Literary 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 looks amazing (what do you expect from Tartarus? Their books are always beautiful). Anyway, without further ado, here it is... wearing its lovely jacket, then undressed to reveal the beautiful cover design beneath...

To learn more about this jacketed paperback edition, and to order a copy for yourself, click here.

There is actually a second paperback edition available, this time print-on-demand (from Amazon), and that may be of interest to overseas readers, with the international post being so slow at the moment. Of course, there's also the ebook version, which you can buy direct from the publisher (click here).

Shameless plug over. As you were. 

Update (27/2/2023):

Literary Hauntings has been reviewed by Dejan Ognjanovic in Rue Morgue, issue no. 211:

'Bound and designed up to the recognizably high Tartarus Press standards, this lovely book is useful both as a reminder of half-forgotten classics and a grimoire of British horror’s hidden lore. Even the most seasoned readers, who may not be willing to embark on a real and expensive roadtrip, will certainly be guided by these expert editors into discovering dozens of ghostly gems that are screaming to be revisited.'

The 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 houses’, a ‘vast number of foot-tracks of a most strange and mysterious description’.¹ The culprit left its footmarks all over Teignmouth, Dawlish, Starcross, Exmouth, Littleham, Lympstone, Woodbury and Topsham. It entered ‘gardens with walls 12 feet high’ in Dawlish, apparently having jumped over the walls, and left prints all over the churchyard,² and hardly a garden in Lympstone was left untouched. Given the number of places visited, the culprit - if there was just one - must have travelled up to one hundred miles in a single night.³ And, not content with its nighttime wanderings on the 8th, in the few days that followed it left its mark in Newton Abbot and, on St. Valentine’s Eve, paid a visit to the church at Topsham, going right up ‘to the very door of the vestibule’.⁴ 

The prints, which appeared to have been made by a biped, resembled those made by a donkey’s shoe, measured up to four inches in length and up to two and three-quarter inches in width, and were ‘generally eight inches in advance of each other’,⁵ alternating like the steps of a man.⁶ The footprints travelled across open fields and through the woods at Luscombe, through enclosed gardens, over rooftops, high walls and haystacks, and beyond locked gates. They travelled up to the front doors of houses without leaving any sign of their subsequent retreat.⁷ And each print ‘removed the snow, wherever it appeared, clear, as if cut with a diamond or branded with a hot iron’.⁸ As to the speed of the mysterious hoofmark-maker, in 1929 Rupert Gould concluded that, even if the overall distance travelled was reduced to forty miles, and if we allowed fourteen hours of darkness for that distance to be covered, for a single creature to make a 40-mile line of hoofmarks, with each mark being 8 inches apart, it would have had to travel at a pace of more than six steps per second from start to finish.⁹ 

So great was the excitement caused by the appearance of the hoofmarks that a party of Dawlish tradesmen, armed with guns and bludgeons, spent the best part of the day attempting to follow a set of tracks to locate and identify the culprit. The group searched from the local churchyard to Luscombe, then Dawlishwater and on to Oaklands (a distance of about five miles), returning home none the wiser for all their efforts.¹⁰ Due to the strangeness of the hoofmarks, some of which were cloven, a number of locals concluded quite quickly that they were the work of ‘no less person than His Satanic Majesty’.¹¹ Finding no possible natural explanation for the appearance of the marks, many locals would not go out after sunset, ‘or go half a mile into lanes or byways, as they were convinced that this was the devil’s walk and no other, and that it was wicked to trifle with such a manifest proof of the Great Enemy’s immediate presence.’¹²

Others, upon reading the various newspaper reports, suggested several possible human or animal culprits, including badgers, rats, birds, donkeys, a monkey, Anglicans, the ghost of St. Wencelas and - from the Lympstone Church pulpit of the Rev. G. M. Musgrave - an escaped kangaroo.¹³ One correspondent, W. W., suggested that a swan had been responsible for the strange marks. Apparently, on 13 February 1855, five days after the hoofmarks appeared in South Devon, an exhausted swan belonging to the domain of Prince Hohenlohe of Germany had appeared in St. Denis in France. Based on this, W. W. put forward the theory that the poor bird’s exhaustion was due to it having ‘travelled many miles by day and night’ over to Devon and then across to France. The prints left in the snow, he concluded, which were decidedly not swan-feet-shaped, were made by the bird’s footwear, which had been padded ‘in the shape of donkey’s hoofs’ in order to ‘prevent mischief’ in its owner’s garden.¹⁴

