A Seventh Child ~ John Strange Winter ~ New Edition

I 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 book I worked on after Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows by Isabella Banks; Henrietta and Isabella were good friends. 

I wrote a blog post about this volume in 2020, and you can read it by clicking here.

You can pre-order it directly from Nezu Press by clicking here. Or you can pre-order it from the usual online retailers (for Amazon UK, click here) or from your local bricks-and-mortar bookshop.

Anyway, here's the publisher blurb and all that: 

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 very happily with her family at the Warren in Minchester until she reaches the age of ten, when she discovers that she has the gift of second sight; unfortunately, it is more of a nuisance and inconvenience for poor Nancy. She starts ‘seeing’ things, in particular things about her sister Blanche's new fiancé, and blurting them out for all and sundry to hear, much to his annoyance. And so begins Nancy’s career as a reluctant psychic detective. And now, no liar, thief or murderer is safe when she is near… or thousands of miles away.

Nancy is one of the earliest fictional psychic detectives, and she is unusual in being female and, when her gift makes its first appearance at least, just a child. A Seventh Child was first published in 1894. John Strange Winter was the pen name of the Victorian writer Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard. This new edition includes an introductory essay by Gina R. Collia: 'John Strange Winter: Author, Wife, Mother & Purveyor of Toilet Preparations’.. (Publisher website: Click here)

Nezu Press, 29 September 2023. 

ISBN-13: 978-1-7393921-4-7.  

Hardback with dust jacket, 246 pages.

The new Nezu Press edition of A Seventh Child alongside the original first edition. And a large photographic portrait of the author John Strange Winter (Henrietta Eliza Vaughan Stannard) by Herbert R. Barraud.

The Darling Fishes ~ Rick Ferreira

Last 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 daddy's girl. She has a luxury flat, plenty of money in the bank and a mink coat. But she also has insomnia and a 'daddy' who she finds repulsive. While out for dinner with him, she is drawn to a large tank of tropical fish; watching them she feels relaxed and, for the first time in weeks, sleepy. She returns home determined to be rid of her 'daddy' and to have a tank of her own. She orders a six-foot aquarium full of darling fishes that will help her to sleep. Brightly-coloured, beautiful, exciting, mesmerising, darling fishes... at least one of every variety... even the hungry ones that definitely can't live together.

In 'Crusoe's Parrot', Robin Selkirk, who is mourning the death of his father, is on holiday with his mother on the island of Tobago. Robin’s in the shower when he sees the ghost of Crusoe’s parrot for the first time. The comical parrot is only visible to the lonely and unhappy, and when he leaves them they are lonely and unhappy no more.

In 'Pools of Darkness', Mrs Whirely wins one hundred thousand pounds on the Pools. But there’s a catch; she’s won it on the D-Plan… and D for Darkness.

In 'Helping Hand', rugby player Cliff Anderson has lost his right arm—it was amputated after a car accident—but he can still feel it, and it hurts… ‘it’s like a thin very cold knife thrust into the muscles… thrust in then turned.’ At least, it hurts until he begins to use it again.

Alice, in 'Alice Through a Halo', is four years old and has been given a part in her kindergarten’s nativity play. She’s to be an angel, but artificial wings won’t do; she wants real wings—size number four— so she can fly away.

'The Royal Ones' are Princess Ti-SuSu and Majesty, her cat. Ti-SuSu is the wife of a king, but she shares him with a hundred other wives. She is determined, however, that his heir will be her son and no other’s, so the child born to Princess Bin-Sio must be killed. And Ti-SuSu makes Majesty, the killer, a promise: if he is caught and destroyed, he will live again and they will be reunited.

In 'The Sacrifice', David Thomas recounts a tale from his time as an Inspector of Police in Georgetown in the Crown Colony of British Guiana, now Guyana. He was called in to prevent old Icaro, a chief of one of the Arawak tribes who had volunteered himself as a human sacrifice, going over the Kaieteur Falls. The problem was that David had just shaved off his beard, and the Arawaks never listened to a beardless man, so a false beard had to do… Except it didn’t do, not one bit.

The 'Portrait of Rosana’ was owned by the Baroncelli family for almost four hundred years. Then it was sold, and the rich American who bought it in Rome was dead twenty-four hours later. Sally Shrimpton, a famous actress, buys the painting for her husband’s birthday… the portrait of a murderess long dead... dead but not quite finished with all that murdering.

'Gone Is the Ginger-Haired Negress' is the longest story in the collection. Norman Sulnick has let out the attic bedsitter in his house to James Fenmoore Braithwaite, a black chap from Guyana, much to the disgust of his elderly mother. While Norman indulges in sexual fantasies about his lodger, James Braithwaite is too busy trying to escape his dead wife, Mathilda, the black Queen of Obeah. She’s told him to stop writing about her in his journal, and she’s not about to let him get away with defying her.

In 'Neat Justice', Pam dumps Alexander because he is too neat. She likes her messy flat and wants rid of his need for everything to be tidy. Alexander's reaction proves that it is possible to be too neat for your own good.

