tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55650768044582908292024-03-18T23:22:36.489+00:00The Haunted LibraryGina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.comBlogger91125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-4882831340717204282024-02-14T16:26:00.002+00:002024-02-14T16:56:20.491+00:00The Other End ~ A Rambler's PerspectiveThe Other End by R. Ellis Roberts is one of my favourite collections. I was thinking recently about my own reactions to the stories—to be precise, I was doing this while walking in the middle of nowhere in the dark—and I came to the conclusion that people who like wandering about the remote countryside frequently, especially in the dark, will most likely react differently to the stories in this Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-42070760588592565302024-01-17T14:17:00.001+00:002024-01-17T14:17:54.738+00:00The Other End ~ R. Ellis RobertsWhile it's true that I generally spend a lot of time researching lady writers, I do very much like the gentlemen too. And I am extremely pleased to announce that on 14 February Nezu Press will release a new hardback edition of a book I am very fond of: The Other End by R. Ellis Roberts. In his day, R. Ellis Roberts was a well-known literary critic and writer. He contributed reviewsGina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-43544736977012448202023-11-14T18:46:00.000+00:002023-11-14T18:46:44.557+00:00The Master of Hullingham Manor ~ Bernard WentworthI am very pleased to announce that on 29 November Nezu Press will release a new hardback edition of the 'shilling shocker' The Master of Hullingham Manor by Bernard Wentworth, with an 18-page introductory essay by me. I'm always excited about working on a new book, but this one has been particularly exciting for me.When I started researching 'Bernard Wentworth', I had only one tiny piece of Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-7352074636893854712023-10-19T11:11:00.004+01:002023-11-19T15:21:24.888+00:00The Shadowy Third ~ Ellen Glasgow ~ New EditionI am very pleased to announce that The Shadowy Third: And Other Stories by Ellen Glasgow, originally published one hundred years ago, in October 1923, is now available in a lovely new centenary edition, and it includes a seventeen-page biographical essay by me entitled 'Ellen Glasgow: The Lone Spirit’.I wrote a post about the stories in this collection a little while back, and you can read Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-63192823071968119182023-08-30T18:19:00.006+01:002023-09-09T12:20:37.287+01:00A Seventh Child ~ John Strange Winter ~ New EditionI am very pleased to announce that A Seventh Child: A Novel by John Strange Winter (aka Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard), originally published in 1894, is now available in a lovely new edition, and it includes a long biographical essay by me entitled 'John Strange Winter: Author, Wife, Mother & Purveyor of Toilet Preparations’. It seemed very fitting that this should be the Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-23360500091053107642023-08-02T17:51:00.000+01:002023-08-02T17:51:46.116+01:00The Darling Fishes ~ Rick FerreiraLast time I wrote about Rick Ferreira (click here to read that post), and today it's the turn of The Darling Fishes: And Other Tales of Fantasy, Horror and the Supernatural, his collection of stories published by William Kimber in 1977. It contains 17 tales of varying length, some quite short.In the first story in the collection, 'The Darling Fishes', young Sally Brewster is a Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-81720426360529456812023-07-27T16:07:00.005+01:002023-08-02T11:16:16.728+01:00In Search of Rick FerreiraA few years back, I bought a copy of The Darling Fishes by Rick Ferreira, published by William Kimber in 1977. When the book arrived, it turned out to be much more interesting than I'd expected, and that was before I had even read it. The book had belonged to Rick Ferreira himself and had been sent by him to Peter Haining in 1980. It had a letter from the former to the latter folded up inside it,Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-35140378805112537882023-07-19T15:34:00.008+01:002023-08-30T21:14:36.779+01:00Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows ~ Mrs G. Linnaeus BanksI am extremely pleased to announce that Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows by Mrs G. Linnæus Banks, originally published in 1882, is now available in a lovely new edition. And this edition includes a long (18 page) introductory essay by me entitled 'Mrs G. Linnæus Banks: The Lancashire Antiquarian'. I particularly enjoyed putting this one together. In