I Would Haunt You If I Could by Sean Padraic Birnie, Undertow Publications / Infra-Noir 2020 (2021), Zagava / Albertine's Wooers

Editorial: Firstly, a notification sent to me by Editor, Matthew Walther: 'I am writing to pass along the details of a ghost story contest being sponsored by The Lamp magazine that may be of interest to readers of The Pan Review: https://thelampmagazine.com/2021/06/24/the-lamp-christmas-ghost-story-contest/ The winner will receive $1000; two runners up will receive $300 each. All best wishes, Matthew Walther.'

On his website, Sean Birnie describes himself as 'a Technical Demonstrator on the Photography programmes at the University of Brighton, where I deliver beginner and advanced workshops in Adobe applications such as Photoshop and InDesign, studio lighting, and preparation for digital print, and install degree shows, among other things.'  His literary art is more evocative of the paintings of Francis Bacon, the focus being the macabre physical – as well as psychological - descent of the human condition. The role of infection in sado-masochistic relationships is the prominent theme across the collection. In the tales 'New To It All,' 'Like A Zip,' 'Holes' and 'You Know What To Do,' pain is utilised as a weapon of control. 'New To It All' has the narrator recount the previously unexperienced sexual habits that (unwittingly?) drew him to his relationships. 'Hand Me Down' finds a new mother's growing paranoia for the safety of her child turn into something entirely. 'Holes' sees a man's quickly growing rash spread to his partner after he already harbours fear for his disappearance.

  In 'I Would Haunt You If I Could,' again, infection, stains and encroaching entropy foreground the title tale, and quietly compelling it is too; especially if, like yours truly, you live as a bachelor in rented accommodation. 'You Know What To Do' is my favourite here. A successful new entry in the library of the uncanny, a husband's obsession with the apparently hidden room behind the cupboard under the stairs holds a fascination, which may – or may not – be exerting a dangerous, unspoken obsession.

  In 'Dollface,' the question that hangs over the narrative is whether or not a daughter's doll is possessed. Is the father obsessed? (My hunch). Or, since it bears an alleged physical human trait, is the doll even a doll? Only the final tale – 'Other Houses' – which sees the narrator plagued with guilt over the younger sister he believes he pushed into a pond when children, didn't quite hold my attention to the end. Still, as with the previous tales, Birnie displays a superior knack for the uncanny that I so favour. This collection is a solid addition to the library for lovers of quiet horror and an undoubtedly assured debut.

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Infra-Noir 2020 collects all eleven chapbooks, released across last year, in a single volume. 'Craft' - DP Watt's opening contribution demonstrates how the perishability of art can spawn its own unexpected legacy. In 'The Clerks Of The Invisible' - the first of two Mark Valentine tales - a dying bookseller entrusts his literary estate to his chief cataloguer, with the view to contacting interested agents to seek out a mysterious book 'that mattered to him most.' The slenderest of tales by page-count, it is, however, the kind of springboard Orson Welles might have run with to manifest as an on-screen magnum opus. 'The Idyll Is Over' shines with beauty, being one of Jonathan Wood's introspective prose poems.

  'Codex Of Light' by Karim Ghahwagi has a monastic society holding candlelight and its smoke in censorious and holy esteem. 'Posterity' by Mark Samuels highlights Sybil Court, 'scholarly trailblazer of posthumous interest in the fiction of Rupert Alderman.' Court feels her reputation as an Alderman scholar could be questioned by her academic-only interpretations rather than primary research of his extant archive. (It's surely no coincidence that the late fictitious author with increasingly remote, right-wing leanings shares the initials of another English author of strange stories).

