Gothic gossip in the new new Carolean era

Some interesting (I hope) ephemera: The Isle of Man has pushed the boat out with a set of stamps celebrating Nigel Kneale:











It even included a UV torch to reveal the hidden messages printed on the stamps.

Oh dear! This is reminding me how much I've meant to watch that I still haven't got round to—especially The Stone Tape. And, just to rub salt in, in the last few days I've been realising I've bought a lot of stuff over the years that I've never got round to watching; who knows if I have a copy of that one or not—I know I've been 'meaning' to get hold of it for years.

Just looking at Kneale's IMDb data: I had no idea he did the screen play for the film version of Look Back in Anger. That was really big stuff when I was a boy. Don't know that I actually saw it then, but you couldn't help hearing about it, even a kid like me—it was a big sensation, 'angry young men' and all that ...

>2 alaudacorax:

I'm saying that Look Back in Anger was really big stuff back then ... so was the television 'Quatermass', of course ...

>4 housefulofpaper:

I'm sure I've read that Kneale was proud of being Osbourne's adaptor for the screen (he did The Entertainer as well) while he became prickly about his science fiction and horror.

He felt Doctor Who kept ripping him off (well yes, compare and contrast Spearhead from Space with Quatermass II and The Daemons with Quatermass and the Pit. I suppose they were still saying "you can't copyright ideas, only arrangements of words" in the 1970s).

His sitcom Kinvig is basically a three-hour ridiculing of people who believe in UFOs and other "unexplained phenomema" and I think he conflates them with science fiction fans.

>4 housefulofpaper:

For some reason, Kinvig never showed up on my radar. Either that or it was so mediocre I've completely forgotten it. Another one to catch up with, if only for curiosity stemming from your last clause.

Happy World Goth Day, everyone (with three minutes to spare!)

A new - in fact, the first - collected edition of Algernon Blackwood's short fiction, edited by S. T. Joshi, was discussed in another thread. The first two volumes are on the Hippocampus Press website for preorder (expected August). Ordering from the UK would double the price. Some Hippocampus Press books are available from Amazon UK (I don't think there are more palatable alternatives out there). I'm going to wait until August and see what my options are.

>7 housefulofpaper:

I assume these are softcovers—the website doesn't actually say so. Incidentally, what does 'trade paper' mean in book publishing this context? With each volume it says 'trade paper' right after the ISBN.

Hmm ... quotes me $97-70 for the two—that's £78-45 on the BBC's exchange rate. Ouch. As Andrew said, I'll wait for Amazon (or whoever else on this side). To me Blackwood is one of the very best, though, and I'd pay a lot if someone brought out a hardback 'collected' in two or three volumes of the Barnes & Noble sort, like my Poe and Lovecraft editions.

>8 alaudacorax:

Of course, somebody will do just that ... right after I've paid out for the Hippocampus sixth volume ...

>8 alaudacorax:
The Hippocampus Press I own vary in paper/card stock and design. No doubt they've used different printers over the years. The most recent book I have from them is Arthur Machen: Autobiographical Writings edited by (who else?) S. T. Joshi.

Did you ever see any books from a mail order club called, I think, The Softback Preview? They were operating in the 1990s. They would take what looked like the text block of recent hardbacks and put on a paperback-style card cover.

The book looks very much like those. It's the size of a regular hardack minus couple of millimetres where a case cover extends beyond the paper of the text block. It's "perfect bound", i.e. loose pages are glued directly to the cover. The paper stock is thinner than, but better than, the pulp paper used for regular paperbacks.

>10 housefulofpaper:

Yes I have the Arthur Machen: Autobiographical Writings. I was wondering if 'trade paper' denoted inferior materials.

>10 housefulofpaper: & >11 alaudacorax:
When a new hardback book is published in England it is released in Ireland as a book of the same size as the UK hardback but with a softback. If I want a hardback edition of a new book I have to order it specifically through an Irish bookshop, order it from Amazon, or order it from some other UK outlet. This reminded me of the chapter in Umbert Eco's Foucault's Pendulum in which he describes the operation of a vanity publisher. The publisher charged the author for printing, let's say, 10,000 books. The publisher would bind 2,000 in hardcover and keep the rest in reserve. He would then lie to the author about how well their book was selling. At some point he would suggest the need for a paperback edition, charge the author for printing more books but only bind some of the already existing books in softbacks.

