Six 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 he was a pivotal figure in the Arts and Crafts Moment. He was a keen traveller, an antiquarian, a scholar, and an accomplished writer; his histories were read in Britain, on the Continent and in the States. But he waited until he was eighty-four years old before publishing his only collection of ghost stories.

Six Ghost Stories was published in 1919 by John Murray. The tales it contains are: 'The Lady of Rosemount', 'The Ring', 'A Romance of the Picadilly Tube', 'The Eve of St John', 'Pepina', and 'The Red House'.

In 'The Lady of Rosemount', Henry Charlton is spending the long vacation at Rosemount Abbey, the recently acquired home of his uncle, Sir Thomas Wilmot. The abbey dates from the twelfth century and was once home to Benedictine monks, so old Henry, being an Oxford chap with antiquarian interests, is excited by its architecture. While exploring the ruined abbey-church with his cousins, he discovers a hidden tomb beneath overgrown weeds and brambles, on top of which is the alabaster figure of the Countess Alianora. And in the dead of night, Henry is drawn back to that alabaster beauty... fascinated by her and repelled by her in equal measure.

'The Ring' is set in Tuscany. Dr Morton, an Oxford Don and well-known antiquary, is in Tuscany to study the local folklore - la vecchia religione of the Etruscans. He and his companion, Archie Bryant, a Fellow of the same college, dream of discovering an untouched Etruscan tomb. One moonless night, with the aid of a local woman, they enter such a tomb, but Bryant comes away with a souvenir and lands himself in no end of trouble.

In 'A Romance of the Picadilly Tube', old Mr Markham adds a codicil to his will just prior to his death, and in doing so cuts out his eldest son, George, in favour of his youngest son, James. When the solicitor, Mr Harvey, falls under a tube train at Picadilly and is killed, the signed codicil falls into George's hands, which leaves the disinherited fellow in a quandary.

In 'The Eve of St John', Cecil Maynard, who has only recently inherited Castle Maynard, discovers the hidden diary of Roger Trumball, steward to his disreputable seventeenth-century ancestor, Sir Everard Maynard, who it seems did away with his wife, Hilda Tiptoft. According to the diary, Hilda asked Trumball to get word of her husband's abuse to her family, and the good steward swore to do so, whether living or dead. And when, three hundred years later, Sir Henry Tiptoft pays a call to Castle Maynard, the loyal steward has his chance.

'Pepina', before throwing herself into the canal in Naples, sends a note to Philip Cranston: 'Tell the traitor, I'll see you again at the right time'. The traitor is Sir Edward White, who had his way with the poor peasant woman and then deserted her. Three years later, Cranston's dying words, when he is murdered by Sir Edward, are: 'I leave you to Pepina'. And so the trouble begins.

In 'The Red House', William Hetherington, nephew to Sir Richard Hetherington, has got in with a bad lot and turned to highway robbery. When he robs Dicky Dawes, who is on his way to the home of Sir Richard, he is recognised. And one crime leads to another, and that leads to a haunting.

Jackson's tales have a Victorian feel. A few of his characters have antiquarian leanings, but his ghosts aren't the stuff of M R James' terrifying tales. Two of Jackson's spectres are intent on inspiring those still living to do the right thing, and one is determined to make the truth of a crime known. Only a couple of them intend harm. But despite the benevolent leanings of his phantoms, the tales are not short on atmosphere, and his living humans in some cases are bad enough to make up for the goodness of his ghosts. Also, as you'd imagine considering his profession, his architectural descriptions are excellent. In my opinion, the first two tales are the best ones.

A fine copy of the first edition of Six Ghost Stories is not a terribly easy thing to find, and if you do locate one it will most likely set you back about five hundred pounds (that's about $750).

Ash Tree Press published a limited edition hardback in 1999 (see cover right), and a fine copy of that costs forty to fifty pounds at the moment (around $55-75).

Leonaur issued The Collected Supern-atural and Weird Fiction of Thomas Graham Jackson in 2009, and that includes the six stories described here, along with 'Two Novelettes and Four Shorter Tales to Chill the Blood'. That is available as a hardback (£16.99) and paperback (£8.99).

Then there are the two Kindle editions: the Ash Tree Press edition for £4.49, and the Black Heath version for a mere ninety-nine pence. For once, readers are actually spoilt for choice with this particular book.

Fires 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 Notes', Rev. Septimus Tardell is attempting to bridge the divide between 'the old people' and 'the new set' in the town of Telmington. He decides to unite the town by reviving the Tel-mington Philharmonic Club and asks Dr Wrenshall, retired organist of Winton-bury Cathedral, to take charge. Mrs Parlington of Telming Hall, who is averse to anything toshy, is asked to be the club's patroness. But Mrs Parlington is used to getting her own way, and when the club performs Sir Cuthbert Kewbridge's latest work, Northern Lights, she is determined to change one note in the composition. And she's not about to let anything stop her from doing so.