  In 'Ancestor Water' by Rebecca Lloyd (of the great Gothic novel of 2019, The Child Cephalina) an immigrant daughter, naturalised by her time in London, discovers her visiting mother alienated by her Western traits. 'Stained Medium' – the second Mark Valentine – features a bookish student of modern Gnosticism encounters one aged whose own experience is revealed as much closer to home. On a not dissimilar theme, 'The Purblind Bards' by Timothy Jarvis finds one of a band of bardic outcasts in a seaside town reflect upon what brought him to his becoming. 'The Wet Woman' - An out-of-condition actor, about to take on a new film role, is sent by his agent to a health farm to get back into shape. A late lover and rival adds some dark interest to his reluctant presence.

  'A House Of Treasures' – Familial intrigue surrounding the presence and significance of Noah Court – discovered in a unique photograph - makes for my new favourite Ray Russell tale. 'Home Comforts' – Sheltering from a downpour in a shop of this name, Megan is shocked to discover that a stuffed, life-size figure in the window is referred to as a real person who works next door. To her own puzzlement, she expresses a determination to purchase it.

  Clocking in at a modest, but sufficient, 187 pages, this is one of the more accessible Zagava releases, in a form I hope is repeated in future years. A very worthy primer to this publisher.

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                                   Albertine's Wooers

Reggie Oliver's eighth collection – A Maze For The Minotaur – is soon to be released by Tartarus Press...who've also just released a slipcase of two thorough collections-in-one of Oliver Onions tales...Swan River Press follows up its popular first Green Book of 'exclusive' short tales (issue 15) with a second (issue 17)...Valancourt have reissued some choice paperback titles in hardback. Speaking of which, the British Library's publishing arm has just released a collection of six-of-the-best by Margaret Oliphant, The Open Door And Other Stories Of The Seen & Unseen.

Mills Of Silence by Charles Wilkinson, Egaeus Press / Through A Looking Glass Darkly by Jake Fior, AliceLooking Books

A new Wilkinson collection is fast becoming something of an event. Again, in the avoidance of showing his roots, he doesn't disappoint in this, his third. 

  In 'The Immaterialists,' the enigmatic Mr Zym was a small publisher of unlogged poetry whose enigma has outlived his work. But, has his enigma outlived him? A literary student investigates, despite his dismissive tutor fearing Zym had "a bubble reputation, long since popped." The revenant figure of a bald-headed man, close to the former's rooms, appears portentous, unavoidably bringing immediacy to his research.

  Oftentimes, such territory is handled with a dryness that doesn't quite succeed in engaging, or displays a colloquial familiarity that too soon dispels the mystery. Wilkinson, however, strikes the perfect balance. The final line devastates.

  The trope of familial psychological breakdown links some of the following tales. 'A Coastal Quest' sees a woman leave behind her husband and children to go in search of a 'happier life.' The quest ultimately reveals her true whereabouts and true role as narrator; as unreliable to herself as to us. 'The Surrey Alterations' – an uncanny tale of State coercion, which has – with the best – meaning beneath it's surface. 'Beyond The Lace' harbours a near-impenetrable ambiguity, where the initial scenario of a stepfather caring for a fantasist stepdaughter in the wake of her mother's death in a car accident gradually shifts as his own perception proves unreliable. Typical of Wilkinson is his ability to implicate so much in so few pages.

  In 'These Words, Rising From Stone,' a male poet appears silently persecuted by the ghostly presence of a female rival and a curse he'd purposely overlooked. 'The Private Thinker' – The precocious godson of a High Court judge invites a related former school 'friend' to make an inventory of his late father's property. When the godson encounters the spirit of the Judge, he also discovers another spirit with what may be an ulterior motive. 'Evening at the Aubergine Cafe' sees a Godot-like scenario where two men – denied their past identities and trapped by absent memory in a prison-like edgeland – live reductive lives around the cafe of the title.

  SF territory redolent of 'A Clockwork Orange' predominate over the following two tales. 'To Sharpen, Spin' sees an abusive familial relationship the lesser of two evils in a society where personal identity is passe. 'Septs' continues this theme, where the featured boy has succumbed, squatting in properties already squatted in, towards a new pagan dawn.