As interest in the strange hoofmarks spread far and wide, suggestions from beyond England’s shores appeared in the press. One correspondent from Heidelberg suggested in a letter to the Illustrated London News that the Devonshire marks matched those that appeared each year around a hill on the borders of Gallicia, in Russian Poland; those marks being ‘universally attributed by the inhabitants to supernatural influence’.¹⁵ 

Though witnesses did remark on the similarity of the hoofmarks to those left by a donkey, it’s hard to imagine how any member of the equine family could have climbed up onto rooftops or tall walls, and the same can be said of Anglicans and badgers. A solitary monkey, though capable of climbing up walls, could not have been responsible for so great a number of marks; it would have needed the help of friends, and there is no record of a single monkey having escaped from a travelling menagerie to carry out the deed, let alone a whole troupe of monkeys. Though there were two living in Exmouth at the time, kangaroos do not leave single-file hoofmarks in the snow when they move about. In any case, The good Rev. Musgrave wrote to the Illustrated London News a short while after the event to explain that he had little faith in his own suggestion, having put it forward only to reassure his congregation that the Devil had not been wandering through their gardens at night.¹⁶ 

Though rats and birds do hop forward and are capable of leaving single-file imprints in snow, it would have been impossible for a solitary rat or bird to have produced so many prints alone, and it’s hard to imagine either one banding together strategically with their comrades to produce so many hoofmarks in one night. Of course, not enough is known about the attributes and motivations of the ghost of St. Wencelas to determine whether or not he was responsible.

To this day, there is no solid explanation for the events of 8 February 1855 and the days that followed. We are as ignorant of the truth today as those Devonians who woke to discover the mysterious hoofmarks in 1855. So, tonight, on the anniversary of those strange events, in case we have heavy snowfall overnight, you might want to keep your camera handy.

______________

¹ The Times, 16 February 1855.

² The Western Luminary & Family Newspaper for Devon, Cornwall, Somerset & Dorset, 13 February 1855.

³ Illustrated London News, 24 February 1855.

⁴ Western Times, 24 February 1855.

⁵ The Times, 16 February 1855.

⁶ Woolmer’s Exeter & Plymouth Gazette, 17 February 1855.

⁷ Illustrated London News, 24 February 1855.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Gould, Rupert T. (1929), Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts. London, Geoffrey Bles. Gould felt that this proved no single creature could be responsible for all of the marks.

¹⁰ Woolmer’s Exeter & Plymouth Gazette, 17 February 1855.

¹¹ Western Times, 17 February.

¹² Western Morning News, 5 October 1928. Reminiscences in an interview with R. T. Gould about his book Oddities.

¹³ Badgers: Illustrated London News, 3 March 1855. Rats and birds: Illustrated London News, 10 March 1855. Donkeys and Anglicans: Devon & Cornwall Notes and Queries, Vol. 12, 1922, pp. 265-7. A monkey: The Western Luminary & Family Newspaper for Devon, Cornwall, Somerset & Dorset, 13 February 1855. The ghost of St Wenceslas: Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 1 March 1855. A kangaroo: The Times, 16 February 1855.

¹⁴ Wells Journal, 3 March 1855.

¹⁵ Illustrated London News, 17 March 1855.

¹⁶ Illustrated London News, 3 March 1855

Illustrations:

1 - Edited version of an illustration by F.A. Lydon, taken from Gems from the Poets, published in 1860.

2 - Illustrated London News, 24 February 1855. Drawing of the prints included with a letter from ‘South Devon’.

3 - Illustrated London News, 3 March 1855. Drawn by G. M. M. of Withecombe.

From Out of the Silence ~ Bessie Kyffin-Taylor

From Out of the Silence: Seven Strange Stories was first published by Books Limited in 1920, and the first edition is an incredibly difficult book to get hold of. It's not surprising, the physical book itself is so fragile, the paper so thin, that it's a wonder copies are still about at all.

