The Door Ajar ~ Virginia Milward

The Door Ajar by Virginia Milward was published in 1912 by William Rider & Son, Ltd. It's never been republished, and copies come up for sale so rarely that I imagine few have read the book. This is a shame because it's a very good—very atmospheric—collection of short stories. It was described by Old Moore's Monthly Messenger as containing tales 'of passion and crime in which the weird and uncanny form a fascinating background to scenes of high dramatic power and throbbing human interest'.

Two of the tales are premonitory, three involve haunted items, and all of them have female characters who have, in some way, suffered as a result of their interaction with men, for 'where men go pain follows—pain and misery of mind.'

In 'The Door Ajar', the wife of charming Algernon Black lives in constant fear, forever looking over her shoulder for some half-seen assailant who, in her visions, enters through a part-open door and stabs her to death.

'The Knife' in this story is a surgeon's, and it's what Rachel Du Cane expects to die under after she experiences a premonition of her own death. Not that she wants to live, as she exists in constant pain, both physical and mental.

In 'Between the Leaves', Virginia buys a book she doesn't really intend to purchase (I've done that). In fact, she finds the thing utterly loathsome and wants to return it straight away (I haven't done that). It is a book that existed when the plague swept through London... when the city burned... and it can reveal the true fate of Barbara Floyd, mistress of a fickle king and enemy of a jealous royal mistress. 

In 'The Mills of God', Christine Dupen, while an inmate in a Swiss asylum for consumptives, describes her tortured existence at the hands of her wicked husband. He was a good, honest, decent, honourable fellow—everything a girl could wish for—during their courtship. But once he managed to get Christine down the aisle, he revealed himself to be a dishonest, immoral brute, and she has been living with the consequences of having married him ever since.

'The Little Silver Box', purchased in an old curiosity shop in Versailles, once belonged to Madame du Barry, and, as its new owner soon discovers, it (when in the right place) is haunted by the remembrance of that lady's final days during the French Revolution.

'Das Kind' is another haunted object, this time a fifteenth-century painting of a young child that reveals the tragic end of its sitter.

'A Minor Third' is set inside a church, the Brompton Oratory of St. Philip of Neri in South Kensington to be precise, where the Roman Catholic narrator of the tale encounters a crying woman, a 'lilac figure', every day just prior to her own marriage. This is a religious tale. Actually, all of the characters of these stories who profess a religion are Catholic.

My favourites?... I like all of them, but two stand out for me. One is 'The Door Ajar'. Not a lot of people know this, but I have a fear of doors left slightly open, and I will not sit with my back to one; I've felt this way all my life. If someone leaves one slightly open, I have to shut it or open it right up. And, strangely, I do so for the same reason as Meg Black in the tale; I imagine an assailant creeping up on me and doing me to death. The second is 'Between the Leaves'. I rather like the idea of haunted books, especially ones that reveal secrets. I love finding unusual things inside dusty old volumes, but with me it tends to be tram tickets or till receipts.

It's never a good idea to assume that an author's life is reflected in the contents of his or her fiction. It's fiction after all. But I'm inclined to think that, like Christine Dupen in 'The Mills of God', Virginia Milward did indeed dislike men and have no use for them... well, the normal run of them, anyway... and that she was badly treated by one (or more). The men in her stories have a tendency to be faithless—in some cases they're downright wicked—and it is always the women who love them who pay the price... 'woman suffers and the man sins, and the man shares all the sin, but not the suffering.'

UPDATE ~ 30 May 2025

A new hardback edition of this collection is now available from Nezu Press (see cover image right). For more information, please click here.

The Other End ~ A Rambler's Perspective

The 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 collection than those who don't. Whilst only two of the tales are set almost entirely outdoors—'The Hill' and 'The Rabbit Road'—most of them have some part of their action taking place outside, where location and atmosphere are all important.

Even at night and in a remote location, a feeling of safety comes from having intimate knowledge of a path. Familiarity with a route, and the various trees and other object along it, gives a sense of sureness that is absent in an unknown environment. Walkers know this—we’re used to striding along at a decent pace in a place we know well—even in complete darkness—as opposed to stumbling along in one we don’t know at all, where every nearby sound or unusual shadowy shape brings with it a sense of unease. The same can be said, to a lesser extent, in full daylight and sunshine; I’m thinking of the film And Soon the Darkness, which terrified me the first time I watched it (and still does, in fact).

There are vast areas of the planet that contain no human life. But you don't have to go to one of those to feel isolated, unwelcome or threatened... or that you've stepped into a place that doesn't quite belong in the reality you're used to and comfortable with. I've wandered off track enough times to know what it feels like when you trespass into an area where you don't belong. I don't mean that it's private land that belongs to an irate farmer; I'm talking about a place, or something within it, not welcoming my human presence. There's an atmosphere about some locations; the strangeness of them is right—it's real—and it's the presence of a human being that is somehow wrong and odd. And the stories in  The Other End are full of that atmosphere; a place or event is strange, threatening... other... but somehow totally real and accepted without question. And that's what makes it all the more unsettling. As one reviewer wrote, when The Other End was published in 1923, the effectiveness of the stories rests 'on the sense of the vital reality of these unrecognised powers, whose presence seems, indeed, less an intrusion upon our world than upon theirs.'

