After Dark In The Playing Fields

Embracing the nightside; An interview with My Love Haunted Heart

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:29:00 -0400

On a day nearing the end of summer, during a violent late afternoon thunderstorm common to east coast FL that time of year, I took refuge in a dim corner of the library. I was 9 or 10 years of age at the time, and I had wandered away from the young adult section where I usually selected the books I would read for the week.

I distinctly recall finding a small, worn paperback nearly hidden between two rather bland tomes of adult literature; the cracked spine laced with embossed vines and thorns had caught my attention and I gingerly drew it forth for closer examination. The shadowy darkness of the tattered cover provided the backdrop for a beveled tower, back lit by the moon and away from which a pale faced and wan young woman fled, her ruffled peignoir trailing and tangling behind her.

Though my choice of reading material was never censored at home I instinctively felt that this mysterious book would prove to be not quite… wholesome - corrupt, even. That there was something inexplicably illicit contained in the tale told within. And with that, even before the first page was turned, before the first word was read - I had discovered a great literary love. I’ve long since forgotten the name of the book and the details of the story, but I will always remember how my heart pounded to see the sheer terror conveyed on that woman’s face and wonder breathlessly…what was she running away from?

Ghosts, phantoms and strange sinister spirits. Abandoned monasteries, isolated castles. Brooding, mysterious gentleman. Wild, turbulent love and bitter betrayals. Fearful family curses. Dreams, illusions, obsessions, murders.

This is just a small list from the top of my head of the themes I’ve since encountered in these gothic tales of romance and for all I remember, she could have been fleeing any number of them!

Sara over at My Love Haunted Heart is “crazy about vintage gothic romance”; she is a connoisseur and collector of lurid paperback novels and shares my passion for these torrid tales. When I found her blog with hundred of scans of bewitching, beguiling cover arts and detailed descriptions of the stories, I knew at once I would have to reach out and say hello. It is always intensely fascinating to run into someone who shares an obsession held dear to one’s heart - wouldn’t you agree?

Sara kindly agreed to answer some questions for After Dark in the Playing Fields which I have posted below, as I am sure many of our readers share a similar passion for these books. Included are several gorgeous scans of the books mentioned herein. Enjoy! And thank you Sara, for your time and indulgence.

GND: As you’ve stated yourself, on your “about” page – these “small, usually unappealingly moldy smelling paperbacks” are a guilty pleasure for you. I imagine the same could be said for many people – why do you think that is, what is it about the Gothic romance that draws people in? Does the appeal have more to do with the bewitching covers, or the terrible deeds hinted at within?

Sara: True gothic romance is all about engaging the nightside of your brain, and the best gothics can’t help but fascinate. Who doesn’t like being frightened or love romance? So right there, having that blend of sexuality and suspense is irresistible – for me anyway.

And, certainly a good cover helps! Most of the gothics I write about come from the 60’s & 70’s when an explosion of mass produced paperback fiction hit the shelves, so I guess there was a lot of competition to attract readers. Many of these books are beautifully illustrated by some amazing artists. From the feedback I get on the blog, a lot of people collect these books for the covers.

On the other hand… writers such as Tania Modleski (Loving With A Vengeance, Mass Produced Fantasies For Women) and Joanna Russ (Somebody’s Trying to Kill Me and I Think It’s My Husband: The Modern Gothic), explore the appeal of gothics within the context of female paranoia and a woman’s ambivalent feelings towards marriage. Both cite Terry Carr, a former editor at Ace books, who is credited with explaining the popularity of these gothics as:

“The basic appeal… is to women who marry guys and then begin to discover that their husbands are strangers… so there’s a simultaneous attraction/repulsion, love/fear going on. Most of the “pure” Gothics tend to have a handsome, magnetic suitor or husband who may or may not be a lunatic and/or murderer…it remained for U.S. women to discover they were frightened of their husbands.”

I’m not so sure about this! I was hooked on gothics long before I even thought about getting married. But yeah, that love / fear combination is a pretty heady brew…

Tell me about how this fascination began?

Well I have always been interested in horror, the occult, witchcraft etc. Why? Who knows? My mum was a fan of historical / gothic romances penned by writers like Victoria Holt and Anya Seton and the first gothics I read were hers. I was lured in by the covers and by the shades of mystery and the occult that were alluded to in these works.

Though I read a lot of horror as a teenager, I didn’t read much fiction of any kind in my twenties. I was more into music. But I still collected my gothics - in particular the Dark Shadows books by Marilyn Ross. I think it was something about the covers and the almost chaste, low key approach to ‘nameless terrors’ or ‘unmentionable evil.’ They hinted rather than screamed and as such left more room for my own imagination to play.

What are the top 5 titles you would recommend for someone interested in reading these books? Are there any so awful, so atrocious that you would caution against reading them? Feel free to include those as well!

The best gothic romance writers are the ones who obviously love the genre themselves, or at least aren’t afraid to embrace all the tropes that make gothics so special. In particular, I’d recommend:

Virginia Coffman’s Moura, Victoria Holt’s On the Night of the Seventh Moon, Mary Stewart’s The Ivy Tree, Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn, and Rona Randall’s Knight’s Keep.

The gothic romances that became very popular in the 1960‘s -1970’s were churned out in the thousands. Because so many were produced to meet the demands of the readers at the time, publishers became a little ‘creative’ with using the word gothic and it can be a bit of pot luck what you get – though this can be part of the appeal of collecting and reading them nowadays.

So, for books that stretch the definition ‘gothic romance’ to breaking point but are nevertheless fantastically weird and wonderfully twisted, I’d recommend: Seed of Evil by Petrina Crawford, The Black Dog by Georgena Goff, A Woman Possessed by Christine Randell and any of the Dr Holton series by Charlotte Hunt.

What are some of your most loved novels in this tradition? Some of your favorite covers? Do you find the cover influences/sways your opinion at all?

The gothics I keep coming back to tend to be the classics – Wuthering Heights, Uncle Silas, Jane Eyre. Unfortunately most publishers tend to reprint these with fairly boring covers - one welcome exception being the Paperback Library Gothic series, who published quite a few classic gothics with some gorgeous cover art. Their reprint of Uncle Silas is one of my favourites; another cherished gothic of mine is my Classic Pan version of Wuthering Heights.

In the 60’s & 70’s, the archetypal gothic romance cover featured the beautiful young woman in a filmy nightgown running from a foreboding house with a single lit window. It’s a combination many fans of the genre love and no wonder, as some of the artwork is breathtaking – in particular the houses! Diamonds may well be a girl’s best friend but the real love affair in a gothic is between a woman and her house and the detailing that goes into some of these ‘gloom-ridden’ mansions is superb! Without a Grave by Poppy Nottingham (artist unknown) and The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart (Dell 1969, cover art Hector Garrido) are just two examples.

I’m also a big fan of graveyard settings - The Yesteryear Phantom by W.E.D Ross (artwork Robert Maguire) and The Love of Lucifer by Daoma Winston (artist unknown) are both gorgeous.

Trees are another subject that makes for great gothic artwork – check out Lodge Sinister by Dana Ross (cover Hector Garrido) and the spooky hidden tree in To Seek Where Shadows Are by Miriam Benedict (artist unknown).

I imagine it must be difficult to track down the illustrators responsible for creating the cover art, but do you have any favorite artists?

Unfortunately, many of the artists just aren’t credited on the covers so it can be very difficult finding out who the artwork is by. I have spent a lot of time squinting at book covers trying to match indecipherable signatures to some sort of name via various internet search engines. I am very lucky that a lot of people who know far more than I do about this subject contact me via my blog with information, for which I am eternally grateful!

Victor Kalin is one of my favourite artists, again for the beautiful attention to detail and gorgeous recreation of mood and atmosphere. His daughter emailed me a link to a site of his artwork over at http://victorkalin.shutterfly.com

It appears from your site that the stories you favor are from a certain period of time –60’s, 70’s, early 80’s? Do you read much in the way of early Gothic/Victorian Romantic Literature? Do you read any contemporary Gothic fiction? How would you say the genre has changed or evolved through the years to suit a modern audience?

I constantly read and reread Poe. Others might disagree but for me, gothic romance begins and ends with Poe. Vernon Lee (Violet Paget) is another treasured writer of mine. I’m also a big fan of Victorian ghost stories, Dickens and just about anything from any of the Bronte sisters.

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole is widely ascribed as being the first gothic ever written and for anyone new to the genre, you could do a lot worse than start with this since it’s very short, wonderfully bonkers and I’m pretty sure you can download it for free over at Project Gutenburg.

The classic gothic romance of old usually featured an imperiled young woman, recently married or working as a governess somewhere in the middle of nowhere - far from family, completely at the mercy of her tall, dark and brooding husband or employer. This was very relevant in the days the early gothic romances were written, as it was not unusual for women to end up marrying virtual strangers, setting up home miles from family, socially isolated and financially vulnerable.

Modern gothics recreate this sense of isolation and vulnerability in a variety of ways. It helps if the protagonist is an orphan and many a gothic heroine shares this fate – (a fair few also end up married to their cousins, interestingly enough). It could be that she needs to recover from a broken relationship or bereavement and so accepts a job as secretary on an isolated estate somewhere. Or simply that she has travelled abroad on holiday to an unfamiliar place and has stumbled into the wrong kind of trouble.

A common theme for many modern gothics is the one where the heroine suddenly inherits a huge old house from a distant relative, or is invited to stay with family she never even knew she had. Of course, these unexpected windfalls come at a price! One of my favourites of this type is A Touch of the Witch, by June Wetherell, in which our leading lady wakes up in the middle of her first night in her new mansion, only to discover a black magic coven hosting an orgy in the basement!

As for anything written this side of the millennium, well, I don’t read much contemporary fiction so I can’t really comment. That’s not to say there aren’t some great books with elements of gothic romance being published - The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield, The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry, The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly, Affinity by Sarah Waters and The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon are a few that spring to mind.

Map out your ideal story for me, (let’s say you were going to try your hand at it) – from the heroine, to the villain, to the setting, the plot, etc. What part does evil play in a gothic story? Is the supernatural needed or desirable to enhance it?

A historical gothic romance would require far too much research, so ‘my’ gothic would be set in the here and now. I like damaged heroines, people with a bit of a past, so perhaps she’s just come out of prison or is on the run from someone. In any event she’s ended up in an isolated town, under an assumed identity, with no family or friends to fall back on.

I live by the sea in a place rumoured to be riddled with underground tunnels used by smugglers. I like this idea. Lots of gothics use disused tunnels and mines for people to fall down and get lost in. So my gothic would be set somewhere by the sea. The seacoast also makes an ideal setting for stormy sea-swept clinches - with the added advantage of having some treacherous cliffs for people to hurl themselves off of when it all goes horribly wrong.

My heroine would need a job and so would end up working in The Big House on the Hill. The really old, really crumbly big house peopled by characters who are all just a little bit strange… I love horses and all things equestrian so perhaps she ends up working in the stables there or something. (Unlike the house, the stables would not be old and decrepit but state of the art - like many aristocrats, my master of the house would indulge his horses far better than he does his own family).

