Edited by Stephen Jones
H. P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural makes the case again for the stature of contributions to the supernatural horror genre in the 19th century.
This collection's predecessor, H. P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror (1993), was one of my early "universities." Prior to it, T.E.D. Klein's pieces in Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine ("Dr. Van Helsing's Handy Guide to Ghost Stories") were all we had out in the sticks.
H. P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural lets appropriate passages from Supernatural Horror in Literature introduce the selected stories.
The Tale of the German Student
Irving, first of U.S. supernatural writers, here reports on horrors encountered in Paris. Irving's finest tales are set in North America, but this is brief, sharp stuff. When the story ends, the reader will never see a woman wearing a ribbon around her neck and remain unmoved.
The Voice in the Night
Nothing supernatural here, of course. Just a couple of nighttime conversations somewhere in the Pacific. The abject misery of the tale told by the couple in the open boat has a dreadful inevitability.
Markheim
A story of crime turns itself inside-out as the perpetrator realizes he has placed himself in crosshairs of the uncanny.
Who Knows?
"Who Knows?" is droller than "The Horla." Its narrator does not end up burning down his house with the servants locked inside. Instead, he finds a happy hideaway in a bungalow on the grounds of an asylum.
A man might survive coming home one night to see his furniture walking out of his house, but knowing the furniture returns by the same method months later is too much for anyone.
The Invisible Eye
Erckmann-Chatrian's bold and arresting story of a haunted room whose occupants all suffer the same fate is a perfect thriller. The theme of ruination at the hands of a greedy landlord has been seriously underused.
The Villa Désirée
May Sinclair's elegant prose weighs the worth and failings of her characters, a reaper's blade. The Wharton milieu of bourgeois Americans trailing illusions and scandals through old Europe.
....Martha had brought hot coffee and rolls. They sat down at the other side of the table and looked at her with kind anxious eyes as she turned sideways, watching the lane.
"Rolf," she said suddenly, "do you know anything about Louis Carson?"
She could see them looking now at each other.
"Nothing. Only the things the people here say."
"What sort of things?"
"Don't tell her, Rolf."
"Yes. He must tell me. I've got to know."
She had no feeling left but horror, horror that nothing could intensify.
"There's not much. Except that he was always having women with him up there. Not particularly nice women. He seems," Rolf said, "to have been rather an appalling beast."
"Must have been," said Martha, "to have brought his poor little wife there, after——"
"Rolf, what did Mrs. Carson die of?"
"Don't ask me," he said.
But Martha answered: "She died of fright. She saw something. I told you the place was beastly."
The Wind in the Rose-Bush
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman gives us a fine battle of wits between Rebecca Flint and Mrs. Dent. Rebecca has come to Ford Village to collect her niece, who has been living with the Dents for several years. Mrs. Dent is a silent, tricky liar, thwarting Rebecca's search at every turn.
The Captain of the Pole-Star
This is the younger Conan Doyle, the man attuned to the uncanny, using a pen that spun gold. The story is clearly inspired by a voyage he took as ship's doctor on a whaler.
The weird North, with which Shiel launched The Purple Cloud, is beautifully evoked: shipboard claustrophobia, sublime perspectives across wind-scoured ice.
The Recrudescence of Imray
A marvellous picture of the ghostly in a strange land, and of the men trying to unravel it. To say nothing of the dog!
The Burial of the Rats
Stoker's short stories, windy and diffuse, test the reader's patience without counterbalancing frissons as reward.
"The Burial of the Rats" particularly breaks the prime directive of fiction: to charm the reader and leave them wanting more. Alas, here we get all the crime/adventure cliches save the kitchen sink.
At least the movie version had Adrienne Barbeau.
The Red Lodge
Wakefield wrote many fine stories. "The Red Lodge" has been in every anthology for nine decades. It is effective in creating a mood where a cough scares both reader and protagonists simultaneously.
Jay
11 October 2020
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