The virtual life is the norm in the society drawn in 'The Migration of Memories.' An ingenious tale, with a domestic take on its legal and personal consequences. A male newly-retired, who finds his domestic life is anything but his own, forms the basis of 'The Horseshoe Homes,' with intimations of both The Prisoner and Animal Farm.

  'Mills of Silence' – a novella – ends the collection. A cloak-and-dagger tale set in Paris, involving missed appointments, a psychotic former philosopher and war reporter, rumblings in the next hotel room, the trail of an elusive walking 'wound,' and the production of miniature wooden guillotines. Derivative it is not. The ambiguous perceptions – Wilkinson's hallmark – pervade the narratives throughout. Speed-reading Wilkinson denies the disturbing effect only achievable through steady progression. The consequence of so doing reveals, in all positive ways, that he's done it again.

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Synchronicity is defined as 'the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.' Whatever the genre, synchronicity is the guiding creative force for writers. More often than not, you must make your own opportunities to advance towards your goal; but, sometimes, fortune – disguised as chance - appears merely in wait for discovery. For Jake Fior – boutique proprietor of Alice Through The Looking Glass, 14, Cecil Court, London – this book grew out of his specialist field of interest: www.alicelooking.co.uk

  As a ruse to avoid her mother, having failed her Maths exam, Fior's Alice Liddell absconds to the High Street charity shops. The last she visits displays, amongst the bric-a-brac, a full-length, antique looking-glass. On getting it back to her room, she discovers a rear label, a former purchaser name, its owner's name of Bishop Berkeley, and its provenance from 'the Dodgson sale of 1898.' It is from here where fact and fiction merge as contemporary objet d'art related to Carroll find linkage to Fior.

  Through a Looking Glass Darkly – subtitled 'a reimagination' – draws upon real-life familial links between Carroll and The Golden Dawn. Interspersing Fior's version of Carroll's second 'Alice' text with darker parallel scenes featuring leadership rivals Aleister Crowley and Samual Mathers in a metaphorical battle to gain ascendency. (Again, based upon an alleged historical event).

  Fior tells me that, 'as an overview I'd estimate that I've retained about 35% of Carroll's original text and the bravura moments almost verbatim.' He adds: 'The text itself has some allusions that don't get explained in the afterword, but I wanted to leave some things ambiguous so that people can find their own meanings in them.' As a reader, I'd have welcomed an additional scene or two featuring Crowley and Mathers, those present being wonderfully evocative; however, as a writer, I understand how one can get sidetracked by scenes parallel to the prioritised body of text.

  This is, perhaps, more an art book than a conventional novel; more so than the original work, in content, while the dark presence of Crowley doesn't deprive the text of its appeal to older children. For any collector, it is certainly worth purchasing for the additions. There feature three entirely new Tenniel illustrations, newly coloured by Kate Hepburn and Fior himself. Images of demons – credited to E.A.P., 1847 - are augmented by a night sky vista from a photograph from the 1880s'. Fior himself re-drew Alice in the cover image of her emerging from the Looking-Glass, hand-coloured, rather than photo-shopped, heightening the contemporary feel.

  'It was quite a meticulous process. There's also been a lot of care in the design. The Mathers / Crowley sections that intersperse the central text have a different typeface headline to introduce them. This is a modern version of the typeface as used on the spine of the first edition of The Wind in the Willows (which is another reason I'm flattered to be included in The Pan Review).' From whichever field of interest you come to this book, the production alone will delight.

  I began by defining synchronicity. You'll note that the first tale of Charles Wilkinson's third collection is called 'The Immaterialists.' I'd never heard the term before and wondered about its definition. In the afterword, about six pages from the end of Fior's book - entirely different in subject matter and content to Wilkinson's - the author not only uses it, but tells me. His theme – eerily enough - is synchronicity.