In 'Twice to the Grave We Go!', Ruth Drayton receives a letter from Smithson, Frank and Foley, solicitors, requesting her presence at their offices on Friday 12 July at 3pm. Now happily married, she was once engaged to Charles Edward Granger, who left her standing at the altar and went on to become a property tycoon. Granger, dead for the past six months, left an unusual recording for her to listen to.

In 'Kaituk', five-year-old Timothy Leighton has a friend; Kaituk is a South American Indian boy from the forest country of Guyana, and he’s always stark naked. The boys meet on Hampstead Heath, and Timothy's mother is convinced that Kaituk is imaginary.

'The Last Course' is that of Charles and Sheila’s anniversary dinner. Charles, Sheila and their friend Geoffrey were supposed to spend the evening together to celebrate, but Geoffrey is unable to attend.

In 'When Did You Last See a Witch?', Alice, Gertrude and Florence are three elderly, retired, incredibly bored witches. Alice suggests opening a coffee bar, and The Witches’ Brew comes into being. But a nice new coffee bar needs pretty young waitresses, so they run it disguised as Diana Dors, Kim Novak and Hedy Lamarr. But the rushing about, the constant flood of admiring male customers, the whistles and the groping hands prove to be too much for them.

'Don't Stop the Snowing' details the doings of fifteen-year-old Joshua William Hartley, who wakes up during the ‘Great Freeze’ of 1962 to find that he's turned invisible.

'The Girl From Tamango' is Lily Carew, and she's missing. She never returned from her visit to Turk Island with the scriptwriter Sinclair... the island of dead coconuts, slimy green water and carrion crabs as large as turtles.

In 'Summer and Miss Swanson', Mr Fairley is looking for lodgings and goes to view an attic flat on Hampstead Heath. But the previous tenant, Miss Swanson, hasn’t actually moved out.

As I mentioned before, the tales are of varying length; 'Portrait of Rosana’ is just three and a half pages long. They're also quite different from one another, and some work better than others. 'When Did You Last See a Witch?' is quite funny, whereas 'Summer and Miss Swanson' is quite sad. The best, for me, were 'The Darling Fishes', 'The Sacrifice', 'Gone Is the Ginger-Haired Negress' and 'The Girl From Tamango'. 

There are comments made by characters within these stories that will make you pause.. comments about race. Don't forget, as I mentioned in my last post, the writer was a white West Indian who was aware of, and uncomfortable about, the advantage his skin colour gave him over fellow countrymen who were black. It's hard to imagine now that it was once quite normal to think that having a black lodger was scandalous. Mind you, when my mother was a teenager, having any sort of foreign boyfriend was likely to get nets twitching and eyebrows climbing up foreheads. My grandfather was Romani, and he was full of tales of vicars telling him to bugger off from their door if he didn't want the police called. Yes, times have changed... But they do still have a way to go.

In Search of Rick Ferreira

A 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, along with photocopies (made by Ferreira) of some reviews, and Ferreira had also pasted a single review of the collection inside the front of the book itself, along with his agent's details. Oh, and the book was signed.

Curious, I had a quick look online for information about Rick Ferreira, and I found next to nothing; he was the author of Are You Stone-Cold, Santa-Claus?, a collection of stories and poems, the title tale of which was made into a TV/radio play, and that was all I found. I intended to look again, but I got carried away with other research... The years passed... And last week I finally got around to it.

According to the jacket of the book, Ferreira was 44 years old in 1977 and had been a Londoner for half of his life. He had grown up on the island of Tobago, the son of Portugese parents. According to the jacket of A Chill to the Sunlight, an anthology he edited in 1978 (also published by Kimber), Ferreira intended to return to Tobago once he wrote a bestseller. He dedicated that book to 'Daphne'.

So, here's what I had to work with: Rick Ferreira grew up on Tobago and came to the UK around 1955. He was of Portugese descent. He was 44 years old in 1977, so he must have been born around 1933 (The Supernatural Index has his year of birth down as 1928). His letter to Haining gave me his address in 1980 (he was living in Hampstead, NW3). And he may have been married to a lady called Daphne. 

Off I went in search of Rick Ferreira. And I found out that in June 1961 he won second prize in the short fiction section of the Hampstead Festival literature competition. Some of his short fiction was read on the radio; 'Guest for the Weekend' was read on Radio 4 in July 1975, and 'Out in the Midday Sun' was read on the same station in August 1979. He also wrote poetry; a poem of his (unnamed in the TV papers) was read by the actor Rudolph Walker on London Weekend Television in May 1978. As I mentioned above, his short story 'Are you Stone-Cold, Santa-Claus?' was made into an ITV play; that aired on 24 December 1977 and starred Cheryl Branker.

But I could find nothing more... There was no record of a Rick Ferreira having lived here in England. So, I tried the records for Trinidad and Tobago... Nothing. No birth record, no death record... Nothing.

That would be because Rick Ferreira never existed, not here in England and not on Tobago. No wonder I couldn't find him! Albert Stanislous Ferreira, on the other hand, certainly did exist, but he didn't come from Tobago, and he wasn't born in 1933.