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about while walking in the woods, in the dark, in the night: that The Other End may be especially suited to ramblers. I just thought I'd share my thoughts with you today, which just happens to be the publication day of the new Nezu Press edition. Oh, and happy Valentine's Day!

PS—If you'd like to buy a copy from Nezu Press, click here.

The Other End ~ R. Ellis Roberts

While 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 reviews and articles to a number of periodicals, including the Daily News, Observer, Empire Review, London Mercury, Bookman, Saturday Review, and Guardian. He was literary editor for the New Statesman and Time and Tide, and he hosted a book review programme for BBC Radio. In 1923, his only collection of uncanny short stories, The Other End, was published by Cecil Palmer and received glowing reviews. The critic for the Bookman declared the author ‘as well able to write stories of his own as to criticise those of others’, having achieved a mastery of his subject that at times ‘challenges comparison with Poe and Hawthorne’. And Gerald Gould, in the Saturday Review, suggested that no nervous person should read the book when ‘alone at night in a remote cottage on a lonely moor’. 

And yet, these days he's pretty much forgotten. I really can't understand why nobody's brought out a new edition of his collection of uncanny tales before; they're so good. But then, so many writers are chucked by the wayside once they kick the bucket. It's very sad.

Anyway, this new edition of The Other End, along with the contents of the first edition, includes four reviews written by R. Ellis Roberts about the work of Arthur Machen, of whom he was an admirer. The reviews were written for the Bookman, Daily News, and Sewanee Review. It also includes a biographical essay by me: ‘R. Ellis Roberts: The Critic Who Read for Pleasure’.

I'll post more about the book later, but for now I'll just say that you can pre-order it directly from Nezu Press (Publisher shop: Click here). Or you can do so from the usual online retailers; the book will be showing up in all the usual places soon.

Nezu Press, 14 February 2024.
978-1-7393921-7-8.
Hardback with dust jacket, 258 pages.

Out of the Ages ~ Devereux Pryce

Out of the Ages by Devereux Pryce was published by Leonard Parsons in 1923, less than a year after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun when the world had gone mad with Tut-mania.

We modern folks know, mainly due to all that Tut-mania, that there are certain rules pertaining to Egypt—in particular to its tombs and mummies—that, when followed without fail, aid in our safe journey through this life. One of them is... never remove things from the tombs of murdered Egyptian priestesses! 

Unfortunately for the characters in this novel, nobody told them about this.

I love a good mummy or cursed artefact story. I've been fascinated by ancient Egypt since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and one of my favourite films when I was a tiddler was Hammer's The Mummy (1959), which starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. So, I was chuffed to come across a copy of Out of the Ages.

So, what's the novel about? Well, for the first ten chapters (there are thirty-four in total) it concerns the relationship between three people: Thira Colquhoun, a rich and beautiful married woman who's used to getting what she wants; Jack Winthrop, the handsome fellow who Thira is determined to get her paws on; and Janet Baxter, the only woman whose paws Jack has any genuine interest in. Janet is innocent, Thira is manipulative, and Jack is often uncomfortable.

For reasons I won't go into, because it would give too much away, Jack ends up overseas, and Thira gets into something of a state. Her husband suggests a long cruise, and Thira's all for it—ostensibly for the sake of improving her health, though in truth as a means of following Jack—so off they go, with a group of friends for company. During their travels, the Colquhouns and their chums sail up the Nile and meet Professor Tremaine and his group, and the archaeologist invites them to visit a recently excavated tomb. As I mentioned above, nobody warned them about Egyptian mummies, curses, and all that wonderful stuff, so one of them does exactly what she should never have done... she removes an ancient cylinder as a keepsake.

Obviously, strange things happen... strange, bad things.

Thira is a thoroughly horrid creature. For the life of me, I can't understand what anyone would see in her. Why are chaps so darned thick where women are concerned? The novel is restrained, not at all sensational and full of blood—in fact, there isn't any really, just a few dribbles—but I found myself praying it would make an exception in her case. 

So, what did I think of it? Well, for a start, I found the pace to be just right. I also felt that the conjuring of oppressive atmosphere within the excavated tomb was excellent. As someone who's claustrophobic, that airless, lightless underground complex gave me the heebies (at the same time, oh, to be there when these tombs were first opened... seeing those 'wonderful things!'). Anyway, it all appealed to me. And if you're a fan of Hammer-type mummy doings, it will appeal to you too.

Unfortunately, it's an extremely rare book. When I stumbled across my copy, there wasn't another for sale online, and I couldn't find any record of one having been for sale recently. So, I can't say what the likely cost would be, but we'd be talking hundreds rather than ten of pounds/dollars.

UPDATE:

Nezu Press will publish a new edition of Out of the Ages on 25 January 2025 (see cover image on the left). You can read more about it on this blog by clicking here, and order it from the Nezu Press site by clicking here.