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Albertine's Wooers

Steve Toase's first collection - To Drown In Dark Water – is out from Undertow; Paul Draper's slender volume of folk horror – Black Gate Tales – is out via Createspace; Sundial Press are about to release a paperback version of their out-of-print hardback classic, the Jamesian The Alabaster Hand; speaking of which, Robert Lloyd Parry's Ghosts Of The Chit-Chat has also been re-released in paperback by Swan River Press; a selected 'best of' of Lisa Tuttle's work – The Dead Hours Of Night – is out from Valancourt; Snuggly Tales Of Hashish And Opium gathers together more themed fin-de-siecle gems – many for the first time in English - by Baudelaire, Gautier, Schwob, Lorrain and others.

The Death Spancel & Others by Katharine Tynan, Swan River Press / Beatific Vermin by D.P. Watt, (Keynote Edition VII) Egaeus Press / Glamour Ghoul – The Passions And Pain Of The Real Vampira, Maila Nurmi, by Sandra Niemi, Feral House

Peter Bell, in his Introduction to this collection, defines a 'death spancel' ahead of the two tales, which share the name; briefly, a single strip of flesh, from head to feet, used to, literally, bind the soul of one passed to one still living; invariably for a nefarious reason pertaining to the 'Occult.' If this intimates content of the macabre, you'd be mistaken. Lovers of late Victorian and Edwardian ghost fiction will assuredly adore the restrained literary quality of these tales, shining golden, dust-mote beams of waning sunlight across forgotten rooms of half-glimpsed tenants. 
 This may be the most significant collection from Swan River since Henry Mercer's recovered 'November Night Tales,' five years ago. Known mainly as a poet and novelist, this – incredibly – is the first time Tynan's lesser known short ghost fiction has been drawn from her four original collections, published between 1895 and 1906, and the era's (inevitable) literary periodicals. Considering their consistent quality, it is, perhaps, the snobbery ghost stories still receive from the larger publishing houses, such as Faber & Faber, that they remained for so long under their radar.
 Atypically for most budding writers, the bulk of Tynan's short fiction didn't appear in print until her middle years. Coming from comfortable, middle-class Dublin, her formative poetry – though well-received – sold little. The friendship and encouragement of new supporters such as WB Yeats, however, helped Tynan branch out into freelance journalism. Connecting to her roots in Irish nationalism, "many of her articles display an acute social consciousness; among the issues she regularly tackled were the treatment of shop girls, unmarried mothers, infanticide, capital punishment, and the education of the poor. Her rapid production of novels (from 1895 to 1930 she wrote more than one-hundred pot-boilers) also did much to boost the family's finances." (Clarke, Dictionary of Irish Biography).
 As well as the tales themselves, a second strength of this collection are the short poems, which follow several of these tales, sharing a setting or theme. So, for example, the tale 'A Sentence of Death,' which features the ominous appearance of a ghostly carriage, is followed by the poem, 'The Dead Coach,' while 'The Little Ghost' tale is followed by a poem of the same name. Far from feeling redundant, these additions serve to extend and slightly deepen the motif of what has just played out.
 As with Swan River's previous release – Rosa Mulholland's 'Not To Be Taken At Bedtime' – cover designers Meggan Kerlhi and Brian Coldrick have excelled themselves, producing one of the publisher's finest; a vision of swirling decadence in greens and burnt orange.

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D.P. Watt returns with a cutdown version of his dystopias; and – particularly for first-time readers - they are the better for it, their relative brevity foregrounding the author's strengths in his now established field.The first – 'These, His Other Worlds' – concerns a biographical researcher's ambiguous relationship with his subject and his mysterious obsessions. The pervasive question of the unreliable narrator soon arises when a dangerous portal appears to have been opened; but, who, in truth, has opened it? A strong opener and one my favourites.