particular, translatingGina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-62651691183340887732023-06-13T09:06:00.005+01:002023-08-30T21:16:23.906+01:00Mistress Bridget and Other TalesI am very pleased to announce that Mistress Bridget and Other Tales by E. Yolland, with an introductory essay by me, will be published on 15 July. It contains the novel Mistress Bridget and all seven of the author's extremely rare short stories. But in all likelihood, you've never heard of E. Yolland or the novel/stories, so I am going to tell you a little bit about this project to encourageGina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-471088396812884592023-06-01T16:49:00.003+01:002023-07-31T16:13:16.873+01:00F. M. Mayor and Batman's ButlerThe actor Alan Napier, best remembered for portraying Bruce Wayne's butler in the 1960s Batman series, was a student at Clifton College, Bristol, from 1916 to 1921. ‘What has that got to do with the price of eggs?’ I hear you say. Well, in January 1916, Henry Mayor—brother of Flora Macdonald Mayor, writer of supernatural short stories—was made Housemaster of Watson’s House, Clifton College, and, Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-70846240206275771142023-05-10T08:45:00.014+01:002023-08-30T21:18:54.738+01:00The Devil Snar'd ~ George R. Preedy ~ New Edition AvailableI'm very pleased to announce that The Devil Snar'd by George R. Preedy, the author best known as Marjorie Bowen, is available in a new edition, and it includes a long introduction written by me. It was originally published as a small paperback ‘ninepenny novel’ by Ernest Benn Ltd. in June 1932. It appeared again a year later, this time published by Cassell, in Dr. Chaos and The Devil Snar’d. But Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-51384932585754105642023-04-28T13:11:00.019+01:002023-08-30T21:20:36.396+01:00The Room Opposite ~ F. M. Mayor ~ New Edition AvailableI am very pleased to announce that The Room Opposite: And Other Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Flora Macdonald Mayor, originally published in 1935, never republished and out of print for numerous decades, is now available in a new edition. And this edition has a long essay about the author, written by me. It also includes a long article that Flora wrote in 1905 about life with a touring Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-29586961852394040042023-02-09T19:47:00.003+00:002023-07-31T15:54:22.109+01:00Literary Hauntings Is Now Available as a Paperback!Last December, Literary Hauntings: A Gazetteer of Literary Ghost Stories from Britain and Ireland was published as a hardback by the ever wonderful Tartarus Press. You may remember that I was a contributor to it (I may have mentioned this... a few times... all over the place). It sold out at the publisher in just ten days. Now, Tartarus has published a jacketed paperback edition, and it Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-84828739779579134912023-02-08T09:50:00.010+00:002023-07-31T15:55:05.093+01:00The Devil’s Hoofprints
Tonight marks the anniversary of strange events that took place here in Devonshire one hundred and sixty-eight years ago. On the night of 8 February 1855, during a particularly severe winter, there was heavy snowfall around Exeter and South Devon. The following morning, the inhabitants of several towns awoke to find in the snow, and in the most unaccountable of places, including ‘on the tops of Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-90811835771258580772022-12-08T15:35:00.002+00:002023-07-31T15:58:13.543+01:00Literary HauntingsLook what the Christmas elves delivered!... 'Literary Hauntings: A Gazetteer of Literary Ghost Stories from Britain and Ireland', just published by the ever wonderful Tartarus Press.Isn't it a thing of beauty! It is, which is why you need to go and grab yourself a copy. And I'm not just saying that because I'm one of the contributors. If, like me, you read stories and wonder if the location is Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-57325112350074149352020-12-23T15:58:00.010+00:002023-09-06T17:08:38.395+01:00A Seventh Child ~ John Strange Winter
John Strange Winter was the pseudonym of Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard, a prolific Victorian writer who seems to be all but forgotten now. She was born in York on 13 January 1856, the only daughter of Rev. Henry Vaughan Palmer (1818-1877) and his wife Emily Catherine Cowling (1816-1890). Her family lived within spitting distance of York Cavalry Barracks at Fulford, Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-85168467853388425972020-11-19T11:51:00.001+00:002020-11-19T11:51:51.664+00:00A Burglar Bitten by a SkeletonIllustrated Police News, Saturday, 27th June 1874.