I always wondered if a trade-paperback was what is released in the Irish market, i.e. books are printed in one run and then some are given hardbacks and others softbacks. The books are the same size but with different bindings. When the paperback comes out it is always smaller.

>11 alaudacorax:
>12 pgmcc:
The meaning of the term is evidently a bit slippery. I don't know if you went to Wikipedia but the actual entry for "trade paperback" defines it as a reprint collection of comic books. The entry for "paperback" does define "trade paperback" as the type of book talked about in >10 housefulofpaper: and >12 pgmcc: but goes on to say that in the US it can also mean a "B" format paperback (i.e. originally the larger and more "highbrow" format, like a Picador paperback, but which is now the default paperback format in the UK market).

>12 pgmcc:

That's fascinating, but you have to wonder why it's done. The books might be marginally lighter (or do soft and harcovers get taxed differently? I always assume books are zero-rated for VAT as in the UK, but maybe not). And I can't imagine that every bindery is tooled up for both hardcovers and oversized softcovers.

>14 housefulofpaper:
While books are zero-rated in Ireland they are still quite expensive due to the transport costs. The typical new book sells at €23. Bookshops can pack more books into their shelfs if they are softback. I am sure there is a chicken-and-egg argument about bookshops not stocking hardbacks because management perceives a low demand for them, and there being a low demand for them because they are not available on the shelves. Either way, hardbacks are not often found in the fiction sections of Irish bookshops.

You also have to keep in mind that Ireland is a tiny market. The country only has about 5m people; less than many European cities. That in itself has an effect on the number of books sold through bookshops. Add to that the influence of on-line shopping and the bookshops would have little incentive to stock hardbacks that are more costly to transport, take up more space, and will sell in small numbers.

There are exceptions, such as gift editions, Everyman's Library editions, and some anniversary editions.

I now feel the urge to re-read Foucault's Pendulum, Well, at least read the chapter on vanity publishing. It was very entertaining.

>15 pgmcc:

That's a book I need to reread. I actually have the UK hardback but I bought the Folio Society edition too. What a waste if I don't read it. I can only hope that I get more of the references in my mid-50's than I did in my early '20s (although I remember a reviewer - possibly John Clute in Interzone - saying that the translator had missed quite a few genre-based jokes in the Italian text).

https://www.librarything.com/topic/336371#8185775 - benbrainard8 posted on the old thread, so I've copied it over from there :—

Let's read and discuss!

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230707-the-eight-best-gothic-books-of-all-...

>17 alaudacorax:

My first comment is that I'm wondering a little about the linking of Gothic lit with dark academia. I'm not really clear on what 'dark academia' is, but I vaguely remember reading articles—or they may have been YouTube vids—some of which challenged the notion that it is a 'proper' genre at all. To be honest, I can't remember their arguments and I'll be interested to hear see folks' comments.

>17 alaudacorax:

Second comment: can you really make a list like this and not put Dracula in it?

There might have been some pressure to keep the list "fresh" - only two titles from the 19th Century, only one from the first half of the 20th. Also, there are some people who don't like Dracula, or would class it as an 1890s-vintage Techno-thriller,

The Secret History
I haven't read this but I'm sort of aware of it, more its influence on Dark Academia that the details of the plot. As for Dark Academia itself, I thought I knew what it was but realised that if I started opining on it, I'd merely show my ignorance. It's an aesthetic as much as a genre, it lives on Instagram at least as much as between the covers of a book, fine. But I don't have a clue as to what it means in the context of American class/wealth/geography...is it aspirational or ironic? I'm pretty sure Inspector Morse doesn't count :)

Frankenstein
I've got the Folio Society limited edition to read - so that would be a re-read of the 1831 text. One rather sombre think that pushed me into buying the book was the realistation that the setting, the Alpine glaciers and so on - my be gone in our lifetime.

Vicious
The only book on the list that I hadn't even heard of.

The Essex Serpent
I have a copy, but it's behind that wall of paperbacks and Blu-rays in a wardrobe. It's unread (as is Melmoth) nd I didn't see the television adaptation, but I have enjoyed Sarah Perry's contributions to talks on BBC radio.

The Shadow of the Wind
I have a copy of this too, another book title I was aware of and I picked it up in Waterstones. It's in a box somewhere, or might even form part of the aforementioned wall.