  Standing-out elsewhere, 'Noumenon' concerns a shop-window shadow-play and the meltdown of a life it increasingly reflects. 'Serendipity' presents a militaristic world of masked pleasure girls, where their stilled expressions, reflected in their single monikers, are the only emotive appearances; ones moulded and repressed. 'Clematis, White and Purple' sees a man's focus upon his unloved view of a derelict shack and hoardings, and its silent beckoning tenant, hiding another threat; one as organic and more pernicious.
 'The Proclamation,' though first published three years ago, feels especially prescient in this time of pandemic. I wonder at Watts' intention. It reads to this reviewer as a satire on public idleness and its societal consequence, where an inner angry voice of ultimate guilt is too awful – and aweful – to contemplate.
 If Egaeus's 'Keynote Editions' can restrict an author from extrapolation to produce their best work, it also enforces a discipline, which allows him / her an opportunity to highlight their strengths. 'Beatific Vermin,' with the best in this series, proves this.

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In mid-Fifties' America, KABC was a small TV station, with a small viewership, running on a shoestring. One night, Hunt Stromberg Jr. - the station's head honcho – attended the 1954 Bal Caribe Costume Ball; the time and place to be for all budding Hollywood wannabes to impress the community's big-wigs and – just maybe – get signed. 

  Amongst the costumed was 31-year-old actor, dancer and glamour model, Maila Nurmi, whose career was going nowhere. Inspired by Charles Addams' 'Homebodies' cartoon strip in The New Yorker, she came as her own version of the Addams Family matriarch. Already of striking appearance, (prominent cheekbones, upswept eyebrows and heavy-lidded eyes), thanks to her Finnish parentage, Nurmi's Gothic dress and make-up easily won the night. Stromberg – before departing - made a professional approach, wanting her to 'win the night' each Saturday on KABC-TV. He had access to old horror movies in the public domain and wanted Maila, in similar costume and make-up, to draw attention to the unremarkable series by presenting each one in character. 

  She'd been enigmatically silent at the Bal Caribe. Now, to his delight, Stromberg also discovered a voice as droll as it was scabrous. Maila, to avoid copyright issues with Addams, modified her Bal Caribe costume herself, over-tightening the waist and highlighting the plunging neckline to more emphasise the 'sexy vampire' look. Thus, Vampira was 'born.' She described her look as "one part Greta Garbo, two parts each of the Dragon Lady, Evil Queen (from Disney's 'Snow White')...Theda Bara, three parts Norma Desmond, and four parts Bizarre magazine."
 Partnering Maila with in-house script-writer Peter Robinson, (riffing on her already droll persona) delivered, each Saturday night, darkly comic gold. So began two years of national fame and accolade – well beyond KABC's previous profile - Nurmi would, seemingly, never repeat. Friends with James Dean and Marlon Brando, she'd already had a baby with Orson Welles a decade before (whose role here leaves a bitter taste) she'd had to give up for adoption. So, Nurmi, at least, had the contacts. Now, she needed this to be a springboard to more secure acting work.
 Sandra Niemi – Maila's niece – tells the intriguing story, first objectively and, in the final chapters, personally. A remote Preacher father, leaving her mother for too long to bring up Maila, her brother and sister alone, and a consequent alcohol problem, left Maila growing into the increasingly estranged wild child of the family, finding only unsatisfying short-term and exploitative work, but solace in reincarnation and the afterlife.
 Nurmi's last twenty-five years harboured as many personal highs as lows. Ongoing issues of contractual copyright about the ownership of the 'Vampira' name and image consumed too much of her time. In the mid-Eighties, she sued the latest horror host Cassandra Peterson, whose 'Elvira' character she deemed too close for comfort. She lost. Considering the reneging on promises Nurmi had been expected to accept since her character's Fifties success, the press and the poverty this subsequently consigned her to, her feeling of betrayal was entirely understandable. Yet, like Louise Brooks before her – of whom she was a fan – her later years brought reflective appreciation from a new generation to whom her dark double-entendre and anarchic punning resonated, lauded as being ahead of their time. (Her life's trajectory of rise --- fall --- rise somewhat mirrored Brooks's own).
 That Sandra Niemi saw her cousin only rarely, lends an additional yen for empathy, not only from Niemi herself as memoirist, but also to this reader.