Albert Stanislous Ferreira was born in Georgetown, Guyana (300 miles or so from Trinidad and Tobago) on 3 July 1922. He was of Portuguese descent. He wrote in 'Rocking Is So Right', one of the 'Personal Pieces' from Are You Stone-Cold, Santa-Claus?, that his grandmother came from Madeira in Portugal. His paternal grandmother did indeed come from Madeira, and she emigrated to Guyana, which is where Albert's father, Manoel Aloysius Ferreira, was born. 

According to Who's who in British Guiana 1945-1948, Albert was educated at St. Mary's Roman Catholic School in Georgetown before going on to work as a pawnbroker's clerk. By the end of the 1940s, he had already begun writing plays and had had three short stories published in the Chronicle Christmas Annual. At some point before leaving Guyana, Albert married Daphne Helena De Abreu.

Albert left Guyana and travelled from Georgetown to Plymouth in 1953, arriving on 21 October. In another of his personal pieces, 'Did You Say—Dad?', he claimed that he came to England on a six-month trip and didn't intend to stay; however, according to the incoming passenger lists, he arrived intending to remain in England permanently. Albert also claimed that he left his wife and son behind and that Daphne later divorced him (that she sued him for desertion). It's certainly true that Daphne didn't travel with him to England in 1953. She did eventually come to the UK, but she and Alfred lived apart. Despite that fact, he did dedicate A Chill to the Sunlight to her in 1978.

Are You Stone-Cold, Santa-Claus?, which is a small paperback volume, was published by Fitzwilliam in 1973. The Darling Fishes followed in 1977, and these two collections appear to be the only two he had published. He was still hoping for a bestseller in 1978. In his letter to Peter Haining, written on 13 January 1980, he wrote, 'I would like nothing better than to have one of my stories selected for inclusion in any forthcoming Anthology of yours'. Whilst his stories did make it into anthologies edited by Mary Danby, R. Chetwynd-Hayes and Peter C. Smith, to the best of my knowledge none appeared in a Haining anthology.

In 'The Lucky Londoner', another from Are You Stone-Cold, Santa-Claus?, Albert confessed to feeling guilty that, when he arrived in England, as a man with white skin he was accepted as a first class citizen, while fellow countrymen who were black were considered second class citizens. He also confessed to feeling ashamed of his 'tiny, sun-drenched and poverty-stricken home'. Of course, Tobago wasn't his home, but the mainland Caribbean region was. And, in writing at least, he doesn't appear to have hidden his West Indian roots; quite the opposite in fact.

For some reason, Albert stopped writing—or he simply couldn't get anyone to publish his work—and I have found no mention of him after 1985, when his short story 'The Girl from Tomango' was included in the 1985 edition of Mary Danby's anthology 65 Great Spine Chillers, published by Octopus.

Albert Stanislous Ferreira died in London in May 1995 at the age of 73. He never did get that bestseller.

Update, 1 August 2023:

I didn't quite give up looking for information about Albert after I finished writing the above post, and today I found out a little bit more about him. Rick Ferreira wasn't his only pseudonym; he also wrote as Stan Xavier. In 1978, his novel Cold Calypso was published by United Writers Publications. It is the story of one winter's day in the 1950s, when eighteen-year-old Ricky Stone (from Hamilton, Bermuda, British West Indies) awaits his first snowfall.

Interestingly—though not really that surprising—Stan Xavier had a different back story to Rick Ferreira. According to the publisher's note inside the book, Stan was from Bermuda, and he arrived in England in the winter of 1958/9 (five years after his actual arrival here). The photograph on the right was the one in his passport when he made that long journey. Apparently, he wrote Cold Calypso in 1959, then put it away for years until, in the late 70s, he sent it to United Writers Publications (insisting that he would not update it). According to the publisher, the novel is 'slightly naughty, wistfully nostalgic—and great fun'. The back flap of the book claims that Stan was married and a grandfather when the book was published (though, of course, by this time Albert was divorced). So, at this point, after finding all that out, I can't help wondering if Albert went by any other name... I am holding out hope.

Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows ~ Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks

I 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, translating a large amount of old Scots dialogue into English was fascinating and fun. Isabella Banks was an antiquarian—she loved history—and she was so interested in the details of everything. She was also, from the sound of her obituaries and various other things written about her during her lifetime, an extremely nice person.

You can order the book directly from Nezu Press (click here to go to the website). Or you can order it from the usual online retailers or from your local bricks-and-mortar bookshop.

Anyway, here's the publisher blurb and all that:

First published in 1882, Through the Night: Tales of Shades and Shadows contains fourteen traditional Victorian supernatural stories. There are tales of vengeful ghosts, wraiths, premonitions, voodoo, curses, folklore and fairies. Isabella Banks, best remembered for her novel The Manchester Man, was known for her historical accuracy and meticulous attention to detail, and the appendix from the first edition, which outlines the historical background for the stories, is included in this current edition. Also included in this edition is an introductory essay by Gina R. Collia, 'Mrs G. Linnæus Banks: The Lancashire Antiquarian'. (Publisher website: Click here)

Nezu Press, 28 August 2023. 

ISBN-13: 978-1-7393921-3-0.  

Hardback with dust jacket, 464 pages.