One of the many things I particularly like about this collection is the fact that several of the stories have the weird happenings take place in daylight in the middle of summer. There are ghosts in gardens, woods, on countryside roads... they're not a bunch of spooks that can only come out indoors in the dark.

In ‘Room Number Ten’, it is a hot day in August when Peter Maxton, who's pretty fed up with his environment and the small-minded people who live in it, accepts an invitation to join a house party at ‘High Crags’ in Scotland, the home of his friends Mr and Mrs Stuart. Come along, Norman Stuart writes encouragingly, ‘if you don’t mind where you sleep!’ Perhaps Stuart should have added ‘and with whom you sleep”! Poor old Peter soon discovers that he is far from alone in his bedroom and the bed he occupies within it.

‘Two Little Red Shoes’ is a sad tale of child abuse. According to her own description, the narrator of the story is the usual ‘everyday woman’. However, she gets her kicks from breaking into empty properties, to get away from the noise and routine of her daily life. She likes the peace and quiet of an entirely empty house, where she can make herself at home and daydream about being the house’s owner. Having a few days off, she breaks into a house she's been looking forward to having a mooch around. She is ‘not greatly alarmed by the supernatural’, and when she encounters it in her 'House of Mystery', as she calls it, she is not put off returning; but ‘Little did I guess what was in store for me, or even I, good as my nerves were, would have gone gladly a hundred miles in another direction.’

I think ‘Outside the House’ is the most atmospheric and unsettling story in the collection. Major John Longworth has returned from the French front during the First World War, having been sent home with a gammy leg, and he's fallen in love with Elsie Falconer, the nurse who looked after him when he was being treated in hospital. He goes off to convalesce at her family home following his discharge, but Elsie’s relatives are an odd lot. They don't really pay him that much attention, considering he's their future son-in-law, but they do ask one thing of him—the same thing they ask of everyone in the house—he shouldn't go into the garden or open a window after five o’clock in the afternoon. But John isn’t the type to accept being made a prisoner in Elsie's parents' house. No... he’s going to break the rules, stay out late... and regret it!

In ‘The Wind in the Woods’, Wilfred, an artist, is tired of people, noise, and the annoyances of his everyday life. He wants some peace and quite. So, he takes a month’s holiday in Wales and visits a place he calls 'Silent Wood’, a shaded pine tree wood that doesn't seem to have any animal life in it. It also doesn't seem to have any wind. During all of his previous visits, there has never been any... but then, he’s never visited the wood in July before, and he'll end his holiday wishing he never had!

‘In some quiet hour in my studio, maybe during some winter night of wind and storm, I shall hear again the hideous laughter, shall dream of the scent of pines—nay, perhaps I shall even try to forget the horror of all I went through, and may memory, sometimes kind, only recall the peace, the scent, the perfect still quietness of the woods I loved best, when I knew them only as “Silent Wood.” ’

Now, I like outdoor ghost stories. Being a rambler, I can relate to characters who wander about in silent woods, with no humanity near, surrounded by all the possible dangers of being remote, away from help if it is needed. A familiar landscape can turn hostile pretty quickly under the right conditions. I say that as someone who once found herself trapped (along with a muddy husband) in woods after a tree fall, unable to return to a familiar path, forced to go deeper into unknown territory, and stuck repeatedly in bogs as the light failed. Add the supernatural on top of all that, and what started out as a normal, sunny day could quickly turn into a rather nasty nightmare. So, 'The Wind in the Woods' is my second favourite story in this collection.

‘The Twins’ are Dallas and Basil York, and the fact that they are twins is the bane of Dallas’s life. Nobody can tell them apart, not even their own mother, so every one of Basil’s misdeeds has been laid at Dallas’s door since childhood. When Basil went out of bounds to buy sweets, Dallas was punished for it. When Basil went drinking beer in the village pub, Dallas found himself confined to his room as a consequence. Now, in adulthood, when Basil sends love letters to Esmé Simpson, using his brother’s paper and forging his handwriting, Dallas is the poor sod who is forced to become engaged to her. They do say that there is a special bond that exists between twins—and, much to Dallas’s chagrin, it turns out to be one that can extend beyond the grave.