Many gothics employ two leading men in their stories – a villain, with whom the heroine initially falls in love but who is all wrong for her - and a hero, striding in at the last chapter to save both her heart and her soul. I’m not such a fan of this. I prefer exploring the dynamics within twisted, tortuous relationships so my leading man would be both hero / villain with his own dilemmas and choices to make.

My leading man owns the big crumbly house on the hill and is irresistibly handsome of course, but sad. His twin sister died a few months back from a mysterious wasting disease – caused by an ancient family curse. He keeps her body embalmed in an upstairs bedroom and spends an inordinate amount of time in there, grieving over her beautiful corpse. When he isn’t locked away in the bedroom with his dead sister, he’s researching dusty old grimoires, reciting unholy incantations during depraved rituals in the family mausoleum, desperately trying to invoke a demon with the power to bring the dead back to life.

Sure enough, my romantic leads can’t help but become attracted to each other, growing closer and closer with each new chapter. But, as the demonic forces gather and swell around this accursed place, strange events start happening. I like the idea of my heroine being plagued by nightmarish visions so maybe the ghost of the dead sister is becoming restless and is haunting her.

Anyway, as Halloween draws nearer, we learn the ultimate sacrifice is needed to bring the dead twin back to life. So… just how far can our heroine trust the man she has come to love?

I have no idea how it would end but I tend to prefer the not so happy endings.

Where are your favourite haunts for searching out these titles?

I can’t walk past a charity shop or second hand book store without going in and having a look. And I’m lucky to have quite a few near where I live!

Rainbow Books in Brighton is a regular of mine, though it’s not the best place if you’re at all OCD about neat rows of books! The horror and romances are stashed in big piles in the basement and the romance pile in particular gets in a terrible state! I nearly got locked in one night - but for a stack of books falling on top of me and making enough noise to wake the dead, the owner had thought everyone had left and was just about to shut up shop for the day…

Thanks again, Sara for taking the time to answer all of my nosy questions and for sharing your love of the paperback gothic romance novel with us! Be certain to check in at My Love Haunted Heart for more reviews and Sara’s flickr page as well for a great deal more beautiful cover scans!

Creepy/Cute - A Kewpie Quickie image: Rose O’Neill,...

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 11:25:00 -0400

Creepy/Cute - A Kewpie Quickie

image: Rose O’Neill, creator of Kewpie dolls

As summer begins to die down, the mornings start to have a chilled edge that burns off in the afternoon sun and the evenings, almost imperceptibly, are growing darker, earlier - I am always reminded of the county fairs that start opening up in conjunction with upcoming autumn season. It’s hard to say why this is because honestly I think I’ve only been to one such fair in my entire life. I think I can probably pin this association on stories in books and an active imagination.

And though I’ve never actually won anything on the fairgrounds in the way of prizes from those impossible-to-win games ….autumn and fairgrounds always bring to mind those odd little cherub cheeked, unblinking Kewpie dolls that (I imagine) fellows obtain for their girlfriends when they manage to shoot a bullseye or knock down a bottle or whatever.

Display of the Ubiquitous, Popular Kewpie Dolls as They Stand Attached to Canary Topped Cane Sticks by Alfred Eisenstaedt

Though not personally creeped out by these strange, small figures, I know that some people can’t even stand the sight of them, or to be in the same room with them. Curious about their origins and creator, I thought I might share the information that I found when I went digging.

The Kewpie doll, or the idea of them, had been fermenting in the creative mind Rose O’Neil,since childhood. In an interview in Hobbies Magazine Rose recalled, “The idea grew from a baby brother when I was a little girl. I made drawings of him while I played with him. All his little looks and gestures came out later in the Kewpie.”

Rose, also an illustrator for magazines and advertisements, as well as an author, elaborated further that “In illustrating love stories I had a way of making decorative head and tail pieces with Cupids. Edward Bok of the Ladies’ Home Journal cut out a number of these and sent them to me. He asked me if I could make a series of the little creatures and said that he would find someone to make accompanying verses. I replied that I would make the verses up myself and wrote him an illustrated letter in which I created the character of the Kewpie. I invented the name for little Cupid, spelling it with a K because it seemed funnier. ”

Rose’s biography, parts of which read almost like a fairytale, can be read at the Bonniebrook Historical Society website.

Rose was a self taught illustrator and though she knew little about commercial art, she entered the profession at a time when most illustrators were male. During her early years in New York, Rose illustrated for such periodicals as Harper’s, Life, Broadway Life, Cosmopolitan, and Colliers. Her work became highly recognizable and advertising executives took notice, the appeal perhaps due to a combination of her sense of humor and her romantic nature. She did in the neighborhood of 100 illustrations for Jell-O, her most recognizable advertising account, from 1909 to 1922.

“Well, when I tell you that I haven’t time to be a housewife and have never in my life made up anything eatable except Jell-O, you will know that I must appreciate the advantages offered by the ‘easy Jell-O way.’”

“Signs”, a cartoon for Puck by Rose O’Neill, 1904.
Ethel: “He acts this way. He gazes at me tenderly, is buoyant when I am near him, pines when I neglect him. Now, what does that signify?”
Her mother: “That he’s a mighty good actor, Ethel.”

“I am in love with magic and monsters,
and the drama of form emerging from the formless.”

- Rose O’Neill

In searching out information on the books she had written (in addition to illustration), I came across an intriguing mention of one of her adult titles, “The Goblin Woman”. As goblins are generally of more interest to me than Kewpies, I waskeen to learn more! Unfortunately, other than listings on a few auction sites, there is not much information to be had on this book. Persistence does pay off though, and I stumbled across It Goes On The Shelf , a site maintained by Ned Brooks, who notes with regard to The Goblin Woman “…There doesn’t seem to be any real goblin”. Although I found that assertion to be mildly disappointing, I wrote to Ned to see if he could share any further info about the book. Ned kindly supplied a synopsis for me, as follows:

“The book has four frontispieces of the main characters, Giulia, Windsor, Tredegar, Jackie, Rosemary, and Helga - pencil drawings of heads, printed in red ink. The only other art is chapter headings in black - the one for the “Prelude” looks rather like Cthulhu, and so does the one for Ch.1. But while the setting is eerie and the language is abused to the point of confusion, the fantasy element seems mostly psychological. The story opens with “the goblin” coming to a dinner party. It becomes clear on the first page that the “goblin” is the woman Helga, who has just moved into The River House, which indeed sits right at the river’s edge, and has been invited to the dinner party. Giulia says that Helga “looks not like anything you ever saw” - and yet the reader has already seen the author’s drawing of Helga - quite normal looking.

Helga is a lapsed Catholic who inherited the house from her uncle Llewellyn Tredegar, who got a portrait even though he is already dead as the story opens - he does look old. On p.7 we learn why Helga is referred to as a “goblin” - she and her sister had lived in the River House at the age of 10-11 and as there was no woman there to see to their clothes, went about held together with safety pins. Oddly enough, as they await the arrival of Helga, one of them refers to her as “Mrs. Tredegar”, which seems odd. Helga Tredegar, from their gossip, must be about 25. Giulia reports Helga as saying that she is “…a hyena and lives entirely upon the dead”. The dialog is full of such bizarre hyperbole.

On p.11 we are told that Helga is “Mrs. Tredegar” because she married her uncle! Not Llewellyn, her father’s older brother, but Owen Tredegar, her father’s younger brother. I would have thought that illegal most places. Helga’s mother was Danish and the Tredegars are Welsh. Just where the action takes place is unclear - the Prelude refers to it as an “Aryan place”. The other characters all have anglo surnames. On p.12 we are told that Helga was only 12 when she married her uncle Owen! Wherever they are, the house they are in is said to have been in the family for 200 years - perhaps these are British loonies. By the end of Ch.1, Helga has not arrived for the dinner party.

That should give you some idea of this demented soap opera. Skipping to the end, I see that Helga and Windsor seem to be about to live happily ever after. The goblin is as metaphorical as the hyena. There are real hyenas - I just heard from a friend in Ethiopia who says they prowl the alleys of the old city Harar. What I meant by “no real goblin” was that the story does not contain any goblin that is actually supernatural or fantastical.”

Thank you, Ned, for indulging me! And Playing Fields readers… if you have gotten this far in reading what was supposed to be a quick little post - I thank you as well!

Will Errickson's resplendent horror fiction reviews

Sun, 22 May 2011 14:00:00 -0400

Perhaps a month or so ago whilst puttering around on the internet late at night, a memory, unbidden, came to mind. A book I had read when I was younger. Though I could not recall much of the plot (except that it was a riveting combination of almost-unacceptably-unbelievable and strangely compelling), or the story details, or even the names of the characters - the cover, and the title were for some reason burned indelibly into my brain.

On a whim, I thought I might poke around to see if what, if anything, other readers had to say about The Manitou, and it was then that I stumbled onto Will Errickson’s Too Much Horror Fiction blog. Will’s sharp, smart, and endlessly amusing synopsis of the story and review of the book compelled me to dig deeper into his site, and in doing so I came across many strange, moldering titles that I had not thought of or seen in years…some I barely remembered and some which were so bizarre that I actually thought I had dreamed them up. Before I knew it several hours had passed and it was 2:00 AM in the morning; I was exhausted but full of a sort of demented exultation - I think it is safe to say that I have never in my life been excited to stumble across a corner of the internet as I was when I discovered Will’s blog, which is dedicated to “reviewing and collecting horror literature and celebrating its resplendent paperback cover art”.

Will graciously agreed to do a bit of a Q&A with us over at After Dark in the Playing Fields; read on for, among other things, his thoughts on terror in the formative years, his picks for a compellingly horrifying read and a top ten list of his favourite deranged horror fiction book covers!

GND: To quote you, paraphrasing Poe and Lovecraft: “Horror… is that singular frisson of terror itself”. Can you hearken back to the time when you first experienced that dread feeling and share with us the details surrounding that, and the myriad ways it has manifested in your life up to this point?

Will Errickson: I’ve tried before to nail down early moments of fear and horror from when I was a kid, and I just can’t. All I can really say is that growing up in the 1970s and early ’80s there was no lack of spooky stuff on TV that you couldn’t avoid, whether it was IN SEARCH OF… or a commercial for movies like SILENT SCREAM, THE PROPHECY, THE SHINING and ALIEN. I remember finding a horror movie magazine that a teenage relative had that completely freaked me out; I couldn’t even look at the cover. Christopher Lee’s Dracula was pretty impressively scary at that age. Of course JAWS was inescapable, but once I actually *saw* the movie when I was 8 or 9 I became obsessed with it. Can’t quite remember how I began reading horror, because those trashy old paperbacks with skulls on the covers unsettled me. Think I just picked up one of my mom’s Stephen King novels when I was about 13 or so. So ever since I was a kid I’ve been into horror as well as the people who create it.