Carmilla
I was lucky enough to find the Ash Tree Press 3-volume complete Le Fanu short fiction some years ago, so I intend to read this one again (I first read it in an elegant French, but English language, paperback that has somehow made its way to Blackwells or Waterstones. Unusually it was the only story in the book (Carmilla is usually published alongside other stories).

Rebecca
I did intend to read this as being closer to the "girl in nightdress flees castle" strain of Gothic, not to mention having enjoyed a volume of Du Maurier's short fiction. And I've actually got the Folio society edition. I've never watched the film, well not really. I caught the end by accident on TV without realising what it was. Obvioulsy, I wish I maange to forget it when I do come to read the novel.

Fingersmith
Aother book I haven't read, an author I haven't read, in fact, although I have a copy of The Little Stranger somewhere.

My reading's limited at the moment. I've developed sciatica over the past week or so (I now realise) but it got very painful on Sunday. For now, I'm reading stuff that's (i) within easy reach and (ii) can survive being read in the bath.

>20 housefulofpaper:
Sorry to hear about your sciatica. I hope it calms down soon. It is miserable and very debilitating.

Like yourself, I am not very clear on what Dark Academia really is, but it appears I have been reading it.

The Secret History is a book I read a few years ago, but I had waited many years after buying it before reading it. I do not have any fancy editions of any of the books on the list. I enjoyed the story and the twists, but never thought of it as the birth of a new sub-genre.

Frankenstein I of course have and have read. (The "of course" is there just to maintain some impression of conformity to norms of the Gothic readers' family.)

Vicious is a book I was not aware of, but I have been intending to read some Schwab. This will be as good a place to start as any.

The Essex Serpent, another book I was not aware of, but an author who has taken a keen interest in Melmoth the Wanderer to the extent of producing her own modernised version. I have Melmoth on my shelves awaiting reading. I am curious to see what she has done with the concept of the Wanderer in her novel.

The Shadow of the Wind is anther book on my shelves awaiting attention.

Carmilla is a story I really enjoyed. I am very keen on Le Fanu's works and have enjoyed any that I have read.

Rebecca is another favourite of mine. I am quite interested in how Du Maurier has the reader siding with a murderer.

Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet made a big splash at the time Tipping the Velvet was televised. I have read neither, nor seen the screen adaptation, though at the time I read Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson which was a very clever work that enigmatically described a love affair but never specified the gender of the main point-of-view character.

>20 housefulofpaper: I am sorry to hear you are suffering from the dreaded sciatica. Wishing you a speedy and full recovery. Do make time for Hitchcock's 'Rebecca'. It is a powerful film with an astonishing performance from Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers (how she lost the Oscar to Jane Darwell for 'The Grapes of Wrath' I cannot fathom).

>18 alaudacorax: I haven't a clue what 'Dark Academia' is. The article says it is ruling TikTok. I have never viewed anything on TikTok!

>19 alaudacorax: 'Dracula' is a huge omission. Bizarre for Freya Berry to say that 'Frankenstein' is "arguably the most influential gothic novel ever written, bar Dracula" - and then omit, by her definition, the most influential gothic novel! However, any such list is subjective, and this is Freya Berry's 'best of' list. Fair enough.

I have read 6 of the 8 books listed (haven't read 'The Secret History' or even heard of 'Vicious', so can't comment on them).

I don't think I need to comment on 'Frankenstein' or 'Carmilla' - both deserve a place on any gothic 'best' list.

Sarah Perry writes beautifully. 'The Essex Serpent' is one of my favourite books of this century - a very engaging, delicate, lyrical, and multi layered novel, with fascinating, very well drawn characters. Perry's description of place is excellent, and the book has bags of atmosphere. (I was, however, underwhelmed with 'Melmoth', which, for me, wasn't as cohesive and readable - perhaps, in part, because my expectations were so high after 'The Essex Serpent').

Zafon's 'Shadow of the Wind' is also one of my favourite books of this century. I first read it in a blazing fury, couldn't put it down. I even read it while walking in the street to work from the train station (never done that before or since!) It is the first of a cycle of four books ('Cemetery of forgotten books'), and they are all very good, but 'Shadow of the Wind' is the best of them. There is also another book, 'The City of Mist', published posthumously (Zafon sadly died at the age of 55), which I understand is made up of short stories set in the World of the 'The Cemetery of forgotten books', which I haven't read yet. Zafon's novels hark back to 19th century writers like Dickens and Wilkie Collins, whilst remaining firmly in the modern World. The books are lengthy and have very elaborate plots, which seem over the top when you step back from them, but work beautifully while you are reading them. Zafon is a modern gothic master to my mind.