In 'Cheap and Nasty', Tom and Kathleen Cromley have purchased their new home, Thurbourne Manor, for a song. But following a visit by the writer Aubrey Roddeck, Mrs Cromley becomes nervous and is less than happy with the house. For Roddeck claims that he can sense in the atmosphere of a house reflections of its past or future. In the former, it can be called 'haunted', and in the latter it can be called 'waiting', and in the case of the Cromleys' house, according to Roddeck, it is definitely 'waiting'.

In 'Grey Brothers', Hilary Hillbarn is Assistant Entomologist to the Takeokuta Museum, Kongea; he is responsible for collecting specimens to add to the museum's collection. When complaints are made against Hillbarn regarding his choice of location for his explorations - the Nywedda valley, which is said to be the home of devils and disease - and an assistant dies whilst in the field with him, an enquiry into the matter is instituted, after which Hillbarn disappears into the jungle. When Hillbarn declares himself king of Nywedda, a band of four men are dispatched to retrieve him.

'Quintet' is a comical tale about a party of five who are waiting to see in the new year at Brindlestone Manor and decide to tell ghost stories. Aunt Susan goes first with a story about her ghostly bedside companion. Uncle Philip tells a tale of a reappearing gravestone. And Vernon Ruthwell's amusing story concerns a secondhand suit that appears to have a life of its own.

In 'Authorship Disputed', Eustace Amberlake and Terrence Terrison have been virtually inseparable since their days at Oxford. Amberlake was thought destined for great things. However, it is Terrison who has experienced success instead. But when Terrison dies suddenly, at the age of thirty-four, Amberlake explains the true cause of his old friend's success.

In 'Final Touches', Ridley Prandell retires to the old mill-house at Boldrington. His family once belonged to area, and he discovers that there is an ongoing feud between the Perrandales (a variant spelling of Prandell) and the Farribals, as each family once cursed the other. No Perrandale will take the bridle-path to Knapton at night, and no Farribal will use the footpath to the north of the village green, for fear of being 'touched'. Prandell, curiosity getting the better of him, decides to walk to Knapton by moonlight, to find out for himself what being 'touched' is like.

In 'What's in a Name?', when Mr and Mrs Transome name their baby boy Ronald Austin Transome, Uncle Charles insists that a child with such initials will eventually be nicknamed 'Rat', and he turns out to be right. When Rat is six years old, he is given a white rat by the gardener, and he names the little fellow Snattajin. Fond of the idea of witches, Rat thinks of Snattajin as his familiar. And there is indeed an unusual bond between the boy and his furry little companion. This is one of my favourites from this collection.

In 'Under the Mistletoe', Jim Wrightaway, manager of the Liston estate in Kongea, refuses to disturb a number of Tebanco trees because his Kongean labourers believe the mistletoe-like clumps that attach themselves to the trees are inhabited by evil spirits. Craigley, his neighbour, believes it is Wrightaway himself who is afraid of ghosts and plans to play a prank on him. Hearing about this, Atterside, another neighbour, decides to play his own prank on Craigley, with terrible consequences.

In 'His Name Was Legion', Reverend Vernon Vinetree is rather put out that Mr Tresdale, a wealthy local, is putting out a magazine called the Kidbury Notebook. It is not just the title of the magazine, which is too similar to the reverend's own Kidbury Parish Notes, that is causing the trouble. It isn't just the atheistic tone of some of the pieces. It is the fact that the magazine contains articles and verses which Tresdale claims are written by spirits. I rather like the last three sets of verses in this story, especially 'Five-Fingered Exercise'.

The fire burns blue with caves of green,

A Hand amid the coals is seen,

A shrivelled hand with fingers charred:

The three who watch are breathing hard...

'Tell Tale but True' consists of two stories, 'A Phantom Butler' and 'Diplotopia', both of which the narrator claims to be true. In the first, Tertius Holyoak Burnstable is British Officer-in-Charge of the small Malay state of Penyabong. His butler, Ahmad, is away and down with malaria, but when Lord Lettiswood pays a visit Ahmad isn't about to let his master down by remaining absent. The second tale is about odd goings on at the old Fort house in Sialang, which is said to be haunted.

'A Book Entry' concerns the mysterious signing of the name 'U. Nomi' in the Government House calling-book in Takeokuta. Toby Lushmoor, private secretary to Sir Oscar Sallerton, the governor of Takeokuta, starts an investigation into the identity of the mysterious scribbler and receives proof that past crimes always catch up with you in the end.