Back to the above referenced paraphrasing – what are some of your favourite books or stories that evoke such a feeling for you? I believe I culled the quote from your post on The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy, so I imagine that might be one of them?

Several of Ellroy’s novels have been disturbing, not just BLACK DAHLIA but also L.A. CONFIDENTIAL—the parts that *didn’t* make it into the movie version. Books such as DRACULA and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR were perhaps the first scary things I read; later Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror” and various stories/novels by King (especially “The Mist”) and Peter Straub. SONG OF KALI by Dan Simmons, THE CIPHER by Kathe Koja, FINISHING TOUCHES by Thomas Tessier, THE SEARCH FOR JOSEPH TULLY by William Hallahan. I read tons and tons of short stories in different anthologies as a teen and in my early ’20s; some of my favorites from that era are “Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale; “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood” and “Calcutta, Lord of Nerves” by Poppy Z. Brite; “Dread” by Clive Barker; “Old Man and the Dead” by Mort Castle; “Sticks” by Karl Edward Wagner; “Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity” by David Morrell; “The Answer Tree” by Steven Boyett; various Shirley Jackson and Thomas Ligotti tales. It’s difficult to pin some down. Rereading them now is cool because many hold up and are still effective. I’m slowly making my way through the two-volume Library of America’s AMERICAN FANTASTIC TALES… Short stories really show the horror genre in its best light. There are great novels, of course, but short stories… yeah. I’m sure I’m forgetting some right now.

In this vein, what is your general criteria for a satisfying read? Can you give some examples of the books which might fit this criteria? And this may be a silly question, but how much does the cover art play into this for you?

Pacing is probably the single most important aspect. Atmosphere is great too. I don’t need great writing but it does have to be good. A lot of ’70s horror novels, and even going back further, had a real professionalism about them; you knew you were in the hands of masters. But by the ’80s more horror glutted the shelves so many, many books were very poorly written and edited and conceived. You can forgive a lot if the author is sure of himself, which is the case with Graham Masterton’s THE MANITOU. It was rather ridiculous but his conviction carried it. THE AUCTIONEER by Joan Samson is a wonderful example of strong writing and story, as are Michael McDowell’s works. You can’t ever go wrong with Shirley Jackson. I loved THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR by Anne Rivers Siddons. Fritz Leiber’s OUR LADY OF DARKNESS was excellent as well. ALL HEADS TURN AS THE HUNT GOES BY by John Farris. THE RATS by James Herbert. As for supernatural violence and the like, I like a quiet chiller as much as a gory thriller. Joe Lansdale’s THE NIGHTRUNNERS blew me away back in the day but I haven’t read it since. As for cover art, it doesn’t play into my interest in reading a book; I’ve gotten past that these days and if the books has a truly terrible cover, I try to imagine I’m reading it in manuscript form! So yes, I guess cover art can color your imagination as you read.

You reference John Farris’ Son of the Endless Night as a quintessential 80’s horror novel, with its “blurb from Stephen King and a review quote comparing it to The Exorcist, and its artwork of both a scary-looking young girl as well as a black-winged demon” –I’d be interested in hearing more about this idea of a quintessential 80’s horror novel. Also, do you feel there are elements of the story itself that make it a prime example of the decade’s horror offerings? So…what would be a quintessential 90’s horror novel? 70’s? 60’s? Ok, I’ll stop there.

1980s horror to me is big and badass, influenced by more graphic horror movies. Huge set pieces of bizarre horror carnage, lots of characters, a go-for-broke attitude. Another cool ’80s novel is THE SCREAM by Skipp and Spector: big, bold, vivid, outrageous, energetic. A bit dated in a fun way. Let’s see… for the ’60s I’d say ROSEMARY’S BABY by Ira Levin: ironic, cool, blackly comic, lightly satirizing modern mores. The ’70s quintessential horror would probably be ’SALEM’S LOT, but I think an argument could be made for HARVEST HOME or THE OTHER by Thomas Tryon. Quieter and more reserved than King, but still creepy; a mainstream bestseller kind of vibe before the paperback horror boom of the ’80s fractioned off the audience. For the ’90s, that’s tougher, because I stopped reading contemporary horror in about 1993 or ’94. Kathe Koja’s THE CIPHER turned horror around by taking the focus off “regular folks” as it’d been in the ’80s and made it about artists, slackers, young people on the fringes of society. What can I say, I identified!

For as long as you’ve been running your blog, what would you say are the top 10 most ridiculous/absurd/batshit insane horror novel covers you’ve featured?

NIGHTSCAPE by Stephen George

ROCKABYE BABY by Stephen Gresham

SANDMAN by William W. Johnstone

DEW CLAWS by Stephen Gresham

SEE NO EVIL by Patricia Wllace

DEAD TO THE WORLD by J.N. Williamson

TRICYCLE by Russell Rhodes

LURKING FEAR & OTHERS by Lovecraft

WAIT AND SEE by Ruby Jean Jensen

RESURRECTION DREAMS by Richard Laymon

But there are still many, many more out there! I will always be on the lookout to feature them on my blog…

What is your opinion of “pulp” and what purpose it serves—what can we learn from it about our culture that isn’t a part of canonical literature? “Pulp” novels are considered low-end and sort of disdained, but obviously they are popular to read. What about the lurid themes found in them resonates with the reader?

When it comes to the worth of any kind of pulp or genre fiction and its status, I like to turn it around and posit that lots of literature, the high-end, culturally-sanctioned stuff, isn’t nearly as profound or insightful as some people like to think it is. There is just as much cliche, lack of imagination, and poor—as in pretentious—writing in that kind of fiction as in pulp or genre fiction. Writers who began in the pulp fields are now considered major American authors, crime writers like Raymond Chandler as well as a horror writer like H.P. Lovecraft. Horror fiction deals with the same themes as any other kind of fiction: families, history, love, sex, death, violence, grief, guilt, etc. Sure, a horror novel might accentuate the less savory aspects of these themes, but I’d say a classic writer like Dostoevsky, for instance, is also exploiting them as well. I *think* that literary critics these days are little more amenable to that idea, anyway.

Finally – The Nursery, by David Lippincott (a cult favourite here at After Dark in the Playing Fields) – any opinions?*

I’m unfamiliar with that title but the cover art is awesome! Added to my to-be-read list.

A heartfelt thanks to Will Errickson for taking the time to answer our questions and share his thoughts!

*If any of our readers have read this appalling novel, drop us a line at grimtwins [at] gmail [dot] com - we want to hear your thoughts! Be forewarned: it is really, really awful.

A Pleasant Seat: The Ruins of Okinawan Gusuku. DUNCANThis...

Sun, 08 May 2011 05:21:00 -0400

A Pleasant Seat: The Ruins of Okinawan Gusuku.

DUNCAN
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

—Macbeth, Act I, Scene 6

When I first moved to Okinawa, a mere speck of coral in a turquoise sea, I was enchanted to find that hundreds of years ago it was a castle-covered kingdom. The lush semi-tropical landscape is peppered with these rocky ruins, called gusuku (城) on lonely outcrops overlooking the sea. Once the home of Okinawan lords and bustling with activity, they now remain a silent witness to centuries past.

Most of these fortresses were built between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Many of them are little more than legend now, their heavy stone walls long since carted off for some other purpose, and still more are mere eroded outlines in the jungle, nearly inaccessible. However, a few are maintained and restored enough to keep watch over their respective corners of the island, reminders of a colorful time full of drama and betrayal.

When I first started discovering the gusuku for myself, I was not sure what to expect. It was certainly not these stark and craggy walls of windswept rock, taking the full brunt of the midday sun. However, there was something mysterious and otherworldly about them, just the same, as if they did not occupy the same spaces that the curious tourists passing through did.

Zakimi Castle (座喜味城) was built in the fifteenth century by Gosamaru, a legendary Okinawan warrior. Some say the stones here were carried by a human chain from Yamada Castle, where Gosamaru was born, farther north. Yamada Castle no longer exists, so perhaps the stories are true. Despite the locals’ reticence to approach gusuku at night, Zakimi truly comes alive then with whispers of ghosts in the sighs of the trees and the gentle flapping of bats overhead in the purple twilight.

Across the island, Katsuren Castle (勝連城) is located high on an outcropping overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was built in the twelfth century and was most notably occupied by Gosamaru’s contemporary and rival Amawari. Its lofty walls loom high above the surrounding area, its topmost enclosure buffeted by winds and only reached by a treacherous and extremely steep flight of stone steps.

Up to the far north, Nakijin Castle (今帰仁城) has a fine view of the East China Sea from its protected hilltop. Its walls hide many treasures, including a former warhorse training area that is now home to butterflies and tiny flowers, more suitable for sun-dappled napping than the arts of war.

Gosamaru was given this castle by the first king of a unified Okinawa, Shō Hashi, who was based in the southern part of the island at Shuri Castle. He stayed here briefly before building the first castle of his own at Zakimi.

The island is quite narrow where Nakagusuku Castle (中城城) stands, and one can see the magnificent expanse of both the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea from the tops of its limestone walls.

This gusuku was also built by Gosamaru so he could keep a closer eye on his Katsuren-based rival, Amawari, out of allegiance to the Okinawan king. To complicate matters, Gosamaru’s daughter had married the current Okinawan King, Shō Taikyū, who was the seventh son of Shō Hashi: their daughter (Gosamaru’s granddaughter) was married to Amawari.

In 1458, Amawari slipped past Nakagusuku by boat and told Shō Taikyū that Gosamaru planned to revolt and take the kingdom for himself. A spy sent to Nakagusuku reported that Gosamaru was amassing an army (to attack Katsuren and Amawari, not the king) but the misinformation was passed along.

In response, the king sent an army led by Amawari to attack Gosamaru at Nakagusuku. Gosamaru was so loyal he refused to fight his king’s army and instead committed suicide with his own sword. Shō Taikyū’s daughter (Amawari’s wife) realized the treachery and informed her father. The treacherous Amawari was executed…which conveniently also removed both powerful lords from becoming any sort of threat to the Okinawan throne.

More than five hundred years later, the Kingdom of Okinawa is gone now, too, after conquest by mainland Japan and occupation by the United States after a brutal world war. The stark walls of stone linger on, a reminder of what once was for the people who are now left to see, the curious adventurers enticed by what the walls once protected.

Perhaps the restless ghosts of these long-ago lords now wander among the quiet stones of their former dwellings, holding spectral moon-viewing parties with only the bats and night-birds and sighing winds for companions, under the velvety Okinawan night.

(Images, text & map by OTB; more haunted shots of Okinawa here.)

M.R. James’ “The Fenstanton Witch” illustration by Paul Lowe,...

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:03:14 -0400

M.R. James’ “The Fenstanton Witch” illustration by Paul Lowe, from the cover of Ghosts & Scholars

Thank you to all the wonderful weirdos who entered! Our winner, chosen by random.org is …. Molly Thibaut! Molly, please email me at mlleghoul@gmail.com with your address :)

Shadow Rabbit (by crowolf) Today is the last day of our Weird...