'Rebecca' is another of my favourites, and well worthy of a place on this list. Daphne Du Maurier was an extraordinary writer, and 'Rebecca' is her masterpiece. I re-read it last year, and think it is so modern and well ahead of its time. It is mountains above the type of similar looking material written by authors like Victoria Holt later in the 20th century (which - guilty secret - I also enjoy). >21 pgmcc: Very pertinent spoiler!

I enjoyed 'Fingersmith' by Sarah Waters very much. It's an excellent novel from a great writer. But for gothic LGTBQ, I don't believe anything tops the aforementioned 'Carmilla' or particularly 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde. Wilde's overt gay subtext is absolutely astonishing for the time it was written, and I would have his book on my list, over 'Fingersmith'.

I would have liked 'The Mysteries of Udolpho' by Radcliffe on this list, as she really started the ball rolling to my mind. Also, perhaps Stephenson's 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. Although it divides people, I also think Susan Hill's 'The Woman in Black', deserves a place on a best of gothic list, or perhaps Angela Carter and her 'Bloody Chamber and Other Stories'. And perhaps one of M R James collections of short stories. And what of the Brontes?! 8 titles is not enough!

>20 housefulofpaper:
Here's hoping you get well soon. Nothing more frustrating than having your mobility taken away, not to mention the pain, of course ...

>17 alaudacorax:
I'm a bit confused. I've just read the Wikipedia page for 'dark academia'. It seems to me there is a problem of definition here. I don't believe that what Wikipedia has to say about it matches what Freya Berry (author of >17 alaudacorax:'s article) understands by the term. I've already said that I don't really understand what dark academia is, but what little impression I picked up of it prior to this discussion tends more towards Berry's understanding than Wikipedia's. If we go on Wikipedia's page, I don't really understand where 'dark' comes into it at all.

>17 alaudacorax:

A part of the modern world I've completely managed to shun is TikTok. So I don't understand where that comes into it and, to be honest, I really can't be bothered with any more social media. So I'll just take Berry's word for it that these are must-reads.

Fingersmith came as a bit of a surprise. I well remember the splash that both the book and the screen versions made but I never read or watched and I hadn't realised there was a Gothic element there. I think I vaguely thought of it as Charles Dickens with girl on girl action, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

I think The Essex Serpent has been discussed here—it certainly got on my radar somehow and has been one of my 'vaguely meaning to reads' for some time. As has The Secret History, just from sheer reputation. I'll get round to them some day.

I love that she's put in Carmilla. That and Frankenstein are my favourite Gothic novels of all, but I do think that Carmilla is just a little bit undervalued.

I'm overdue a reread of Rebecca (so much to read, so little time). As far as I remember, I've only read it once and >21 pgmcc:'s spoiler is an aspect I've ever since felt I haven't properly got to grips with. But then there's a whole bucketful of other Du Maurier stuff that I have not read and have long been meaning to ...

The Shadow of the Wind and Vicious are two I'd never heard of. What I can find about them online makes them very tempting. Oh dear ... so much reading to do ... perhaps I should sell the telly ...

>24 alaudacorax:

And now I've derailed myself. My next fiction read was going to be Melmoth the Wanderer (what's up with the touchstone on that—it's a mess?) and I'd gone so far as to hunt out my copy and put it beside my chair. Now I'm looking longingly at Daphne Du Maurier and The Essex Serpent. And 'Melmoth' looks like a couple of months' worth of reading ...

ETA - Hah! Fixed the touchstone business ... I hope: Melmoth the Wanderer

Why the hell is there an 'abridged children's classics' version of Rebecca?

Thanks for the kind thoughts. Thankfully there's no pain if I'm lying down, so I am getting a good night's sleep.

The Wikipedia article on Dark Academia chimes with a couple of YouTube uploads I've seen on the subject. As somebody who didn't go onto higher education but, to put it in broad terms, "likes finding out about stuff", I think I can understand (young) people imagining themselves into an idealised world of Higher Learning and Humanist ideals and so forth. Even giving it a twist of Romantic danger.

The first book I read under is-it-within-reach-will-it-survive-bathtime conditions was The Unofficial Countryside. It's mainly about what now get called "edgelands" - the unloved bits of land between the town and the countryside proper, where amidst the canals and electricity pylons and rubbish dumps, nature can, if only precariously, thrive in a way it doesn't in the city or under modern farming conditions.