‘Sylvia’ is set during the First World War. The narrator, on holiday in Wales, witnesses a ghostly apparition while out walking late in the day. When she returns to the village where she is staying, her friend, the village doctor, recounts the story of Sylvia, a young girl who, though she had lived many years with a band of gipsies, had a forgotten past. This is my least favourite story in the collection, though I do like Bessie's description of the environment her characters are in; that's the case for me with all of her tales.

In ‘The Star Inn’, Dick and Pat, who are brother and sister, decide to take a holiday together. Wanting to go somewhere without telephones, where people can’t reach them, that is not more than an hour away by train, they browse through a railway timetable and choose a place they've never heard of: Pine Side. Then, without doing any research about the place—without even finding out if there's an inn they can stay in—they set off, along with Timothy, Dick's very sensible dog. It turns out that there is indeed an inn, situated on Pine Side’s only road, and it is one they are unlikely to forget.

The Liverpool Daily Post felt that ‘those who enjoy having their hair raised by tales of restless spirits’ should ‘find fare to their taste’ in Bessie’s collection. And they weren't wrong.

As I said, this is a rare book. If you do find one, it's most likely going to cost several hundred pounds without the dust jacket. If you find one with the jacket, well, you're talking thousands rather than hundreds.

UPDATE:

A new edition is being published on 31 March 2025 (see cover image on the right), and you can find out all about it by clicking here.

The Thing from the Lake ~ Eleanor M. Ingram

The Thing from the Lake, the final novel of Eleanor M. Ingram, was published by J. B. Lippincott Company in 1921. Its protagonist, Roger Locke, is a fairly well-known composer from New York. In need of a summer house that he can retreat to when New York becomes too hot to work in, he buys the old Michell place in Connecticut, which comes with land and a lake. But, as Roger soon finds out, his new house is haunted. During his first night in the place, he is visited twice in the dark: first, by a mysterious woman—whether living or ghost he does not know—who whispers of witchcraft, and then by a terrifying ‘presence’ that is accompanied by the foul stench of damp and mould.

I love a good haunted house story, and this is definitely one of those. It’s not often that a book gives me the heebie-jeebies so much that I read it over and over and get more uncomfortable as I do so. I really don't understand why this book isn't more well-known.

For me—perhaps for most people who read haunted house stories—it isn’t the idea of confrontation with a physical being that causes fear but the thought of being unable to fend of an ‘entity’ that isn’t physical. How do you fight off a malignant puff of smoke? The thing about ghosts, though, is that they are generally dead humans, and to a certain extent that sets boundaries around what we expect them to be capable of. But what if a haunting is caused by something that was never human? What if the ‘Thing’ that haunts us is beyond our comprehension, more powerful than we can imagine, and is kept at bay by the resistance of the human mind that, with each encounter, has the potential to weaken and fail?

The ‘presence’ that haunts the haunted house in this novel is just such an entity: malignant, non-human, immense, incomprehensible, relentless, telepathic (in part at least), timeless, and not in any way of our world… all the things that make battle against it seem futile.

'As I sat there, facing the door of the room, I became aware of Something at the window behind my back. Something that pressed against the open window and stared at me with a hideous covetousness beside which the greed of a beast for its prey is a natural, innocent appetite. I felt that Thing’s hungry malignance like a soft, dreadful mouth sucking toward me, yet held away from me by some force vaguely based on my own resistance. And I understood how a man may die of horror.'

I should point out that it is a romance too. Not a conventional one, but a romance all the same. Not that the romance makes it any less atmospheric or frightening. In fact, the opposite applies, as the romance binds poor Roger to his house, and in so doing it makes it impossible for him to escape. 

Eleanor wrote a number of romances; this is the only one that is supernatural. Sadly, she died while very young, so she didn't get the chance to write more.

The first edition very seldom comes up for sale, and it would cost hundreds of pounds if it did.

UPDATE:

Nezu Press will publish a lovely new edition of The Thing from the Lake on 25 February 2025 (see cover image on the left). You can find more information about it on this blog by clicking here, and order it from the Nezu Press site by clicking here.