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 09:00:00 -0400

Shadow Rabbit (by crowolf)

Today is the last day of our Weird & Wonderful giveaway! Contents, among other things, include: literature, comics, things to listen to, maybe even things to make you smell good. A random winner will be chosen just prior to midnight this evening.

Remember to leave a comment in order to be eligible! Tell us about yourselves! A ghost story, something that frightens or fascinates you, a quirk or an eccentricity, aberration or oddity that makes you the rare, remarkable individual that you are! We are listening.

Weird and Wonderful

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:44:00 -0400

Paul Lowe’s Illistration for M. R. James’ story ‘A Neighbour’s Landmark’
from Ash Tree’s ‘A Pleasing Terror.

These Fields have lain fallow, friends and fellow followers.

I don’t believe we’ll begin with an apology; we created After Dark In the Playing Fields as a place to post about our fascinations, obsessions and passions, with no pressure, no deadlines and no expectations…and that is how we intend to keep it! However, it has been four long months since we’ve checked in; ontheborderland, well, she is dealing with the stressful aftermath of a horrific earthquake, and me - I am simultaneously very lazy and yet very busy with the day-to-day. So between the two of us, I guess that averages out to a decent excuse.

In the meantime, why not catch up on our archives? Among other things, one can read about:

Gravestone iconography (Parts I and II)
Weird children’s books
An interview with Valancourt Books
Nocturnal attacks and sleep paralysis
Eerie favourites, both literature and film

While we get our collective selves together, I thought this might be a good opportunity to get to know some of the folks who have been keeping up with us! What draws you to the weird and wonderful, the mysterious and strange… what brings you to the Playing Fields, after dark? Also be sure to read through to the end, as we are doing a small giveaway this week!

I shall endeavor to begin with a seasonally appropriate story from early childhood.

The night before Easter Sunday of my 4th year I was tucked into bed by my mother. Looking forward to a spring morning full of frilly Easter dresses, the pink & purple pastels of plastic eggs and straw baskets brimming with candies and coins, I contentedly pulled the covers up to my chin and perhaps lightly dozed at that point - but I don’t remember it quite that way. As I recall not moments after the light was extinguished, I heard a noise from outside; I peeped above the quilted coverlet and received a terrible fright - a demonic face, not inches from my own, leering at me from outside the darkened glass windowpane next to my bed! Long ears with dark, matted fur… bent and flopping in a broken sort of way, black eyes glittering with menace and gigantic teeth, gnashing with dreadful intent - this monstrous mockery of the my beloved seasonal mascot was right outside my window! Even more distressing was the fact that my bedroom was located on the second floor!

I woke the entire household with my screams.

I honestly don’t remember what happened after that, but I am certain it was that night that my fascination with the bizarre, the terrible and the inexplicable was born.

I suppose that story does seem rather silly, but that along with a childhood rife with weirdness, I am not sure I could have turned out any other way. Hm, let’s review:

My mother was an astrologer who often held meditation circles in our home (hint: these are populated by weirdos); she also became obsessed with the ouija board when I was very young…I remember spending what felt like an eternity every evening balancing the planchette with my tiny fingers while she, on her side of the board, spent hours on the phone! I don’t think she was talking to anyone from “the other side”, which makes it all the more infuriating.
Yearly visits to my biological father’s childhood home , which held promise of sleeping in haunted bedrooms with stacks of horror comics to fuel the imagination. I’ll forever be fascinated and terrified of the beach at night due to a particular tale, which I’ve never been able to find again.
My mother briefly dated a man who gave me a copy of Manly P. Hall’s The Secret Teaching of All Ages and a copy of the Thoth tarot deck for my 11th birthday. Aside from Weird Al Yankovic, Manly P. Hall was one of my first secret crushes! (I am still madly in love with Weird Al.) It is also because of that man that I introduced HP Lovecraft as my favourite author on the first day of 6th grade, when other girls were reading about Jessica and Elizabeth in Sweet Valley High.
My stepfather was a member of a local chapter of the OTO as well as an author and “magician” in his own right. I later went to work for him in his rare, occult book business and even designed his website for him.

Well, it feels good to get all of that off my chest! What about you folks?

We would love to hear from you! Please leave a comment via the “reply” function or through disqus and you will autmatically be entered into our giveaway for a small package o’weirdness. Contents are currently being deliberated upon.
A random winner will be chosen in one weeks time!

The Christmas Service of the Dead

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 11:05:51 -0500

People say that long ago the dead held a service on the night before Christmas. Once a woman arrived too early for Christmas service. When she entered the church she found it lit up and full of dead people, singing:

Here we sing, our bones all bleached,
Here we sing with beautiful voice,
When shall the day of judgment come,
What yet have you to say?

The story continues on as the woman recognizes her dead sister among the congregation. Warned by her sister that she must flee, for the dead will take her life, the woman escapes, dropping her shawl behind her to confuse her cadaverous pursuers. When the church warden comes in the next morning and puts the lights on, he spies the shawl in the empty chapel, torn almost beyond recognition.

This tale is widely spread in Europe and is extremely old, having been set in Autun, Burgandy, by Gregory of Tours in his De Gloria Confessorum. See below for an illustrated version of the best-known Scandinavian variant of this migratory legend, “The Midnight Mass of the Dead” from Asbørnsen’s “En gammelgags juleaften” (“An Old Fashioned Christmas Eve”). These wonderfully evocative images, full of dim shades, grim shadows and midwinter’s eerie light, were created by artist Chris Van Allsburg (Jumangi, The Polar Express) and can be found in “Ghosts” volume from the Time Life Enchanted World series. These scans are from my personal collection; higher-resolution, more detailed versions can be found here.
-GND

We at In The Playing Fields wish you peace and light in this dark, dying time of the year, and may you not be without your shawl or other talisman this winter holiday when the dead are afoot and hungry for your company.
-OTB & GND

The Story Behind the Stone: The Bass Family Plot, Reno Hill, Oak...

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 15:31:00 -0500

The Story Behind the Stone: The Bass Family Plot, Reno Hill, Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, DC.

I find it hard not to wonder about the lives of the deceased as I wander among quiet graves on an autumn afternoon.

This unusual gravestone relief is for one impressively named Charles Ladiolans Council Rogers Bass, who died 13 March 1879. The base of the broken column-style tomb reads “This monument was erected by his disconsolate mother, Eugenia Bass Bertinatti”. The burial record states that Bass was reburied there on 20 February 1880, from Mississippi.

The Deep South and mentions of Italian nobility seem to indicate an unusual family history.

A little research reveals that mother Eugenia was born on 6 September 1826, one of the five daughters and four sons of Colonel Humphrey Bate (1799-1856) and his second wife, Anne Franklin Weatherred (1804-1870) of Tennessee.* She first married Council Rogers Bass, a wealthy planter. When he passed away in 1855, she inherited Riverside Plantation in Washington County, Mississippi. She left the managing of that estate with others and moved to Washington, DC, with her three surviving children (a fourth child, Anna Lela, died in 1853 at the age of 3).

In Washington, DC, Eugenia was described as a belle who was famed for her beauty, intelligence and accomplishments. When the Civil War broke out, she remained loyal to the Union and sought assurances from Ulysses S. Grant and later Abraham Lincoln, that her Southern properties would not be touched.

Eugenia Bate, via Rootsweb.

Ten years after being widowed, on 6 September 1865, Eugenia married an Italian count, Guiseppi Bertinatti, who was with the Diplomatic Corps as the Italian Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States.

Only a few days before her wedding, Eugenia’s second daughter, Eugenia Elizabeth Bass died at the age of 19. She was eventually buried in the plot in Oak Hill Cemetery.

The new Countess Bertinatti returned with her husband to Italy, where they lived in the ancient castle of his family, Castella le Monte, near Turin.

Eugenia’s eldest daughter, Marie Ella, met and married an Italian nobleman, Alberto Marchesi Incisa di Camerana in 1870. She died at age 26, after only a year of marriage on 4 May 1871 and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Her marker reads, “Young, beautiful, gifted; she/has passed to the spirit land.”

Eugenia’s last living child, her only son Charles aka Councie, died in Mississippi at the age of 31. She was in Europe at the time and letters survive expressing her grief and distress that he was taken to Georgetown for burial, although apparently she did pay for the monument above.

The Count later served as an Italian envoy to the Netherlands and Turkey, and died in 1887. Eugenia stayed on in Italy but made a final trip back to the United States in 1905.

Tennessee-born Countess Eugenia Patience Bate Bass Bertinatti died at the age of 80 on 9 December 1906, and was buried 12 December in Oak Hill Cemetery with her children, without any sort of marker, having survived both husbands and all of her children.

Although I have no personal connection to this family, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the splendidly carved monument and the realization that under every stone exists similar historical curiosities, mysteries and the sheer factual existences of those that have gone before.

*The Colonel had five children with his first wife, Elizabeth Pollock Brimage, who died in 1820. Their eldest son married Amanda Patience Weatherred—the Colonel would marry her sister for his second wife…slightly icky methinks.

—OTB

A chilling chosen few

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:14:00 -0400

GND’s 12 Cinematic favourites for Haunting Halloween viewing
(in no particular order)

Suspiria (Dario Argento), 1977
A moody, atmospheric assault of the senses. A young American woman arrives at a European ballet school where nothing is as it seems. Hallucinatory mayhem ensues.

The Resurrected (Dan O’Bannon) 1992
An intelligent, brooding adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward”. Chris Sarandon at his creepily aristocratic best.

Cube (Vincenzo Natali) 1997
Kafkaesque sci-horror reminiscent of a visceral Twilight Zone episode. A handful of strangers wake up inside a monstrous maze of interlocking cubicles which are armed with lethal traps. Why were these individuals chosen? What is this place they are in? Is there even anything outside the Cube?

Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (John D. Hancock) 1971
An eerie, dreamlike film in which a woman’s already fragile psyche undergoes further trauma at the isolated farmhouse where she initially sought solace. Is there really something sinister going on between the mysterious drifter and the baleful townfolk – or is Jessica spiraling further into delusion and madness ?

Dawn of the Dead (Zack Snyder)2004
Romero’s 1978 original was “sacred ground” for horror buffs, but even though I saw this remake 6 years ago, there are some nights I still can’t sleep thinking upon certain scenes; to this day I am convinced I will awake to find my neighbor’s child gazing upon me hungrily, ready to eat my face off.

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (Bob Clarke) 1972
A strangely awkward film, a bit of nostalgic whimsy on my part. A flamboyant theatre director brings his acting troupe to a remote island cemetery to raise the dead, as a practical joke. This turns out badly for all involved; as we all know, these practices are no laughing matter.

Lemora: A Child’s Tale of The Supernatural (Richard Blackburn) 1975
An orphaned young innocent is lured to a remote mansion on the outskirts of the strange southern gothic shanty town populated by bizarre mutants, and soon finds herself in the clutches of the wicked (and undead) Lemora. A long, unsettling nightmare of a film.