Any connection to Gothic? At all? Well maybe it throws a sidelight on one strand of Folk Horror, the bit that plays with the urban environment extending into the countryside (and the countryside coming into the heart of the city).

The books 50 years old now, and in a few places things are discussed that makes the past truly seem a different place (it's a bit of a shock when it's a past you were alive in and can remember!).

>26 alaudacorax:

Maybe that's not so surprising. The comics that were marketed to pre-teen girls in the '70s and '80s - these are British comics, published by D. C. Thompson and IPC Magazines, I should clarify (they dominated the UK market like DC and Marvel in the US) - were full of stories of an explicity Gothic character. Some were overtly supernatural, some were concerned with heroines suffering at the hands of wicked relatives and so forth.

Rebellion (who now have the rights to 2000AD Magazine) have reprinted some of the strips in book form in recent years.

Anyone else seen the trailer for Ken Branagh's new Poirot film?

A Haunting in Venice is based on Halloween Party. The feeling I've had since Murder on the Orient Express, that Branagh's really playing Jules de Grandin (Seabury Quinn's occult detective) is about 100 times stronger here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEddsSwweyE&t=23s

Good morning, all.

I've been re-reading , beginning with the BBC article that had the list we've been discussing above.

Well, feel that Camilla, Sheridan Le Fanu should be rated far more highly than it is. And I would like to see an excellent cinematic version of it, too. As to Rebecca, I've never read the book, so looking forward it. Did see the Hitchcock movie version (Criterion addition), and liked it.

Um, I'm for Dracula being on the list, perhaps it's not because the book/story, the character, even the writer have imbedded (proper word usage?) into the popular culture, that indeed it's become a 1890s Vintage, Techno thrilller....heh, that's a great description. Just out of morbid curiosity, I did a quick BBC online search 'Dracula', and found a fascinating article:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-65745910

And double oof, I've never read many of the books listed in that BBC article. More to add to the never-ending list: The Shadow of the Wind, Vicious, The Essex Serpent, Fingersmith, Tipping the Velvet, and The Secret History, Donna Tartt.

Let me know what you think of Melmoth the Wanderer, alaudacorax, as I found that book to be excellent and now I want to reread it. After watching 'Oppenheimer', I field Cillian Murphy as my choice for the titular role (c'mon great film- & BBC Series makers, you can do it!).

Going to look up 'dark academia' on web/YouTube and see what I find. Maybe it's one of those wandering expressions/terminologies as I call them, like calling young Goth-minded youngsters "spooky kids", nowadays. ???

housefulofpaper, hope that you're feeling better. I've never had sciatica--it sounds painful. So sorry about that.

Admit I'm making pitiful progress on Caleb Williams, only managed ten pages so far. we're getting a total 2nd floor house remodel done, so I blame the unbearable box-land we're living in--- sleeping on the floor & chairs piled with misc. stuff, don't lend to book reading, heh ! Did I read somewhere that Caleb Williams has something to do with, or is a precursor to: Sherlock Holmes ? I must be mistaken.... ?

>30 benbrainard8:
I like your idea of Cillian Murphy playing Melmoth. I too loved the book.

>30 benbrainard8:

You have my sympathies in regard to the disruption building/redecorating causes. I am still recovering from work on my kitchen at the start of the year. The sciatica lessened in intensity and I'm able to sit down, thankfully, but it's still bothering me.

It's astonishing, really, how many theories and critical baggage Dracula can bear. There was another story stressing the Dracula/Scotland link, this one in The Guardian newspaper: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/sep/07/scotland-stage-all-woman-non-binar....

I think there's an element of detection in Caleb Williams (I'm going by synopses and commentarie, I haven't read the novel) but it's more of an ancestor of The Fugitive-type stories of the unjustly accused and pursued. Should I have cited Les Miserables instead, to sound smarter :)

I'll get back to The Shadow of the Wind after I've read The City of Unspeakable Fear. Just after we started taking about it, the Folio Society brought out a Limited Edition for £295. It's bound in full leather to mimic the edition of the book in the novel (The Shadow of the Wind is named for a fictional novel around which the action of Ruiz Zafón's story turns) but they couldn't resist adding their corporate logo to the spine. They would have omitted it in "the old days" (but then again, they wouldn't have published it in the first place).