In 'Seeds of Remembrance', Eustace Brayne has just inherited Sheldrake Hall from his Uncle Malcolm. Going through his uncle's accounts, he finds certain discrepancies and decides to investigate them further. Then, reading his uncle's diary, he discovers that the old man was sent a packet of seeds by a woman who claimed he had killed her husband... seeds that assisted him in remembering and settling his debts.

Whilst 'Seated One Day at the Organ', Mr R. Fulstowe, the organist, collapses and falls over the instrument during evensong, creating such a loud and discordant sound that the Abbey pews quiver. The cause of his collapse is a replacement mirror above the organ console, or rather what it reflects back at the viewer. This is another of my favourites.

The first edition of Fires Burn Blue is rather difficult to find in fine condition, and a copy will set you back about fifty pounds if you do find one (that's around $75). Ash Tree Press published a limited edition hardback in 2002, and that includes both this and Caldecott's first collection, but that's long out of print. A fine copy with the jacket costs around thirty pounds upwards at the moment (about $45), but there aren't many of those about now. Wordsworth Editions published the paperback Not Exactly Ghosts and Fires Burn Blue in 2007, but that's also out of print. I haven't come across a Kindle edition.

November Night Tales ~ Henry C. Mercer

Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930) was a man of numerous talents. He was a lawyer, archaeologist, antiquarian, ceramist, curator, author and historian, amongst other things. He was founder of the Mercer Museum, which houses Mercer's vast collection of objects from the pre-industrial age, and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, both of which are located in his hometown of Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He was also the author, at the end of his life, of an incredibly neglected book of uncanny stories, November Night Tales, which was first published by Walter Neale in 1928.

The collection has just been republished by Swan River Press, with the additional tale 'The Well of Monte Corbo', which was first published by the Bucks County Historical Society in 1930.

In 'Castle Valley', one summer day the narrator, Charlie Meredith, encounters his old friend Pryor, an artist whom he hasn't seen for years, painting in the vicinity of Castle Valley Hill. Pryor has painted a view of the hill, and upon the top of it he has placed a castle, without knowing that there once was one, or the beginnings of one at least, in that very spot. A few days later, the two men go exploring the site, and they spy something glittering in the brambles. The object turns out to be a large piece of rock crystal - a scrying stone. But using the crystal brings about unforeseen consequences.

In 'The North Ferry Bridge', the narrator is a young doctor only recently arrived in Bridgenorth. He occupies the house that was once tenanted by the great chemist Dr. Gooch, who killed his assistant, turned rats into cholera-carrying murder weapons, and vowed revenge upon the judge and the town who condemned and imprisoned him. This tale is the inspiration for the dust jacket design.

Pryor, the artist, reappears in 'The Blackbirds'. It is his birthday, but he's been warned by his spiritualist advisor that a calamity will befall him on this very day. Charles Carrington, a dramatist, and his friend Arthur Norton are surprised to bump into Pryor in the street, as they think he's fled town to avoid his calamity. The three men decide to head off to Deadlock Meadow together. But once there, poor old Pryor disappears.

'The Wolf Book', is the story of the discovery, by a certain professor, of a precious but unholy manuscript at the Monastery of Jollok in the Carpathian mountains. In search of lost treasures, the professor purchases what he thinks is a worthless farm ledger, contained within a two foot long cylinder. Upon opening the ledger, however, he discovers a second manuscript - a Wolf Book - which he then has sealed up in a tin for safekeeping. But the professor isn't the only one interested in this manuscript, and werewolves are said to be able to sniff them out... even if they are concealed inside tin cans.

Charles Carrington, the dramatist, returns in 'The Dolls' Castle'. Carrington takes his friend George Westbrook to see an uninhabited house in Belbridge Street that has the reputation of being haunted, and whilst there he is approached by a man and a little girl, whom he later believes to be ghosts. Westbrook, however, is not convinced. A year passes, and all thoughts of ghosts disappear, until Carrington bumps into his old friend Dorrance, the lawyer responsible for letting the house on Belbridge Street. Having secured the keys, Carrington invites Westbrook to investigate the house with him, with terrible consequences.

The narrator of 'The Sunken City' is a mining engineer who, travelling back from the Vars-Palanka mines at Borsowitz to the city of Ragusa in southern Italy, finds a leather-bound volume by the historian Ammianus, which refers to a statue of Aesculapius being lost when the city of Epidaurus sank. The purchase from a local fisherman of an ancient bronze lamp, which appears to bear an image of Aesculapius, sets our narrator off on a quest to find out more about his relic, and about the old book and the sunken city, but he's not the only one interested in such things.