Imprint (Takashi Miike, Masters of Horror) 2005
A tale of lost love that grows stranger and more horrifying as the story unfolds. Contains one of the grisliest torture scenes that I have ever seen.

The Mist (Frank Darabont) 2007
Excellent Stephen King Adaptation; local folks are trapped in a supermarket when a mysterious mist envelops the town - some incredibly frightening monsters here…and that includes the human people as well.

Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey) 1962
After a traumatic accident a woman seems to be losing all contact with the world of the living. Worthwhile viewing for the gorgeously oppressive atmosphere alone.

The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona) 2008
A woman returns to her childhood home - a seaside orphanage - to reopen the establishment and raise her adopted son. The child’s mysterious disappearance, and frightening, otherworldly goings-on contribute to what is a quietly chilling, heartbreaking film.

A Tale of Two Sisters (Ji-woon Kim) 2003
A tale of tragedy and madness, based on an old Korean legend/folktale.

*And a bonus pick from On The Borderland, who shares that since having seen Les Diaboliques, “I have been wary of face-like bathtub faucets ever since!”

Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot) 1955

Feel free to leave your own recommendations in the comments or in a post of your own!

OTB’s Picks for Twelve Tomes for A Terrifying...

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:15:00 -0400

OTB’s Picks for Twelve Tomes for A Terrifying Halloween.

(In no particular order.)

1. “The Music of Erich Zann” by H.P. Lovecraft. The shrieking and whining of desparate viols…defending against…what exactly?

2. The Tenant by Roland Topor. The most disturbing novel I have ever read, a nauseating crescendo of paranoia and sinister characters.

3. “O Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad” by M.R. James. Mysterious medieval whistles with Latin inscriptions and the infamous “face of crumpled linen”.

4. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Evocative, eerie and I first read it in one sitting.

5. “The White People” by Arthur Machen. “And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?”

6. “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood. Two campers encounter a place where the veil between the worlds has grown thin…an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows.

7. “A Haunted Island” by Algernon Blackwood. Chilling terror and remniscent of the Adirondacks island camp I stay at in the summers. (Blackwood makes this list twice, because he is truly the master of the unsettling tale.)

8. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. A found manuscript, swine creatures and the swift passing of the universe…is the narrator sane or not?

9. “The Spider” by Hanns Heinz Ewers. Mysterious suicides take place in the same apartment, seemingly without cause.

10. “The Human Chair” by Edogawa Rampo. A bizarre tale of the Japanese gothic.

11. “The Room in the Tower” by E.F. Benson. Sinister dreams and unfriendly nocturnal visitors.

12. “The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce. What may happen in a field of wild oats.

A bonus pick by Mlle. Ghoul:

13. The House Next Door by Anne River Siddons. A singular tale, and from what I can tell the author’s lone foray into the genre. A unique take on the haunted house story - is the evil housed within in the structure of the dwelling, or is it the wickedness of the inhabitants that drive the horrors that occur within? The chills are so subtly sinister and so elegantly written that it is difficult to pinpoint exactly why the book is so frightening; I imagine the shudders provoked by these pages will be very different for each reader.

Feel free to leave your own recommendations in the comments on in a post of your own!

(Image: Ghost Of Perdition by Chris Dessaigne)

All Must Submit to the King of Terrors, But That Is No Reason to...

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 07:10:00 -0400

All Must Submit to the King of Terrors, But That Is No Reason to Look So Grave, Part II. (Part I)

And they die
An equal death,—the idler and the man
Of mighty deeds.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. IX. L. 396.

In our previous installment, gravestone motifs had just shifted to emphasizing the memory of the departed love one as opposed to focusing on the stark reality of mortal remains. Skeletons became winged heads, which became cherubs and ultimately the graceful forms of willow and urn, so prevalent in early ninteenth century burials. By the 1830’s, even more new forms of expression were appearing as carvers turned to using more versatile granite and marble mediums instead of the more brittle shale commonly used on older gravestones.

The Victorians were well known for euphemizing all aspects of society. Graveyards moved away from attachment to a particular church or village and became housed in the more park-like cemeteries. Gravestones became monuments. Even the burial containers themselves changed from the rather austere body-shaped six-sided coffin to an elaborate satin-lined “casket”.

As the Victorian era progressed, grave monuments began to take on a more individualistic iconographic language which often gave clues to the life of the deceased, their occupation or even how they passed away. Cemeteries from this time period show much more variety in their forms and choices of decoration, celebrating the life or status of the individual dead or the grief of the survivors.

As expected, images of Christianity became very popular with crosses, the Virgin Mary, angels and doves all very common motifs. Allegorical figures, such as Temperance, Charity, Justice and Hope and Faith are also commonly found. A single hand pointing upward signified the hoped for destination of the deceased.

For the first time, children’s graves were given their own specific symbols: carvings of lambs, cherubs, broken buds and daises were all used. Another common symbol is a vacant chair—often there will be a tiny sculpted pair of shoes next to such a monument.

Obelisks, symbolizing a ray of light, became a very popular shape for tombstones, beginning in the Victorian area. Part of this was related to the fascination with anything Egyptian, especially after Napoleon’s 1798-99 campaign and subsequent archaeological discoveries. Obelisks were also less expensive than a sculpted monument of a similar size, and each face could be used for an inscription, making them suitable for family markers and persons of great social status. Their height allowed them to tower over other markers and be easily located in a cemetery.

Another peculiar motif often seen in cemeteries from this time are treestones: The Victorians had a fascination with anything rustic looking. These were most popular from about 1880 to 1905 and could also be ordered from Sears and Roebuck, making them common in the Midwest, which had more catalog shoppers. Treestones were also favored for their symbolism, which was suitable for a family patriarch (they could be shown as lopped off, showing one had died before their prime, as below) or for anyone in a woodworking profession.

Typical example of a “treestone”, a popular Victorian motif. The cut off stump represents someone who died before reaching old age. Image by Luigi Anzivino.

Broken columns served a similar function—often their height will correspond to the age of the person at death, with snapped-off columns representing someone who has died before their prime and a complete column showing someone has lived a full life. These were most popular around the mid-nineteenth century.

Another curious material for tombstones is zinc or “white bronze”, as it was termed by the manufacturer, the Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. These monuments are hollow cast metal and were extremely inexpensive to purchase, but have a similar appearance to carved stone. They can also be easily spotted in any cemetery, because they are in perfect shape, having held up amazingly well compared to their more weathered marble and granite counterparts. They were only produced from 1874 to 1914, when the supply of zinc metal was needed for World War I.

Detail of a lily of the valley from a well-preserved zinc monument, showing the characteristic blue-grey patina. The lily symbolizes purity and resurrection, since it is one of the first flowers to bloom in the spring. Image by Svadilfari.

Perhaps this autumn one might need to take an atmospheric walk in the local cemetery and pay particular attention to the details of each monument. The choices were deliberately made, influenced by fads, economics and personal preference. I always find it amazing what can be learned from simply observing the quiet gestures of the dead.

(Image at top: Virgin Mary statue in Woodland Cemetery, Burlington, Ontario by Kevin. Religious iconography became popular in the Victorian era and the use of new materials such as granite and marble allowed for more elaborate sculpted forms.)

—OTB

A Change of Demon, by John D McMahon On Making Friends,...

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:12:00 -0400

A Change of Demon, by John D McMahon

On Making Friends, Influencing People, and Ruining Your Life With Demon Contact.

We at Ladies Grim HQ frown on this sort of thing! This of course extends to all forms of necromancy and summoning forth the dead as well; and while I imagine some people will argue that these are all very different things, I will state without equivocation that these are all things that can lead to no good! Please check back in the next few weeks for a timely look at historical, literary, cinematic and personal anecdotes and evidence as to why this is so. Until then, hang tight and step away from your ouija boards and dog-eared copies of the Goetia, and enjoy a demon-possession free week-end.
-GND

The Past Lies Sleeping: Seeking the Mason House

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:16:00 -0400

Ruins of Mason House, Analostan Island, c. 1880-1890, Library of Congress

The house, of a simple and neat form, is situated near that side of the island which commands a view of the Potomac, the President’s House, Capitol, and other buildings. The garden, the sides of which are washed by the waters of the river, is ornamented with a variety of trees and shrubs, and, in the midst, there is a lawn covered with a beautiful verdure.

—David Baillie Warden, 1811.

Nearly five years ago, I had the dubious pleasure of working as an intern on the nineteenth floor of an office building whose windows overlooked the Potomac River, facing the District of Columbia. Far below, in the middle of the river, was a small and solitary island, thickly forested, with only a pedestrian bridge providing a means of access. As the leaves gradually succumbed to the seasons, I noticed a defined circular area, definitely man-made, revealed by the missing vegetation. I soon learned this was Theodore Roosevelt Island, which was owned by the National Park Service, and the area in the middle was the memorial to the former president.

Intrigued by the idea of placing a memorial to a wilderness loving man in such a tourist unfriendly area, I walked over there one lunch hour, crossing the bridge and following a small dirt path which opened up into the memorial’s plaza, which housed the typical tropes of a larger than life statue of Mr. Roosevelt, who was enthusiastically jabbing the air with an upraised fist, and several steles with inspirational quotes, as well as reflecting pools and granite bridges. There was something a bit City on the Edge of Forever about the place, as it had the eerie quality of simply existing there, completely out-of-place, since the beginning of time. There were few, if any, other visitors and the surrounding forest was closing in, watery sunshine filtering through the trees.

However, the charms of nature were easily swallowed up by the din of noise coming from the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, a multi-lane highway between Virginia and Washington, DC, which crossed over the southern end of the island, and its unfortunate location right under the flight path to Ronald Reagan International Airport. As the island was on the small side (about 88 acres), I walked on some of the perimeter trails, decided it was a nice enough forest, and went back to work.

It had never occurred to me that the little island, so easily overlooked, was hiding a number of historical secrets.

The island was originally home to Algonquin-speaking Native Americans, from which it took one of its prior names, Analostan. It was known by Europeans since the 1600s and even included on several contemporary maps, and was passed around from land grant to land grant, all the while remaining undeveloped. In 1717, the island was sold to George Mason III (1690-1735), who left it to his son, the future Founding Father and wealthy planter, George Mason IV (1725-1792). Neither man did anything more to the island than establish a ferry service to it which was a major transportation connection between Virginia and Georgetown. When Mason IV died, he left the island to his eighth child, John Mason (1766-1849), who decided to build a Neoclassical mansion and accompanying outbuildings there sometime before 1798. He transformed the island into a society showpiece, a completely landscaped self-sufficient plantation, known for its long avenue of trees lining the driveway, its extensive orchards and its unusual exotic plants. The traces of these genteel pleasures of another time had long since vanished by the twenty-first century…or had they?

Map of Analostan (now called Mason’s) Island by Robert King, 1818, showing the Mason plantation, Library of Congress

When a friend and fellow museum graduate student asked me if I wanted to go with her one afternoon to try to find traces of the ruins, I could not possibly resist.