About 25% of the way through The City of Unspeakable Fear and enjoying it as much as the previous Jean Ray editions from Wakefield Press, although of course the "more British than British" setting and characters are inevitably striking slightly wrong notes.

um, I found a web description of 'dark academia':

Internet aesthetic: Dark academia is an internet aesthetic and subculture concerned with higher education, the arts, and literature, or an idealised version thereof.

more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_academia

Hmm, well nothing wrong with best intentions.

Like some on this thread, I don't do social media---actually none of it: no Facebook, Tumblr, Tik-Tok, Instagram, etc. So, anything flying around such media would fly by me.

>32 housefulofpaper: Oh, I like this idea. I'd sometime watch any of the versions of 'Dracula', and wonder to myself, if Mina could be Kate Beckinsale's 'Underworld', type, that'd be something. Of course, then it'd be a Manga or Anime treatment, eh?

Why do the women in those stories have to be so coddled? Of course, it must've been the age, but I still find it poor form. The whole damsel in distress, must have gotten old (even) by then, and it seems women as hysterical/passive were often portrayed.

I'd bought The City of Unspeakable Fear three weeks ago and am looking forward to it.

Caleb Williams does open with language that speaks in the Les Miserables milieu: The person wronged. If I find parallels to Sherlock Holmes, I'm sure it will make itself known immediately.

The 2nd floor remodel continues and is supposed to be completed---by Thanksgiving. It's given me new topic to ponder, upon waking up a few times---- to find myself looking into the face of a teddy bear, Paddington Bear, or Christmas Dwarf face, giving me an awful fright in early a.m. I'll punt this idea out, hoping that someone thinks it worthy of its own thread? the cute, normal things that scare the bejeezers out of us. Mine are dolls, mimes, and clowns. I'd cuddle with a boa constrictor before going to a circus (anymore/nowadays).

Forgive me for such strange idle ideas. nearly as odd as my prior---- about whether or not we talk aloud with/to our books (I loved all your responses by the way). The only after-thought I'd had with that one: they say it's ok to speak aloud, even in public, as long as no invisible entity answers you (literally) back. Let's say this is undoubtedly true with your book.

>34 benbrainard8:

Alan Moore did something like that with Mina in his The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen sequence of graphic novels. In the film version, Mina (as played by Peta Wilson) is very much in the Kate Beckinsale "vampire superhero" mould.

I can't think of anything, today, that would scare me in the way you describe. Even when I was a possibly more than usually nervous child, the things intended for children'd entertainment I took at face value and enjoyed them - ventriloqist's dolls, Punch and Judy shows, clowns, the lot.

I remember when I was quite young but not a toddler, I became scared of going upstairs in the family home. Yhis must have even been the case during the day because I focused this fear onto, of all things, a triangular patch of sunlight that appeared high up on the bathroom wall. I named it Happy Ghost", I think in an attempt to propitiate it (maybe the same instinct that made the ancient Greeks call the Furies "the kindly ones"?).

I was also worried that the newsagents on the route to school, which was also a sub Post Office, would be raided by armed robbers whilst I was there buying sweets or comics.

I went on a little shopping expedition on Saturday because I found out there is an Oxfam bookshop a couple of miles east of Reading town centre. Improbably, the tip-off came from a YouTuber's upload. Sadly, as he was talking about buying around 1000 books in the last few months I should have realised that he would have pretty much cleared the shelves before I got there.

I did buy a few books and these might be of interest:

A first edition hardback of Angela Carter's final (and posthumous) short story collection. It had been inks-tamped with a "D" (for warehouse-damaged?) and still had a discount bookshop's price sticker attached. But apart from the ink stamp there's nothing wrong with it.



This is an anthology of New Wave science fiction from US publisher Belmont/Tower (ink-stamped with a UK price - 9p! - on the back cover) The New Tomorrows. There's a few pages of the publisher's catalogue at the back of the book and a tear-out order form. This is a page of Gothics (no doubt all feature cover art of the lady in nightwear running from a sinister castle or manor house, one lighted window shining evilly into the night). I'm being a bit cheeky, but I would be curious to actually read one or two of these books. I don't recall ever seeing them in bookshops (I assume the UK market was more nurse romances, Catherine Cooksons, and a waning market for Regency romances).

