A 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, and a number of her numerous novels were about military life, the most successful being Bootle's Baby, which was published in 1885. She died on 13 December 1911, at the young age of fifty-five. A Seventh Child: A Novel was first published in serialised form in Winter’s Weekly (Henrietta's own paper) in May 1894. It was published in book form by F. V. White & Co. in 1894.

Nancy Reynard is the youngest of seven children. She is the seventh child of a seventh child. In fact, as both of her parents are seventh children, she is a seventh child twice over. She is the daughter of Colonel Septimus Reynard and his wife Blanche, and she lives happily with her family at the Warren in Minchester. That is, she does so until, at the age of ten, she discovers that she has the gift of second sight. I say 'gift', but she would definitely say it's more of a nuisance and inconvenience.

Anyway, at ten years of age she starts 'seeing' things, specifically things about her sister Blanche's new fiancé, Oscar Devereux, and then blurting them out for all to hear, much to his annoyance; as far as he's concerned, she has the evil eye, and he can't stand to be in her presence! And so begins Nancy's career as a reluctant psychic detective. Whether you are a thief, a murderer, a liar or all three, she will know it, as much as she wishes she did not.

Given the date of publication (1894), Nancy is one of the earliest fictional psychic detectives, and she's unusual in being female and, when her gift makes its first appearance at least, just a child. By the time we reach the end of the novel, she is eighteen years old, so still young. 

Nancy's story is definitely a ripping yarn, and I got rather worked up by the end of it (according to my husband, my enthusiasm was very evident). My only complaint would be that Henrietta didn't go on to write more books about Nancy and her exploits; she would have been an interesting character to follow as she advanced in years.

Above: 'John Strange Winter' by Herbert R. Barraud.

Update ~ 6 September 2023:

A new hardback edition of A Seventh Child is now available from Nezu Press, and it includes a long biographical essay by me entitled 'John Strange Winter: Author, Wife, Mother & Purveyor of Toilet Preparations’. 

Published: 29 September 2023. 

ISBN-13: 978-1-7393921-4-7.  

Hardback with dust jacket.

22.86mm x 15.24cm (6" x 9").

246 pages. 

Price: £25.00

For my blog post about the new edition, please click  here.

To buy it from the Nezu Press shop, please click here.

A Burglar Bitten by a Skeleton

Illustrated 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 having his fingers nibbled in this way, the burglar let out a cry, which immediately drew the attention of his criminal companion, who rushed forward with his lantern and illuminated the terrible scene. Upon seeing himself caught in the skeletal 'Jaws of Death', the terrified burglar fainted and fell to the floor, bringing the skeleton down upon himself. The resulting noise caused his accomplice to flee the scene and alerted the owner of the office to the presence of the burglar, who, still frightened half to death, was easily apprehended.

The Shadowy Third ~ Ellen Glasgow

Ellen 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 informed her agent that the work involved in writing short stories was ‘so tiresome that I’d rather not have the money they bring than try to write them.’ It's a shame, because her short stories are very good. I certainly wish she'd written more. 

Seven of Ellen Glasgow's short stories were published in the collection The Shadowy Third: And Other Stories, which was published by Doubleday, Page & Company in October 1923. Though only four of the tales involve the supernatural, all of them have a rather eerie atmosphere. In fact, the most ghostly of the tales, 'Jordan's End', is not a ghost story at all.

In 'The Shadowy Third', Roland Maradick is a handsome surgeon at a New York Hospital; according to the narrator, he was ‘born to be a hero to women’ and has a voice that ‘ought always to speak poetry.’ His patients absolutely adore him, the nurses are all in love with him, and not even Miss Hemphill, the hospital’s superintendent, is immune to his numerous manly charms. The narrator, Margaret Randolph, is an imaginative nurse from Richmond, Virginia, who is just out of training (and wants to be a novelist). She can hardly believe her luck when she is called upon to become a live-in carer for the great surgeon's ill wife. Mrs Maradick suffers from ‘hallucinations’ of the ghostly variety.