Double Heart by Marcel Schwob, translated by Brian Stableford, Snuggly Books / Circles Of Dread by Jean Ray, translated by Scott Nicolay, Wakefield Press

Editorial: Well, well, well. A new Pan review? I surprised myself, unsure as to whether He'd ever be back. These will be occasional entries through the year; more semi-regular than regular. The following two - the first of the year - are shorter and less detailed than usual, since they were written for a start-up newspaper, The Word, rather than my own specifications. I hope you enjoy them, nevertheless. 

  I do appreciate you lovely people's ongoing support through your views and 'follows' over the past year. Has anything of significance happened since my last post? (LOL). Seriously tho', I hope you've been able to cope in your own ways. To have children you can't easily school and parents you can't easily see must be a nightmare. Brave heart, friends. You're always in my thoughts here...

Originally published in The Paris Echo from 1889 – 91, these thirty-four brief, dark, but wry tales of French Symbolism very soon reappeared as the collection Coeur Double in that final year.  

  SF / Fantasy author Brian Stableford has produced its debut English translation with very helpful footnotes, explaining some of their more obscure colloquial terms. Veering from uncanny mystery ('The Veiled Man') to lovelorn rural fable ('The Sabine Harvest') to drug-induced decadence, ('The Portals of Opium'), the diverse sub-genres are embraced by the main subject that pertained to the Symbolist Movement - the pre-eminence of Art. 

  Mayer André Marcel Schwob – known mainly outside of France for the beautiful fairy-tale collection The King In The Golden Mask (1892) – began his short-lived literary career, and life, as a journalist. Schwob's father, a civil servant, returned with his wife from Egypt in the mid-1860s' to live in Chaville (Hauts-de-Seine), where Marcel was born in 1867. His father proved to be the key enabler in Marcel's future direction. The former's political activities embraced Republican newspapers such as Le Phare de Loire, (The Loire Lighthouse), in which many of the tales in Double Heart swiftly reappeared, in The Paris Echo, continuing after Marcel's older brother, Maurice, inherited that editorship in 1892. 

  'Very interested in languages,' Marcel studied philology in higher education until interrupted by conscription into the military. His experiences in all three disciplines would influence the content of this, his first collection. 

  He soon became one of a small group who helped translate Oscar Wilde's Salome manuscript into French, to avoid the British law forbidding the depiction of Bible characters on stage. A contemporary of Proust, and influence upon Borges, Schwob was robbed of wider fame when, in 1905, aged 37, he succumbed to a chronic intestinal disorder. It's gratifying, however, that new series of translations, from both Snuggly Books and the Wakefield Press in the US, are reigniting his brief light.

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Circles Of Dread follows Wakefield Press's recent reissues of Whiskey Tales, Cruise Of Shadows' and The Great Nocturnal in their bid to reintroduce Jean Ray's short story collections to a new, English-speaking audience.  

  Slightly more strange and macabre than Schwob, Ray's work, nevertheless, resides in similar territory, sharing that writer's mordant wit throughout. In his Whiskey Tales introduction, Nicolay cites Ray as favouring 'a wicked whiplash irony, (which) rapidly developed into a nuanced and unparalleled ability to punch around corners as his career progressed'; a purveyor of 'show, don't tell' and 'be careful what you wish for,' adhered to by purveyors of what's been broadly termed 'horror' ever since.  

  Belgium-born Raymundus Joannes de Kremer (his birth name in 1887) harboured over two-dozen nom-de-plumes throughout his life - and they weren't all mere 'pen names.' 1926 – the year after his Whiskey Tales debut – found him imprisoned, serving a six-year conviction for embezzlement; though released after two. While incarcerated, he'd penned novellas and the short tales that would appear in subsequent collections. His now tarnished reputation compelled him to write under his second pseudonym: 'John Flanders.' 

  Circles Of Dread – his fourth collection and, here, English translation – reveals Ray at the height of his powers and just one release away from what would become his most famous work; the macabre novel, Malpertuis, that same year. (1943). This, produced amidst a record-breaking output of commercial fiction, led by his pulp-ish, German-sourced 'Harry Dickson' detective series, which he'd taken over from other writers, and ultimately 'owned' as sole author. 