A burglar who broke into a closet in a physician's office in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, got more than he bargained for when he ended up with his hand caught between the gnashers of a skeleton, 'which being adjusted with a coil spring and kept open with a thread, closed suddenly on the intruding hand by the breaking of the thread'. Startled by Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-82153050910311094862020-10-20T21:43:00.006+01:002023-10-18T17:30:51.692+01:00The Shadowy Third ~ Ellen GlasgowEllen Glasgow wrote only a handful of short stories during her long career. She doesn't appear to have liked writing them, and she preferred to devote her energy to writing novels. She wrote to Walter Hines Page in November 1897, 'I shall write no more short stories and I shall not divide my power or risk my future reputation. I will become a great novelist or none at all’, and she later Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-28026129666386044022020-09-20T13:27:00.002+01:002023-07-31T15:59:29.768+01:00Killed by a CoffinIllustrated Police News, Saturday, 9th November 1872.
On the 19th of October 1872, Henry Taylor, an undertaker aged sixty-six, was engaged at a funeral at Kensal Green Cemetery. Following the funeral service, which took place on a damp day, the mourners proceeded in coaches to the place of burial, where six bearers, including Mr Taylor, attempted to manoeuvre the coffin so that it could move Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-78401451841139682762018-02-12T21:08:00.001+00:002023-07-31T16:02:04.664+01:00Thurnley Abbey ~ Perceval Landon
Three years ago I was on my way out to the East, and as an extra day in London was of some importance, I took the Friday evening mail train to Brindisi instead of the usual Thursday morning Marseilles express. Many people shrink from the long forty-eight-hour train journey through Europe, and the subsequent rush across the Mediterranean on the nineteen-knot Isis or Osiris; but there is Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-77695888966558674232017-04-26T15:22:00.002+01:002023-07-31T16:01:23.351+01:00All Souls' Night ~ Hugh Walpole
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884~1941) was a New Zealand–born British novelist, critic, and dramatist. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, then at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he studied history. He was one of the most popular and prolific writers of the first half of the 20th Century, and he was close friends with Virginia Woolf, Henry James and A. C. Benson. He worked on films inGina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-13398360586229438872016-06-22T18:09:00.003+01:002023-07-31T15:47:05.185+01:00The Room Opposite ~ F. M. Mayor
Flora Macdonald Mayor (1872-1932), the daughter of a clergyman, Rev. Joseph Bickersteth Mayor, read History at Newnham College, Cambridge, before pursuing an unsuccessful career in acting, which neither of her parents approved of. Her first published work, Mrs Hammond's Children, came out at the end of 1901, but it received little attention and didn't sell well. In 1913, her second book, The Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-16844290099207463682016-02-21T02:47:00.001+00:002023-07-31T15:47:35.220+01:00Ghost Gleams ~ W. J. Wintle
William James Wintle (1861~1934) was a staunch Catholic and prominent Christian writer. His first published book was Armenia and its Troubles, which appeared in August 1896. By the close of the nineteenth century, Wintle was a regular contributor to The Harmsworth Magazine (which was later renamed The Harmsworth London Magazine and then The London Magazine), a monthly pictorial that was as Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-48758105623824124432016-02-14T02:38:00.000+00:002016-09-08T02:47:01.767+01:00Six Ghost Stories ~ T. G. Jackson
Thomas Graham Jackson (1835-1924) was a one of the most distinguished architects of the late Victorian period. He was educated at Brighton College, before being awarded a scholarship at Wadham College. Following his graduation, in 1858, he became articled to George Gilbert Scott, the architect largely responsible for the mid-Victorian Gothic Revival. Jackson was a friend of William Morris, and Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5565076804458290829.post-85914720264509598522016-01-31T02:32:00.000+00:002016-09-08T02:38:28.850+01:00Fires Burn Blue ~ Andrew Caldecott
Fires Burn Blue, Andrew Caldecott's second book of supernatural tales, was published by Edward Arnold & Co. in 1948. As I said in my post about his first collection Not Exactly Ghosts, I like Caldecott's sense of humour. I can't help but like a collection in which one of the characters, the victim of an intellectual vampire, claims to have been sucked like an orange.
In 'An Exchange of Gina Colliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15969596679387461326noreply@blogger.com0