'Dare's Gift' is the tale of an old haunted Virginian estate on the James River that has an odd effect upon those who live within it. Nobody lives in it for long; it has a bad history and a long memory. The sensitive in nature can't help but succumb to its influence; 'The spirit of the place is too strong for them.' Eventually they 'surrender to the thought of the house—to the psychic force of its memories’. 

In ‘The Past’, the ghost of the first Mrs Vanderbridge is haunting both the second Mrs Vanderbridge and her husband, to the point where the mental and physical health of both is deteriorating. Mr Vanderbridge doesn't realise that anyone but him is aware of the spirit, and the second Mrs Vanderbridge won't confide her distress in her husband for fear of causing him further distress. The first Mrs Vanderbridge wasn't a 'good' wife... so she doesn't make a very pleasant spirit.

In ‘Whispering Leaves’, the ghost of a black ‘mammy’, the very embodiment of maternal love, returns to protect a small white boy following the death of his mother. She comes to him when he is in distress or danger, having promised his mother when she was dying that she would never let the child out of her sight.

In 'A Point in Morals', a doctor is forced to choose whether to allow a murderer to suffer a drawn out and agonising death or provide him with a method to end his life quickly and painlessly.

‘The Difference’ is an atmospheric non-ghost story about Margaret Fleming, a woman who, having thought herself happily married for twenty years, discovers that her husband has a young mistress.

'Jordan's End' is a ghostly non-ghost story—the most ghostly that Ellen Glasgow wrote—set on a rundown old Virginian plantation, where the male members of the Jordan family are all destined to go insane. 

If I were asked to choose a favourite, I'd be torn between 'Dare's Gift' and 'Jordan's End'. Both—in fact all of the stories in the book—are enjoyably atmospheric... Perfect reading for this time of year.

Killed by a Coffin

Illustrated 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 head first towards the grave. The Illustrated Police News reported that Mr Taylor caught his foot against a stone and stumbled, and that the other five bearers released their hold on the coffin to save themselves, allowing it to fall onto Mr Taylor, fracturing his jaw and ribs.

Great confusion ensued, and the widow of the man who was being buried almost went into hysterics. Eventually, the funeral went ahead, and Mr Taylor was taken to University College Hospital for treatment, where he died from his injuries on the 24th of October. The jury at the inquest that followed, where the verdict was recorded as 'accidental death', recommended that straps should be placed around coffins to help prevent such tragic accidents in the future.

The London Evening Standard of Thursday, 31st October 1872, contains a letter from a friend of Mr Taylor's (signed G. A. N.), that tells a different story. He states that Mr Taylor was bearer at the foot of the coffin and that, after the unfortunate man fell inwards and across the feet of the bearer next to him, the coffin got away from the two men at the rear, leaving the remaining four bearers to hold it aloft. The two middle bearers, finding themselves unable to support the coffin's great weight, were forced to release their hold. And that left the two bearers at the head of the coffin, one of whom was G. A. N., the writer of the letter. They struggled to avert the catastrophe and, according to the gravedigger, 'stuck to it to the last', but to no avail.

Letters followed regarding the method used to convey coffins to their graves - namely, upon bare shoulders - and pointed out that Mr Taylor and his colleagues were city undertakers. They, one clergyman (and member of the cemetery board) pointed out, were no doubt extremely used to doing their particular job, unlike those who acted as bearers in more remote parts of the country, where bearers were picked 'here, there and everywhere'. If such a catastrophe could befall such men, what would become of the those called on to do the job with no previous experience of it?

Twenty-seven years later, The Gloucestershire Echo reported, on the 4th of May 1900, that a Northampton undertaker by the name of Sutch (no first name was given) was helping to carry a coffin when another bearer lost his hold. The corner of the coffin struck Sutch on the knee, and blood poisoning set in, killing the poor man.