  A few weeks prior to his death, in September 1964, he wrote his own mock-epitaph in a letter to a friend, summing-up how little esteem he felt writers were held in, in the wider world: "here lies Jean Ray / A man sinister / who was nothing / not even a minister."

ANNOUNCEMENT: Pan On Ice

PAN REVIEW UPDATE: I've decided to put Pan on ice for a while. Various reasons. I/ I'm about to move house. 2/ The eye operation is coming up, and 3/ Connected to this, I need to maximise time and attention on the novel I want to finish mid-year. To those whom I've promised reviews, these will still go ahead, but will be placed elsewhere. I'm hoping Pan will return one day, but, for the first half of this year at least, is untenable in continuing to be a commitment. I'd like to thank all His readers and followers over the last nine years. Your interest and support has been hugely appreciated.

NO-ONE DRIVING - Strange Stories Released!

Greetings, Pan's People,

Yes, my first full-length paperback collection of uncanny tales is out now:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1707785422

If any reader decides to purchase, and likes it enough to drop a swift starred review, that would be wonderful and much appreciated. For those outside the UK, it is also available on several of Amazon's other international sites. While, a lower-priced Kindle version is, of course, also available.

Thank you and enjoy...

Mark

The Ballet Of Dr. Caligari & Madder Mysteries by Reggie Oliver, Tartarus Press / Six Ghost Stories by Montague Summers (with an Introduction by Daniel Corrick), Snuggly Books

Editorial: Welcome, Pan fauns, to the autumn issue. You'll notice I've still not gotten around to committing to the next PROTA, making 2019 noticeably bare in the 'arts' department. Personal health issues and other writing commitments have combined to demand priority. I won't tempt fate with a deadline, but 2020 should see an improvement in this regard. In the meantime, my strange story collection - No-One Driving - should be available, from Amazon's various international pages, as both a paperback and Kindle option from MONDAY 25TH NOVEMBER. I'll tiresomely plug it again,...and again..., no doubt, once it is. 

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The Ballet Of Dr. Caligari & Madder Mysteries by Reggie Oliver, Tartarus Press / Six Ghost Stories by Montague Summers (with an Introduction by Daniel Corrick), Snuggly Books

The signature marks of an Oliver tale are threefold: his unique twist on established horror monsters, his first-hand knowledge of the acting profession, and his specifically English wit. This might just be my favourite Oliver collection to date. In fact, this release – now out in paperback - should ensure him becoming more widely known by surname alone. That his majority output is short fiction rather than novels remains too often considered anathema to greater commercial success.

  'A Donkey at the Mysteries' is another of Oliver's eccentric titles hides a real gem of horror and one of his best, the informed allusions evoking the November Night Tales of Henry Mercer. The narrator recalls visiting by boat the Greek island of Thrakonisos when a student of Classical Antiquity. A book on the locale, procured from his hotel, puts him on the trail of its author and the related presence of a mysterious woman close by. His compulsion only draws him towards a fate that seemed already written. Even more than its telling, I adored its sober and informed telling where his student interest soon becomes yours. More typically Oliverian, 'Baskerville’s Midgets' takes place in the fading days of Rep., where-in two rival troupes of height-restricted acts unwittingly seal not only their own fate in the wider context of changing times, overseen by the jaded disinterest of the narrator’s half-alive landlady. Once the signature territiory of the late Angela Carter, Oliver’s subjective experience reveals him more than up to the task.