In 'The Well of Monte Corbo', the narrator is taking a holiday in Frankfort-on-the-Main when he encounters his old friend Theodoric Barron. Barron introduces him to Doctor Lysander, who believes he has found a castle that was sketched by Dürer. According to the Doctor, while sketching the castle, Dürer was attacked by robbers, and he threw a valuable relic, rescued from a church burned by Hussites and said to have belonged to John the Baptist, into the castle well in order to keep it safe. When a similar print by Titian is uncovered, a search for the castle and its treasure ensues in Monte Corbo.

Not all of the tales in this collection have a supernatural theme, and the supernatural elements when present are understated, even in 'The Dolls' Castle' with its rather shocking conclusion. But fate (or coincidence, depending on your viewpoint) is a connecting thread throughout. And the standard of writing is consistently high; there isn't a bad tale here. Mercer was a very learned fellow, but he never allows his knowledge of any subject to swamp a story, as some clever folks are wont to do; the information he imparts is always necessary for the development of the tale. He also seems to have had a limitless imagination, and if the contents of this collection are anything to go by he could have produced many more fascinating stories if he'd chosen to. Unfortunately, this one collection is all he left us, which is a sad shame. I enjoyed it immensely, especially 'The Wolf Book'.

November Night Tales was published as a limited edition of three hundred hardback copies and is available from the Swan River Press web site for thirty euros. Coincidentally, (or was it fated?) Valancourt Books has released a paperback edition of the same collection, and that costs £10.99. Or there's the kindle edition which currently costs £4.61.

Phantoms and Fiends ~ R. Chetwynd-Hayes

Phantoms and Fiends by Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes was published by Robert Hale in 2000. It contains twenty-one stories and an afterword, 'On Writing and Wraiths'. It has an excellent cover design by Edward Miller (Les Edwards).

When the narrator of 'Moving Day', David Greenfield, moves from his flat into the home of his three great-aunts, he finds that they are obsessed with all things related to death, and especially to moving... the thing that has locals hiding behind tightly closed curtains at night and will, according to the local clergyman, bring the newspaper lot beating a trail to their doors if nobody puts a stop to it.

In 'She Walks on Dry Land', it is the year 1812 and Charles Devereux, Fourth Earl of Montcalm, having arrived in the village of Denham with his servant Patrick, demands rooms for the night at The Limping Sailor inn, but the landlord refuses him. Village elder Josiah Woodward warns, 'come nightfall it bodes ill for any stranger found within the confines of this village', but Devereux is far too stubborn to listen.

In 'The Bodmin Terror', James, an artist, is told by his doctor that he must have peace or face a nervous breakdown, so he decides to go on a motoring holiday to Cornwall with his wife Lydia, who is anything but peaceful. When the car breaks down on the way to Lizard, an old woman emerges from the ice-chilled mist and beckons them to follow her, but the old crone has an ulterior motive for coming to the couple's aid.

'A Chill to the Sunlight' is set in Jamaica. The narrator, Harry Masters, is in a rum-shop eyeing up the local ladies of the night, trying to choose one to fulfil his needs, when he encounters Lydia... who works out of room 7 and daren't take anyone back to her house.

In 'The Catomado', Martin is quite determined to murder his wife, Myna, to get his hands on her insurance money and avoid having to eat any more sausages. But unfortunately for him, she's a Catomado. And Catomado can't be hurt and don't age; they just fade away at the age of one hundred and four.

In 'Regression', David Masters has decided to commit suicide. Whilst waiting for the pills he's taken to have the desired effect, he wonders aloud what he would choose if he were given a choice of afterlife. He decides he would like to go back to the period in his life when he was most happy, then finds himself sitting at his desk at school in 1936, in the period just prior to his father being killed by a ten-ton truck. Is he being given a second chance so that he can prevent his father's death and change the course of history?

In 'Matthew and Luke', Matthew Bayswater, a go-ahead young man, almost drowns in a swimming accident. He is given the kiss of life by a passing stranger and survives, but he has been dead for seven and a half minutes. And seven and a half minutes is all it takes to release Luke, his doppelgänger.

The narrator of 'Growth', Henry Broadfield, a man of unquenchable curiosity, persuades the physical medium Helen Watkins, who is able to produce ectoplasm that takes the form of the dear departed, to grant him a private sitting. Being unquenchably curious, Henry lops off a six-inch piece of living ectoplasm during the sitting, then begins feeding it live worms. But the 'ectop', as he calls it, has an insatiable appetite.