The island is small, but the task was a bit daunting.

When Mason’s bank collapsed in 1833, he was forced to give up the property to cover his debts (although society people politely said the family was driven out by mosquitoes). The mansion was abandoned as a family home, and over the years the island was used as a Civil War encampment, a boating club, a jousting ring, a dancing saloon, a pavilion to watch balloon launches from and a picnic spot. In 1869, a fire devastated the interior of the Mason house and the island was slowly left to nature. One reporter for the Washington Times commented in 1902 that “the interior aspect of Analostan is desolate in the extreme,” with the ruins of the Mason house “hidden in the dense growth of trees which has overrun the island”.

View of the Mason House c. 1905 after a fire left only a few walls standing, Library of Congress

Sometime around 1905-6, another fire felled the roof and left the house in an even more ruinous state, its once lovely facade only a memory. In 1913, the Washington Gas Light Company purchased the island, but plans to build a plant there did not come to fruition. The island was eventually purchased in 1931 by the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association, who planned to donate the site to the United States government. Despite the considerable historical significance of the ruins, plans were made to remove what was left of the walls, along with all of the non-native plants, some introduced by Mason, in order to keep in a natural, wild state. The remains of the Mason House and any artifacts were hastily and perfunctorily excavated and documented by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Historic Area Building Survey, before they were destroyed and buried in 1936, in an attempt to return the island to a more natural appearance, suitable for a forested memorial island.

Mason House ruins, c. 1936, taken by Albert S. Burns, Library of Congress

Seventy years had passed since that last act of deliberate destruction, what could even be left? A 1972 Historical Society of Washington, DC piece by Mary E. Curry notes, “The ordinary visitor has no idea of where to look for Mason’s home” and furthermore, two attempts by history students to locate the exact site in 1970 and 1972 failed.

Nevertheless, the prospect of adventure kept me undaunted. The 1818 map above, while a bit stylized, shows the house sitting on the southern portion of the island, and further contemporary descriptions of the house place it on the highest ridge in that portion. With that information, and the 1936 survey map of the basic foundation and surrounding outbuildings, my friend and I set off for the island. It is easy enough to walk to the highest ground, so upon arriving at the trailhead, we basically plunged into the undergrowth, heading uphill, making fairly good progress. Along the way we disturbed a box turtle, who we dubbed General John Mason, and also the blue-plastic tarp home of some transient who clearly wished to be left alone.

We eventually found ourselves on a plateau and I noticed some unusual large stones strewn about—naturally placed stones generally don’t have corners and signs of human manipulation. Some nearby trees revealed a hidden cache of bricks tangled and gripped among their roots. This then, was the former site of the house. There was nothing left of it above the surface except the occasional bit of stone or brick and the strange feeling of intruding on some other time and place. Examining our survey map, we paced off to where the outbuildings lay, and were excited when we nearly tumbled into an open cellar-hole for the Ice House, exactly where it was supposed to be. Although partially obscured by tangled vines and shrubs, it was clearly a square and lined with fieldstones to a depth of about six feet. From here, it was easy to see the ever so faint traces of the retaining wall.

Current appearance of the cellar-hole for Mason’s Ice House, National Park Service

Heavy rains over the years must have washed debris right up against it, for close examination of the stones of the base of it soon revealed a tiny ceramic sherd, clearly from the historical period, as it had a white glaze with blue edging. This could have been some of the Mason family’s china, broken and washed away from some garbage pit, or a disturbed bit of leftover from the hasty archaeological survey, although the artifacts were supposed to have been buried in a concrete vault near the house foundation. Additionally, there were more bits of glass and other potential artifacts in the same area.

Ceramic sherd from the base of the retaining wall on the Mason site

We were beyond thrilled—we had managed to stumble across a forgotten site, supposedly difficult to locate and even find artifacts. Looking around at the thickly forested area, it was hard to believe that something as refined as a Neo-classical plantation with fruit trees and terraced gardens ever existed in the same space. The last two hundred years were merely the briefest blip in history, all traces nearly gone. It did serve as a warning to the curious: the dusts of the past are never far from being motes in the eye of the present, if you know where to look.

—OTB

(Image of pressed flower in an eighteenth century library book...

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:12:00 -0400

(Image of pressed flower in an eighteenth century library book by Karina Douglas)

The winners of the After Dark in the Playing Fields Book Giveaway October Extravaganza, randomly selected from slips of paper inside of a Japanese wicker purse, are:

GRAND PRIZE: One box with terror-filled tomes and other oddments and oddities goes to commenter “Melissa”.

RUNNER UP: One package with shivery short-stories and evocative bits of ephemera goes to commenter “Kristina Genevieve”.

*Should you wish to decline such honors, please do give word so a new name may be chosen.

A hearty thank you to all who entered; please keep your eyes peeled for further posts & pleasing prizes in the future.

—OTB & GND.

Temporal paradoxes and impeccable table manners

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:16:00 -0400

Royal Hotel Ruins, Japan, February 2010

Previously…on After Dark In The Playing Fields…

“Many ages ago Ms. Ghoul Next Door and Ms. On The Borderland discovered they shared a mutual love for all things weird & wonderful, eccentric & eerie, unusual, unearthly, & uncanny. They began a collaboration; a collection /personal cabinet of curiosities curating and archiving and sharing articles, essays, reviews, interviews and observations on the things that makes them scratch their heads in wonder or shudder in pleasing terror.”

(GND) I thought perhaps it might be best, before delving too much further into the vast array of strange subjects & surreal stories we plan to share over time – that we take a brief respite and share a little bit about what makes us tick.
I recently caught up with my esteemed colleague OTB to do just that. Please see below, Gentle Reader, for our illuminating Q&A.

†††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††

OTB, circa 1986

Your moniker “On The Borderland”, comes from the title of William Hope Hodgson’s work of weird fiction The House on the Borderland. How did you initially come upon this title? Was it a defining moment/revelatory read, or was it something that took insidious hold over you and gradually crept into your psyche to become a favourite?

I believe I first encountered Hodgson as someone that Lovecraft admired, but at that time none of his works were in print. This has all changed in the last five years or so, but when I first wanted to lay hands on this book, I had to search out a rare book dealer, who coincidentally lived in the same town as me. I paid way too much for a copy and then became completely absorbed. Considering the book was written in 1908, it was really quite visionary and unlike anything else at the time. I often refer to it as a flawed masterpiece, with its long digressions that make no sense to the initially fast-paced horror story narrative and its quaint “discovered manuscript” framing. Yet something about it has stayed with me enough to make its name almost familiar (or perhaps more so) than the one I was born with. The first time I read about the “swine creatures”, the hair on the back of my neck stood up; and in particular, the passage where the narrator witnesses all the ages of the world pass away and the dust of millenium lay as thick as snow in his study…that still haunts me. Where did Hodgson come up with this imagery? I also admire him for being a former sailor and well familiar with the dread of the unknownable fathoms of the sea, something that Lovecraft was fond of espousing in his fiction as well.

How about a top ten list (in no particular order) of some other favourite titles in this genre as recommendations for our readers?

It will be hard to stop at ten! This type of weird fiction often lends itself better in a short story format: there’s Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany. Blackwood in particular seems attuned to the strange frequencies of existence, or the “horror of the mundane”, as I often call it. Robert Aickman was skilled at crafting a very unsettling “strange story”. For longer works, there is M.P. Shiel, who wrote the novellas, The Purple Cloud and The House of Sounds. Some other great writers who mainly focused on the short story include Guy de Maupassant, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, May Sinclair and even Edogawa Rampo (his pseudonym is the Japanese transliteration of Edgar Allan Poe). The most unsettling novel I have ever read is probably Roland Topor’s The Tenant. And if we branch into science fiction, there is a short story that has bothered me for years: P. Schuyler Miller’s “As Never Was”, which is one of the first and best pieces written to focus on a temporal paradox. I could sit around and think about temporal paradoxes all day.

Oddments & Oddities – what are some of your current offbeat obsessions and eccentric and/or esoteric enthusiasms?

Well, obviously reading the strange literature of the world is a major interest of mine. I miss combing used bookstores back in the United States. I also have a small collection of antique etiquette books. I just love reading about unwholesome sounding home remedies or exactly how one is supposed to treat one’s footman or housemaid. Those kind of books are really a snapshot of the time they were written in; all those little commonplace nuances about leaving visiting cards or what color mourning dress to wear have been forgotten over the years. As a side benefit, I have impeccable table manners.

I also have a deep interest in symbols—I find people’s dreams (and my own) very fascinating about what they reveal. I love Surrealist art, which is heavy on symbolism, and of course gravestone iconography. I also am very fond of different divination practices, such as molydomancy, tasseography, the Taiwanese bua-buei, I-Ching, runes, and especially Tarot. This is more of an anthropological interest than an actual belief that the future can be foretold, but examining something highly codified, like Tarot cards, which has a very specific and rich tradition of layers of symbols, is very fascinating to me. What we can ferret out of those systems can be a useful exercise in allowing us to be objective about ourselves in an entertaining way.

Some other interests include the Age of Sail, theremin music, linguistics, mineralogy and exploring abandoned places (above). It makes me a little sad so much of the world is known; I like the mystery of the forgotten slices that keep humankind from getting too arrogant.

You cite a love for the “forgotten corners and many mysteries” of the world, and I believe you’ve peeked in some of those corners yourself and encountered your own fair share of mysteries! Tell us please of your experiences in that vein that have had the most profound effect upon you and why that might be.

I think I have had somewhat of a bizarre life. My mother used to tell my sister and I these extremely weird tales that were all absolutely true. They either happened to her or someone in our family; they were all about strange creatures in the woods or phantoms or hauntings or mysterious coincidences. It’s probably why it took me so long to catch that my favorite book The Weirdest People in the World, was largely fiction and legend. I firmly believed in the weird.

I could fill up pages and pages with everything weird that has ever happened to me. I even consider myself to be a fairly logical and reasonable person, but I know there are things that just can’t be explained: why my mother saw me in two locations at once; who was making the heavy footfalls climbing the stairs when no one was seen to be there; where the tinny sound of a woman’s eerie singing was coming from; just what was that white shape on the hillside that kept coming closer before we finally drove off; why do I dream of things before they happen; what was the thing(s) that looked in my sister’s window at night that she called “The Hunters”; whose set of eyes was reflected in the mirror that didn’t belong to me. And then there was the more ordinary things like finding old house foundations, forgotten cemeteries, an opal ring in the yard, little traces of times that were gone yet layered right on top of the present. Maybe so-called apparitions are just slips in time; maybe I’ve scared my fair share of people of the future with just walking up the stairs.

OTB, today

Speaking of corners of the world – you’ve traveled around quite a bit! Just this summer you spent some time in Finland and had the opportunity to meet with one of your favourite authors, with whom I understand you share a few similar interests. How exciting! How did that come about? How does one behave in such a situation? What are your thoughts after meeting her?