  'The Game of Bear' intrigues as being sourced from one of MR James’s incomplete manuscripts. The game of the title, entailing 'stealthy creepings up and down staircases and along passages (to be) leapt upon from doorways with loud and hideous cries,' is, basically, hide-and-seek. Happening present tense during an adults‘ conversation, one of the pair is reminded of the innate fear its sudden shock conclusion had upon him later in life. The daughter of one of their mutual university friends is cited a hostile presence by one of the speakers, whose presence somehow resonated with his phobia. It is from here that James’s MS ends and Oliver takes up the tale, rightly making Caroline Purdue the foregrounded presence. Where a modern writer completing an earlier author’s work is a fraught task, which rarely satisfies, here is a noble exception to the rule. These, and three others forming the book's first half were first published in the complete Madder Mysteries by Ex-Occidente in 2009.

  Subsequently, 'The Ballet of Dr Caligari' neatly parallels the perverted tale-within-a-tale of the classic 1919 film. Here, a young composer is unexpectedly called upon to collaborate on a stage play; a long-held labour of love by an ageing, once feted, choreographer. The denouement is as Grand Guignol as its inspiration. 'Porson's Piece' is as genteel as folk horror gets. Sir Bernard Wilkes is another of Oliver's faded figures; in this case, a former Oxford Philosophy head, with a reputation as a maverick and womaniser. One of his former students – now a BBC producer – means to approach him to take part in an intellectual panel programme. She re-discovers him, slightly dominated by his housekeeper and somewhat haunted by his surroundings. (Hence the title). Genteel, perhaps, but it also delivers a climax with a suitably contrasting chill.

Clergyman, occult specialist, spook tale anthologist, and theatre buff, the name 'Montague Summers' (1880-1948) has somewhat faded from the literateur's radar over the past thirty years. With the asexual image of a plump Edwardian maiden aunt, with a long-held passion for Reformation-era witchcraft, this is, perhaps, unsurprising. (After converting to Catholicism in 1909, a name change – to Alphonsus Joseph-Mary Augustus Montague Summers – intimated another influence). In terms of output, for genre fans he remains best known as the editor-compiler of the 600+ page anthology, The Supernatural Omnibus (1931), subsequently reissued during the Seventies and Eighties, and still an ideal second-base for those wishing to take the form seriously.

  Summers' own prose has that genteel, middle-class, is-there-honey-still-for-tea echo, so redolent of England's interwar years. It's an acquired taste and one I've less time for today than formerly, my own having branched out into less derivative, more sophisticated, European literature. (Ironically, helped, in part, by Snuggly's own committed catalogue). The first tale presented here feels somewhat rushed and likely – as is pointed out – victim to being 'typed out by a hand not his own.' A bouyant drawing-room wit airs the narrative‘s lungs, although Summers‘ – like Robert W. Chambers and others before him – is at his best when most serious. (Something this reader hungers after).

  The narratives of three of the six, however, have superior focus and, consequently, attention to detail. 'The Governess,' where-in a young woman seeking work is inveigled into a secret, long-held familial feud, plays out a clever, internecine puzzle with a far from predictable climax. 'The Grimoire' features the classic trope of the discovery of an age-old illicit (as in 'un-christian') text, penned by a dark and dubious authority. In this case, an allegedly Roman source, which title translates as The Secret Mystery, or The Art of Evoking Evil Spirits with certain other Most Curious and Close Matters. If a premise lacking in originality, I always enjoy such tales and, here, Summers doesn’t disappoint; as is the case with 'The Man on the Stairs.' In the smoking-room 'of a well-known London club,' a male quartet agree to a £100 wager on surviving the night at the reputedly haunted Cheriton Manor and a portrait of wicked Black Dormer.

  Another two of the six, 'A Toy Theatre' and 'Romeo and Juliet,' feature darkly thespian themes of revenge and murder - no stranger to Reggie Oliver - although the latter bears the finer literary, less declamatory, approach. A short, but mixed bag, yet I’m intrigued enough by the best to purchase the follow-up. A second Summers volume, collecting his remaining genre writing – The Bride Of Christ & Other Fictions – is promised from this publisher next year. On a side note; while not strictly genre works, his Omnibus's subsequent non-fictional studies, The Gothic Quest (1938) and A Gothic Bibliography (1941) proved just as influential to burgeoning post-war scholars.