For me, the next three stories (and 'Shipwreck') are the weakest in the collection. In 'Born This Night', Gerald Smollet finds himself at a party, witnessing the black birth. 'The Sad Ghost' is a young man who, having been crossed in love, took his own life and now haunts the house that John Smith and his family have just moved into. And the narrator of 'The Thing' is in a bar, knocking back whiskies in the company of a young prostitute, when Rodney enters, bringing with him the Thing, a tall black-robed phantom that feeds off the young man's experiences.

In 'The Underground', Laura Munro, a middle-aged spinster who has always been a bit afraid of the Underground, is drawn to the shade of a young Second World War soldier she first encounters on the platform at Charing Cross tube station one snowy night. While her father tries to push her into a loveless marriage, Laura begins seeking out the soldier, uncovering a secret about her own family history in the process.

In 'Shipwreck', Sarcan's spaceship crash lands on Earth after being shot by an enemy craft. Sarcan, officer of the Imperial Ulterian Galactic Space Force, comes from a race of beings that are able to take on the form of any living thing, by sucking the life out of it like a vampire. He takes on the form of a gorse bush, then a hare, and then he encounters Sydney J. Beecham, a junior advertising executive from London.

The 'Strange People' are George Bramfield and his wife Alice, the couple who become the narrator's foster parents when his mother and father are killed in a car accident. Uncle George, as the narrator calls him, has to have his leg amputated, but after the operation he decides he wants his leg back.

When the fragile young narrator of 'Fog Ghost' ventures out into the foggy night and is taken ill, a dirty and somewhat demented woman saves his life by dragging him out of the cold air and into her filthy home. She begs him to stay with her, but once the fog clears he flees home to what he mistakenly assumes is safety.

In 'The Frankenstein Syndrome', Morris Smith is a genius who wants to create a new life form. And create one he does... a life form that slithers and jumps, goes for the mouth, sucks the warmth from any living creature in its vicinity, and shouldn't ever be allowed to attach itself to 'anything that protrudes'. This particular story is too gruesome for me... surprisingly graphic. I have a delicate constitution.

In 'My Dear Wife', Henry Parkington has affairs with women he isn't particularly fond of in order to torment his wife Georgina. He derives pleasure from her pain, knowing that no matter how many times she leaves him she will always return. As will all the women who get tangled up with him, including his latest little indiscretion, Sheila Mayfield.

In 'A Sin of Omission', Mr Faversham is accosted by a man in a cloth cap who claims to have a dicky ticker and wants to borrow a fiver. When the cloth-capped man becomes menacing, Faversham makes a run for it. And when, in hot pursuit, the cloth-capped man collapses on the pavement, Faversham leaves him to die. At the subsequent inquest, the examining doctor can give no explanation for the disappearance of a tattoo of a large black snake from the dead man's body.

In 'Feet of Clay', John Broadfield becomes obsessed with Josie Wagnor, a girl with whom he works at Elder Hawkins' greengrocer's shop. Fearing she is involved with another man, he follows her when she leaves work, setting in motion a series of events that lead to tragedy.

In 'Non-Paying Passengers', Percy Fortesque is quite taken aback when he sees the face of his dead wife, Doris, staring at him from the window of the five-forty-five train from Waterloo. He seeks advice from Madame Orloff, Medium Extraordinaire, who tells him that he is being haunted because, having narrowly avoided death, he is overdue... something that Doris aims to put right, with the help of her dead parents.

In 'It Came to Dinner', Herbert comes across a dilapidated old house, with uncurtained windows and open front door, and assumes it must be uninhabited. He decides to spend the night. But the isolated house is not empty; it is owned by the Carruthers family, and Herbert is invited to stay the night. At dinner, Herbert notices uncomfortably that his hosts enjoy their food to the point of gluttony... especially their meat. Being a vegetarian, this story made my knees a bit weak.

There are a few stories in this collection that I really like, such as 'Moving Day', 'Regression' and 'The Underground', and a couple that made my stomach do somersaults - 'The Frankenstein Syndrome' and, even more so, 'It Came to Dinner'. Mr Chetwynd-Hayes doesn't appear to have liked mothers-in-law... or wives... or women in general. Or, if he did like them, he didn't think they were all that bright. And his tales certainly aren't a positive advertisement for the institution of marriage. But many are funny, some are sad, and most are entertaining.

It's not all that easy to find a decent copy of this book. I managed to get hold of a fine copy a couple of years back for forty pounds, but I haven't seen another one since, and the only one on Abe at the moment is a reading copy for over a hundred pounds (more than $150). However, all but two of the tales - 'Born This Night' and 'Feet of Clay' - have been published elsewhere.