letts
On Kingston Bridge
All-Souls'
Night by Louisa Humphreys
“All
The Little Sighing Souls”
Mary
Shepherdess by Marjorie L.C. Pickthall
The
Little Ghost by Katherine Tynan
Two
Brothers by Theodosia Garrison
The
Little Dead Child by Josephine Daskam Bacon
The
Child Alone by Rosamund Marriott Watson
The
Child by Theodosia Garrison
Such are
the Souls in Purgatory by Anna Hempstead Branch
The
Open Door by Rosamund Marriott Watson
My
Laddie's Hounds by Marguerite Elizabeth Easter
The
Old House by Katherine Tynan
Shadowy
Heroes
Ballad
of the Buried Sword by Ernest Rhys
The
Looking-Glass by Rudyard Kipling
Drake's
Drum by Henry Newbolt
The
Grey Ghost by Francis Carlin
Ballad
of Douglas Bridge
The
Indian Burying Ground by Philip Freneau
“Rank
On Rank Of Ghostly Soldiers”
The
Song of Soldiers by Walter De La Mare
The
Blockhouse on the Hill by Helen Gray Cone
Night at Gettysburg by Don C. Seitz
The
Riders by Katherine Tynan
The White Comrade by Robert
Haven Schauffler
Ghosts
of the Argonne by Grantland Rice
November Eleventh by Ruth
Comfort Mitchell
Sea
Ghosts
The
Flying Dutchman by Charles Godfrey Leland
The
Phantom Ship by Henry Wadsworth
The
Phantom Light of the Baie Des Chaleurs by Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton
The
Sands of Dee by Charles Kingsley
The
Lake of the Dismal Swamp by Thomas Moore
The
Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Zee by Arthur
Guiterman
The
White Ships and the Red by Joyce Kilmer
Featherstone's
Doom by Robert Stephen Hawker
Sea-Ghosts
by May Byron
Fog Wraiths by Mildred Howells
Cheerful
Spirits
Legend
of Hamilton Tighe
by Richard Harris Barham
The
Supper Superstition by Thomas Hood
The Ingolds
Penance by Richard Harris Barham
Pompey's
Ghost by Thomas Hood
The
Ghost by Thomas Hood
Mary's
Ghost by Thomas Hood
The
Superstitious Ghost by Arthur Guiterman
Dave
Lilly by Joyce Kilmer
Martin
by Joyce Kilmer
Haunted Places
The
Listeners by Walter De La Mare
Haunted
Houses by Henry Wadsworth
The
Beleaguered City by Henry Wadsworth
A Newport Romance by Bret
Harte
A Legend by May Kendall
A
Midnight Visitor by Elizabeth Akers Allen
Haunted
by Amy Lowell
The
Little Green Orchard by Walter De La Mare
Fireflies
by Louise Driscoll
The
Little Ghost by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Haunted
by Louis Untermeyer
Ghosts
by Madison Cawein
The
Three Ghosts by Theodosia Garrison
“You
Know The Old, While I Know The New”
After
Death by Christina Rossetti
The
Passer-By by Edith M. Thomas
At
Home by Christina Rossetti
The
Return by Minna Irving
The
Room's Width by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
Haunted by Don Marquis
“My
Love That Was So True”
One
Out-Of-Doors by Sarah Piatt
Betrayal
by Aline Kilmer
The
True Lover by A.E. Housman
Haunted
by G.B. Stuart
The
White Moth by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
The
Ghost by Walter De La Mare
Luke
Havergal by Edwin Arlington
The
Highwayman by Alfred Noye Noyes
The
Blue Closet by William Morris
The
Ghost's Petition by Christina Rossetti
He and She by Sir Edwin Arnold
Shapes
Of Doom
The
Dead Coach by Katherine Tynan
Deid
Folks' Ferry by Rosamund Marriott Watson
Keith of Ravelston by Sydney
Dobell
The
Fetch by Dora Sigerson Shorter
The
Banshee by Dora Sigerson Shorter
The
Seven Whistlers by Alice E. Gillington
The Victor by Theodosia Garrison
Mawgan
of Melhuach by Robert Stephen Hawker
The
Mother's Ghost by Henry Wadsworth
The Dead Mother by Robert Buchanan
Legends
And Ballads Of The Dead
The
Folk of the Air by William Butler
The
Reconciliation by A. Margaret Ramsay
The
Priest's Brother by Dora Sigerson Shorter
The Ballad
of Judas by Iscariot Robert Buchanan
The
Eve of St. John
by Walter Scott
Fair
Margaret's Misfortunes, Anon.
Sweet
William's Ghost, Anon.
Clerk
Saunders, Anon.
The
Wife of Usher's Well, Anon.
A Lyke-Wake Dirge, Anon.