Finland is my ancestral homeland, of course, and it is soothing to know there is someplace that is perfect for everyone out there. For those who don’t know, one of my favorite books is called A Fool’s Paradise which is a novel by Finnish author Anita Konkka. It is written from a thirty-something woman’s point of view and details her intricate thoughts and dreams and how they interact with the sometimes disappointing state of her reality. Sadly, it is the only one of her works translated into English. Knowing I was going to be in Helsinki, I decided I would email Ms. Konkka and see if she’d be willing to meet with me at a cafe or some other place. She was gracious enough to respond right away and invited me to her home, where she made a lovely meal and showed me her book collection. I found she was also interested in dream interpretation and had also written a non-fiction book about it, which unfortunately is only available in Finnish. She also espoused a fondness for Lovecraft, saying he was a “great dreamer” and that many of his stories came from ideas he had in dreams. She signed my copy of her book and I went on my way, feeling rather inspired. It is so rare to meet someone whom you have admired and find out that they are just as genuine as you’d hope they would be.

What is something that people would be surprised to hear about you?

I use to be an avid cartoonist and my life’s goal was to someday be the first woman to work for MAD magazine. I seem to be headed for other adventures in this lifetime, anyway.

“The Chrysanthemum Hours” is an elegant turn of phrase that you have referenced before and which is pervasive, I think, throughout your own writing. What does it mean to you, and how do you implement that sort of philosophy in your day-to-day goings-on?

The phrase comes from Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, which is definitely a work I’d take with me to a deserted island. So many things he has written seem to strike exactly to how I feel about the fragility and beauty and ultimate sadness of life: “I seek and don’t find myself. I belong to chrysanthemum hours, neatly lined up in flowerpots.” Chrysanthemum hours, doesn’t that sound brittle and yellow and poignant and all dusty bindings, the nostalgia of bitter crushed stems, the time in fall when the shadows grow long in the afternoon, brown ink fading on a page…we need the sweet whiff of the ephemeral to make us appreciate what we can hold onto for this moment only. I think I go through life with a sort of romance for what has gone before and can never be attained again but yet a curious kind of salty hope for what may come. I can honestly say I truly love anyone that is true to themselves. To me, to have those quirks and that autumnal outlook, that’s the most important thing in the world.

As a token of our appreciation to our friends and followers, and in honor of her birth month of October (and an upcoming move to Tokyo), OTB would like to provide some literary and eldritch wonders to a few lucky readers. Please leave an identifying moniker in the comments below (it need not be a real name, just unique to you!) Names will be chosen at random on Friday, October 8th.

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 11:33:00 -0400

Greetings new followers and old friends! Thank you all for your encouragement and enthusiasm with regard to our eccentric endeavors over here at After Dark In the Playing Fields. We appreciate your continued support!

Please stay tuned later this week for a never before seen glimpse into the mind of one half of the demented duo running the place, one Miss OTB.

…additionally, at that time we will be hosting a giveaway, so do remember to check back!

All Best,

The Ladies Grimm

All Must Submit to the King of Terrors, But That Is No Reason to...

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:36:00 -0400

All Must Submit to the King of Terrors, But That Is No Reason to Look So Grave.

Remember friend as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now you will surely be
Prepare thyself to follow me.

—Common epitaph from the nineteenth century.

I have always been fascinated by cemeteries and graveyards—not out of any real morbid sense, but often an aesthetic and even scientific curiosity. The town I grew up in seemed to have more dead than living. Wandering around the edges of farmer’s fields turned up long-forgotten family graveyards. The iron fences had been sold off in a WWII scrap drive, and cows now wandered freely among the graves. If it weren’t for the names chiseled on stone, those people would be long forgotten—anyone who remembered where they lay was was now themselves, dead.

In graveyards, we find deliberately chosen monuments to everyday people who have gone before: reflective of the period of history they were wrought in and the values of those who erected them, with an elaborate symbolic language all their own. Of course, humans have been custodians of their dead ever at least since the first Neanderthal tossed a flower in a long ago burial, but with historical cemeteries, we have it all laid out for our perusal: names, exact dates and the amazing realization that tombstone art, like anything else, is susceptible to fads.

Until well into the nineteenth century, where individual expression started to become more prevalent, gravestones in American cemeteries generally follow one of a few types designs that had a fairly strict progression through time.

The earliest gravestones were populated by grim reminders of the inevitability of death: skulls and crossbones, winged hourglasses. These reflected a heavy Puritan influence: life was nasty, brutish and short and only a select few would make it to heaven. Everyone else was a sinner in the hands of an angry God. Often, stones with this type of motif mention something blunt like “Here lies the body”—there was no softening of the blow of death. Puritans were wary of succumbing to idolatry so the grim reminder of death was the only acceptable form of grave decoration.

As America accepted more and more settlers of varied backgrounds, the Puritans gradually lost their stranglehold on gravestone iconography, and by the end of the seventeenth century, the stark and disturbing skeletal renderings gradually lost their edge by the addition of wings.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the winged death’s heads had gradually phased into a regular human face, with wings (as seen above). This too reflects the sentiments of the time—there was hope of some kind of afterlife for the deceased and mentions of corrupted bodies gradually gave way to the gentler concept of “mortal remains”.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the main motif underwent a another adjustment. The vacant and slightly distressed looking human face gradually gave way to a winged cherub, effectively removing the sting from death. During this time period, burials had begun to move from the dank and overcrowded churchyard settings into a more rural, garden-like atmosphere with the introduction of the cemetery park in the 1830’s. Even the linguistic shift from “graveyard” to “cemetery” indicates the focus was now less on the rotting body and more on memorializing the departed soul. The language on these stones now says something like “In Memory of” or “Sacred to the Memory of”.

Also popular at this time was a completely new motif: the weeping willow and urn (above). The association with weeping is certainly appropriate for a funereal setting, but the willow also symbolized the gospel, since no matter how many branches are cut off, the tree remains whole, reflecting the kinder, gentler form of Christianity that had come to replace the dour hellfire and damnation of the Puritans a few generations back. The above example is somewhat transitional between the two types, as later willow and urn stones would have a square shoulder instead of the rounded one seen until now. One significant reason for the change in style was that many of these willow and urn graves were actually cenotaphs, empty graves for someone lost far from home; at sea or in a war, but gradually the style came to be favored over the others.

Of course these stylistic attributes are best seen in the longest settled-areas in America, especially New England, but almost any cemetery of a decent age will probably show willow and urn designs marking the oldest graves. In another installment, I will describe the iconographic changes taking place in the Victorian period and what the various symbols you can find in a typical cemetery represent about their permanent inhabitants.

OTB

In Search of Lost Literature: Unearthing Gothic Gems at...

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:54:00 -0400

In Search of Lost Literature: Unearthing Gothic Gems at Valancourt Books

‘Valancourt? and who was he?’ cry the young people. Valancourt, my dears, was the hero of one of the most famous romances which ever was published in this country. The beauty and elegance of Valancourt made your young grandmammas’ gentle hearts to beat with respectful sympathy. He and his glory have passed away. Ah, woe is me that the glory of novels should ever decay… Inquire at Mudie’s, or the London Library, who asks for ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ now? Have not even ‘The Mysteries of Paris’ ceased to frighten? Alas! our best novels are but for a season…”

—William Makepeace Thackeray

Several years ago, I returned to upstate NY after spending several months living in semi-tropical Taiwan. That winter was particularly cold and I spent much of it huddled under woolen blankets on the couch reading anything that was within arm’s reach. Eventually, I had to venture out to an actual bookstore, where on a whim I picked up a reprint of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Victorian gothic thriller Uncle Silas (1865). To my surprise, I became completely engrossed in the plot twists set in its creepy conspiracy-laden corridors. All too soon, the book was finished and I was unable to find anything remotely like it.

Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I had two newly reprinted gothic novels from Valancourt Books in the mail before I could despair too much. (As you can see from above, more have followed.)

Valancourt Books is an independent small (micro) press founded in late 2004 and presently based in Kansas City, specializing in quality new editions of rare literature from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. They now have over 102 books in print, with many more on the way, in a variety of genres, but mainly focusing on Gothic, Romantic and Victorian literature.

Recently, I had the opportunity to ask James D. Jenkins, the publisher and editor of Valancourt Books, some questions about this type of literature and the appeal of this genre to readers in the twenty-first century.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

OTB: What makes these types of works considered “gothic”—and how did you become interested in this type of literature? What is your favorite work of this type?

JDJ: Really, looking back, I think I’ve always been drawn to the Gothic. I remember one summer as a child when my dad sent me to the public library and told me to bring home a classic book to read. I came home with Dracula, which apparently wasn’t what he had in mind. But, as far as the types of Gothic works that Valancourt Books specializes in, I first became interested in those as an undergraduate. I recall being in the university library one afternoon and stumbling across this old book in a black binding called The Castle of Otranto. Something about it intrigued me, and I took it home and stayed up late that night reading it. I was totally riveted by it (and still am!) I started reading other Gothic novels and was completely fascinated by books like Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer. The press, of course, is named after the hero of Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, which I first stumbled upon in the bookstore at the Roma Termini train station when I was 20. I read it for the first time in a medieval castle I stayed at in a place called Montagnana, Italy. I’ve really been hooked ever since.

As far as what makes them Gothic, I guess that’s a little hard to define. It’s one of those things where you know it when you see it. Most of them do share common elements, such as being set in ruined castles or monasteries and featuring heroines in distress and dastardly villains, as well as common set pieces like skeletons, phantoms, rusty daggers, old manuscripts, and the like. Typically in the old Gothic novels, those published between 1764 and 1830, there are two main types-–the “terror Gothic,” which attempted to terrify the reader through mystery and suspense, and the “horror Gothic,” which tended to shock readers with explicit sex and violence. As for a favorite, I don’t know if I could pick one. I really love The Castle of Otranto, which I’ve read repeatedly, and The Mysteries of Udolpho, which always amazes me. Among the minor Gothics, I’m a huge fan of The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest (1794) and Francis Lathom’s The Midnight Bell (1798), two of Jane Austen’s “Horrid Novels.”*

OTB: What made you decide to found a press? I know I was fortunate enough to stumble across your website several years ago—there really were no other publishers of these kinds of novels at that time. Have you encountered any particular difficulties unique to this kind of business?

JDJ: I think you were actually our first customer! I’m glad you found us! The short story of how the press was founded is that I graduated law school in 2004 and couldn’t find a job. I had a lot of time on my hands in between applying for work, and by that time I had read all of the dozen or so classic Gothic novels published by Oxford and Penguin. I wanted to read more, but they just weren’t available. I started thinking, “Someone should be publishing more of these,” and then somehow it just hit me that rather than wait for someone else to do it, I could start doing it. So, I started spending my free time typing The Animated Skeleton and The Castle of Ollada from microfiche, and now, over 100 books later, I’ve never looked back!

OTB: Some of these works could rightly be considered, for lack of a better word, the “bestsellers” of their day. Why did the majority of these works go out of print, in spite of their original popularity? Why did certain works like those of Radcliffe or Walpole, remain in print over the years? Were they really that much better in terms of story quality than the ones that faded into relative obscurity?

JDJ: That’s a great question, and I don’t think there’s an easy answer to it. Just like today, I’m sure a lot of these books were published back then to critical disdain and poor sales and didn’t go into a second edition. Many of them quite deservedly fell out of print. But then there are some that make you scratch your head. Eaton Stannard Barrett’s The Heroine (1813), which we are preparing for the press at the moment, comes to mind. It was hugely popular and went through several editions, and found numerous admirers, among them Jane Austen and Edgar Allan Poe. It’s also incredibly funny, even two hundred years later. Why did satires of Gothic literature by writers like Austen and Thomas Love Peacock survive in print into the 21st century, while Barrett’s did not? I don’t know. The great thing is that with the greater availability of rare old texts through sources like Google Books and other electronic and print sources, more and more of these books can be rediscovered and those that were undeservedly lost can be republished in new editions.

OTB: Despite their sometimes initial popularity, these works were often marginalized and dismissed by the critics of the time, considered pulp or cheap entertainments. Over the years, they only became of interest to academics or other specialists—do you see a value in bringing these works back into print for something other than scholarly pursuits? Are they worthwhile to the modern reader simply as historical artifacts or for an intrinsic entertainment value?

JDJ: I guess that depends on taste! A lot of our readers enjoy these works simply for their entertainment value. In fact, I’ve never liked to think of them as historical artifacts and I’ve tried to encourage our editors to avoid that sort of thing in their introductions. I mean, with all the books available-–both classics and contemporary literature – why would you want to waste your time reading something that’s only worthwhile as an historical artifact? That said, I think I’d have to concede that we’ve published one or two that were of more interest for their rarity than their literary value!

OTB: Why do you think gothic literature could still resonate with readers today?

JDJ: I think the Gothic has always resonated with readers. Even in ancient texts, you find mention of such things as ghosts and apparitions, and of course in early British literature, such as Shakespeare’s plays, you pretty regularly find things like phantoms and witches. These sorts of works of course gave rise to the Gothic works of authors like Walpole and Radcliffe. But I think it would be a mistake to assume that the Gothic ever really went away. In the Victorian era, you had mystery and supernatural works by writers like Wilkie Collins and Sheridan Le Fanu, and a little later popular novelists like Richard Marsh and Bram Stoker. Even in recent years, we’ve had Stephen King, Anne Rice, and now Stephenie Meyer. I think something about the Gothic, about scary stories and tales of horror and mystery, is a universal impulse-–it’s something that has always existed both in our literature and other countries’ literatures, and that I think always will.

OTB: What are your most popular titles? Do any have a surprising popularity or affect readers in unexpected ways? I would imagine that the lesser known works of Bram Stoker or perhaps the previously mentioned “Horrid Novels” would have especial appeal to someone interested in this type of literature.

JDJ: You’re absolutely right. The Horrid Novels and works by authors that are better known, like Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, tend to be among our best sellers. One book that, year in, year out, is always among our bestsellers, though, and which I always find surprising, is George Brewer’s The Witch of Ravensworth (1808). It’s really a wonderful little book and I’m happy that people have discovered it, but I’m nonetheless always a little perplexed at the levels of its sales.

OTB: I have noticed over the last few years that Valancourt Books has been expanding in scope to include titles from the later Victorian period as well as the twentieth century. What was your motivation to include these sorts of books in the catalogue? Are there still more areas you might decide to cover in the future?

JDJ: Well, one thing that tends to happen when you have your own press (and especially when it’s a one-person press) is that what the press publishes tends pretty much to be whatever you’re interested in. As I’ve gotten older and read more widely in other areas, I’ve discovered new areas of interest and other obscure works that I wanted to bring back into print and share with readers. One of these is the popular literature of the 1890s, which is just an amazing decade. It’s in the 1890s that Sherlock Holmes rises to prominence, that we get characters like Dorian Gray, Dracula, and The Beetle, and perhaps even more importantly, it’s the decade where the three-volume novel that had dominated publishing for a century or more and had made books largely unaffordable to everyday readers was finally abandoned in favor of inexpensive, one-volume editions that were accessible to all. So we start to see just an explosion of popular, thrilling, cheap novels, many of which are truly fascinating and worthy of new attention. We’ve also started doing some gay-themed literature from the early 20th century, which is another interest of mine, and something that’s getting a lot of scholarly attention these days. Presently we don’t have plans for any new series, although we plan to continue expanding our 18th century and Victorian collections, which have been gradually growing.

OTB: What titles will be forthcoming over the next year or so? Is there anything particularly intriguing or obscure that you’re still trying to track down for future publication? Are there some known works so hard to locate that original copies to work from do not exist or are too rare to even get access to?

JDJ: Probably the two that are the most highly anticipated are the final two “Horrid Novels”: Horrid Mysteries by Carl Grosse and Eleanor Sleath’s The Orphan of the Rhine, probably the two rarest of the lot. Although probably twenty, thirty years ago, there would have been works so rare that you couldn’t get copies of them, that’s not really the case anymore. With online library catalogs like Worldcat and COPAC, it’s pretty quick and easy to find out what libraries hold a given book. And although the books we publish are usually so rare that the copies do not circulate, with modern reproduction and scanning technology, the books can usually be copied or scanned for us (for an often lofty price!) For example, The Forest of Valancourt (1813), which we published in hardcover, survives in only one known copy–-at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and we were able to get a photocopy of it so we could republish it. There are a couple old Gothic novels mentioned in reference works that we have not been able to track down (the most notable is probably W. H. Ireland’s Bruno; or, The Sepulchral Summons), but for some of these lost works, we have been unable to verify after extensive research that they ever really existed in the first place.

OTB: Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. As always, I wish you and everyone at Valancourt Books every possible success for making these titles available to everyone.

JDJ: Thanks, Jessica, always a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity to share some info about Valancourt Books with you and your readers!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Valancourt Books’ list of currently published works can be found here; they are widely available at Amazon or other booksellers.

*The “Horrid Novels” refers to a selection of 18th century Gothic fiction mentioned by Jane Austen in her gothic satire, Northanger Abbey. Most of the ‘horrid novels’ were believed to be inventions of Austen until the early twentieth century. For a complete list of titles, see here. Valancourt Books has published five of the seven and has plans to release the other two in the future.

Crash Helmet,or Things That Do Not Make Sense I am really at a loss as to how to properly introduce...

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:13:00 -0400

Crash Helmet,
or Things That Do Not Make Sense

I am really at a loss as to how to properly introduce the following item from my past. There are some memories of beloved childhood belongings that just Make Sense - a cherished stuffed animal, for example: a once sweet-faced and shiny marble-eyed bunny rabbit, worn down to rags and nubs from time spent dragging it to and fro through sandboxes, bathtubs and brambles.

Not only did I love this Bunny -I know she loved me too. She loved me so much, I am absolutely certain that she did not mind when, 30 years later - just this past May - I buried her under an old oak tree with my wonderful little cat who had just died. They had both provided comfort and companionship and happiness for me for so many years, it only made Perfect Sense to me to keep them together.

It is fitting then, one should look back at these treasured keepsakes, these fond remembrances and feel a pleasant rush of happiness and harmony. Of feeling safe and at peace. Of the world Making Sense.

Crash Helmet is definitely not one of these items. Even as children, when presented with this book, I recall my sister and I wearing identical looks of abject horror while thumbing through it. I am not sure who gifted it to us, but to this day I wonder what on earth they must have been thinking. I realize that most children’s books are full of crazy, nonsensical plots and unusual characters - that is what makes them so much fun for young people to read, and so memorable many years later. This one however seems particularly demented, and two more wildly unattractive protagonists I have never seen.

A story by Harry Allard and illustrated by Jean-Claude Suares, Crash Helmet follows Elmer, a suave and lonely vulture who runs a gas station in New Mexico who meets Violet, a 5000 year old mummy on a motorcycle. Violet “is charmed by Elmer’s smooth dancing and Elmer is awed by Violet’s fearlessness. As the two of them try to eke out a living in the desert, they discover that what they lack in common sense they more than make up in imagination and daring”.

I am not sure it is often that one can trace back to the exact moment the world wobbled, tilted, and subsequently righted itself, but this is as close as it gets for me…. I believe that from that time on my perception of things were a bit skewed for it. This is not all a bad thing, of course! Obviously we had not encountered much weirdness in our lives up until this point, but after repeated, repulsed readings, we grew more and more appreciative of it and the absurdity contained within. I think it probably contributed to our general eccentricities as we grew older!

Of course, we had since lost the copy that we grew up with. I was recently lucky enough to track down another, and surprised myself by how excited I was to tear open the small package and hold the book in my hands again. Having scanned the pages in (the rest you can find below), it is at this moment wrapped in brown paper and in the post on its way to my sister. She is not expecting it, and I cannot imagine what she will think when she opens the package.

I hope though, she will smile and exclaim “This old thing! This strange old thing! How I loved it - how happy I am to see it again.” I hope that after the unusual twists and unexpected turns our lives have taken since that time, she finds comfort in it, as perhaps A Thing That Now Makes Sense.

GND

After Dark In The Playing Fields

Embracing the nightside; An interview with My Love Haunted Heart

Creepy/Cute - A Kewpie Quickie image: Rose O’Neill,...

Creepy/Cute - A Kewpie Quickie

Will Errickson's resplendent horror fiction reviews

A Pleasant Seat: The Ruins of Okinawan Gusuku. DUNCANThis...

M.R. James’ “The Fenstanton Witch” illustration by Paul Lowe,...

Shadow Rabbit (by crowolf) Today is the last day of our Weird...

Weird and Wonderful

The Christmas Service of the Dead

The Story Behind the Stone: The Bass Family Plot, Reno Hill, Oak...

A chilling chosen few

GND’s 12 Cinematic favourites for Haunting Halloween viewing (in no particular order)

Feel free to leave your own recommendations in the comments or in a post of your own!

OTB’s Picks for Twelve Tomes for A Terrifying...

All Must Submit to the King of Terrors, But That Is No Reason to...

A Change of Demon, by John D McMahon On Making Friends,...

On Making Friends, Influencing People, and Ruining Your Life With Demon Contact.

The Past Lies Sleeping: Seeking the Mason House

(Image of pressed flower in an eighteenth century library book...

Temporal paradoxes and impeccable table manners

image ©OTB Greetings new followers and old friends! Thank you...

All Must Submit to the King of Terrors, But That Is No Reason to...

In Search of Lost Literature: Unearthing Gothic Gems at...

Crash Helmet,or Things That Do Not Make Sense I am really at a loss as to how to properly introduce...

Crash Helmet,or Things That Do Not Make Sense

GND’s 12 Cinematic favourites for Haunting Halloween viewing
(in no particular order)

Crash Helmet,
or Things That Do Not Make Sense