Devil Stories
The reader
will find between the covers of this book Devils fascinating and fearful, Devils
powerful and picturesque, Devils serious and humorous, Devils pathetic and
comic, Devils phantastic and satiric, Devils gruesome and grotesque. I have
tried, though, to keep them all in good humour throughout the book, and can
accordingly assure the reader that he need fear no harm from an intimate
acquaintance with the diabolical company to which he is herewith introduced.
— Maximilian
J. Rudwin in his introduction
01. The Devil in a Nunnery: A Mediaeval Tale by Francis Oscar Mann
02. Belphagor, Or The Marriage of the Devil by Niccolò
Machiavelli
03. The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington
Irving
04. From the Memoirs of Satan by Wilhelm Hauff
05. St. John's Eve by Nikolái Vasilévich Gógol
06. The Devil's
Wager by William Makepeace Thackeray
07. The Painter's Bargain by William
Makepeace Thackeray
08. Bon-Bon by Edgar Allan Poe
09. The Printer's Devil, Anon.
10. The Devil's Mother-In-Law by Fernán Caballero
11. The Generous Gambler by Charles Pierre Baudelaire
12. The Three Low Masses: A Christmas Story by Alphonse Daudet
13. Devil-Puzzlers by Frederick Beecher Perkins
14. The Devil's Round: A Tale of Flemish Golf by Charles Deulin
15. The
Legend of Mont St. Michel by Guy De
Maupassant
16. The Demon Pope by Richard Garnett
17. Madam Lucifer by Richard Garnett
18. Lucifer by Anatole France
19. The Devil by Maxím Gorky
20. The Devil and
the Old Man by John Masefield
Some good ones there. I've read many of these, though not in these specific collections.
ReplyDeleteCharles, an absolute treasure. I have read a few myself, mostly during office lunch breaks. The ghost poems edited by Margaret Widdemer are a terrific compilation.
DeleteSome really intriguing content there Prashant and I am only familiar with abotu half the authors listed so thanks very much. Incidentally, A Walk Among the Tombstones is a great read, Block (and Scudder) at his best.
ReplyDeleteSergio, you're welcome as always. The whole purpose of listing anthologies here is to introduce them to readers who may not know of their existence, especially among readers in India. I too am familiar with only half the authors and am getting acquainted with the rest. I'm still debating which Block novel to read given that I'm reading three books currently. I might take you up on "A Walk Among the Tombstones" though.
DeleteThanks for these. Carol Buchanan just transformed a ho-hum title for a new book, BEAVERHEAD ROCK, into a grabber: THE GHOST AT BEAVERHEAD ROCK. Amazing the power that one word wields.
ReplyDeleteRon, thanks for the heads-up. I recall reading your interview with writer Carol Buchanan recently. I agree, THE GHOST AT BEAVERHEAD ROCK does make you want to read the book more than perhaps you'd without the spirit-ed word.
DeleteI've read all three books and there's some good stuff in each one. Thanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteJerry, you're most welcome. It's amazing that you've read all three books. Have you reviewed them over at your blog?
DeleteSome solid anthos there, though I've not seen them before (but have read a number of the stories and most of the writers). A slight typo on Alfred Noyes's name in the TOC for the “My Love That Was So True” section of THE HAUNTED HOUR...I spelled out your anthology titles and editors in the lists I've circulated to YahooGroups and the librarians' list I'm on...
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DeleteTodd, thanks for the appreciation. A leaf out of your own blog where you have reviewed some formidable anthologies over the past several months. Thanks again for correcting me on Alfred Noyes' spelling, which I have done accordingly, as well as for including these anthos at Yahoo Groups and library lists...that was very thoughtful of you. As you can see, I'm gathering these e-collections faster than I can read them. The good thing is you don't have to read them from cover to cover like a novel.
An anthology of ghost poems! That's the first time I am hearing for one. Thanks for the links. I'll head there asap. The quote at the beginning about the devil being true is terrifying. All that hellish fire just waiting for us...
ReplyDeleteNeer, you're welcome. I have read a few stories and poems from these anthologies and they are absolutely fascinating, both in substance and narration. I'm sure you're going to enjoy reading them.
DeleteHi-this to give you my link to my post for Book Blogger Appreciation week in which I mention your blog
ReplyDeletehttp://rereadinglives.blogspot.com/2012/09/book-blog-appreciation-week-2012-day-one.html
What can I say, Mel, except thank you very much. I'll hop across and have a look.
DeleteA great list, I've thought of a Devil related one Dr Mephisto By Chris Emery, this is a book of poetry, here's a link http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/proddetail.php?prod=9781844715299
ReplyDeleteAnother that may be of interest is Japanese & Chinese Ghost stories: 5 books by Lafcadio Hearn
Parrish Lantern, thanks for the kind words. I'm familiar with "Dr. Mephisto" by Chris Emery though I haven't read it. Thanks for the link to this as well as mentioning the "Japanese and Chinese Ghost Stories." I enjoy reading stories from the Orient so long as they are translated well.
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