Something has just dawned on me. Whenever I get in a grumpy old man mood from reading the news (which is most days), I go online and get this impulse to order a completely unconnected book that I have no immediate need for, or time to read. It starts off, of course, by saying 'sod the whole boiling of them'—generally meaning politicians and, increasingly these days, the media—and fleeing to LibraryThing for sanctuary.

Umm ... that reads like I think the media are getting worse. Not true. They were always that bad. On the one hand, you get more aware as you get older; on the other, there are more of them these days ...

And they're getting frighteningly good at clickbait—which is another thing that manages to infuriate me on a daily basis.

>37 alaudacorax:

Should really have posted that on facebook ... but that's one of the places where the clickbait keeps catching me ...

>36 housefulofpaper: - ... I would be curious to actually read one or two of these books.

You can get an used paperback of The Deadly Rose on UK Amazon for only £197-80. She's hiding behind a bush, but I'm sure it's nightwear; no house in the background, though. You can get Terror at Deepcliff for a fiver, and it's got the dark castle in the background with one lighted window—not sure if it's nightwear, though, or a rather long frock.

Trying to remember an old film, because I've got this idea that all those titles are written by Dennis Price under pseudonyms—was it Kind Hearts and Coronets?

ETA - I think I was thinking of Alastair Sim in Laughter in Paradise, not Dennis Price.

>39 alaudacorax:

Somebody must have snapped up Terror at Deepcliff, the cheapest copy I could see on AbeBooks woould be closer to £10 with postage.

However, I did order a copy of Hotel Transylvania (Youtuber, The Outlaw Bookseller, has mentioned Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's long series of vampire/historical novels favourably several times. I have only read a short story or an extract from a novel in an anthology. The copy listed had a very Romantic (in the Miils & Boon/Harlequin books sense) cover.

I thought I'd reined in my spending a little bit, but I've recently bought quite a few reprint collections of old ('60s/'70s) comics. That's definitely retreating back to childhood comfort reading, but at a heck of a lot more than pocket money prices.

>40 housefulofpaper:

And here it is:

Any of our Brit members applying?

Degree in magic to be offered at University of Exeter

My Art "A" level isn't going to get me into a postgraduate course, is it?

Actually, the subject has interested me for a while, but probably not enough to get through anything academically rigorous. There's a perhaps surprising amount of religion and philosphy involved (snd I'm struggling well before we get to middle period Platonism).

Happy Friday 13th!

>44 alaudacorax:

Thank you! Not an unlucky day but definitely an autumnal, dare I say Gothic day - I left the house to a chorus of cawing crows overhead, there was bellringing in Reading Minster on my way to work, and I came home in darkness and pelting rain (it doesn't seem so long ago that the thought of finishing work after dark seemed somehow unnatural. You'd think at my age, I would have got used to how seasons work!)

>45 housefulofpaper:

This time of year the change in day length is happening at its fastest. It always depresses me a bit.

Are you sure they're not rooks? It's not at all true what they so often say online about crows being solitary and rooks being social, but large numbers calling in the trees overhead are much more likely to be rooks than crows. Pity really, crows seem to go better with Friday the 13th—a 'murder' of crows and all that ... in the absence of ravens, anyway.

Incidentally, the collective noun for rooks is 'parliament'. Such is my level of cynicism these days that I regard that as a gross calumny on the poor old rooks ...

>46 alaudacorax:

Umm ... as soon as I pressed post on that last line I had second thoughts. Listen to recordings of prime minister's question time and a lot of rooks in full throat and the similarities are striking ...

>46 alaudacorax:

I would defer to your expertise. Whatever they were, they made a nice change from the gulls.

>46 alaudacorax: Our NW Autumn is wonderful to behold, as our colors are brilliant. the Japanese maple trees turn brilliant reds---- blood red some are. Other maples trees have mixtures of orange and yellow.

Because of our high latitude, the days become, darker and darker: earlier! So, soon our dusk will begin at around 4:30 p.m. the NW is moderate for temperatures. So, we enjoy the rain, and more rain. With snow in the mountains around us (Cascades to our East, the Olympic range to the West of Seattle/locale).

What is a rook? Are they like ravens? I'm not certain I've heard of that type of bird.

I see there is a new iteration of The Fall of the House of Usher, but I'm wary of what Netflix has done to this story. It's eight episodes. But now I'll have to re-read the story, and Frankenstein re-read comes first.

>49 benbrainard8:

I envy you. We have more than our fair share of weather; which is why Brits talk about it so much. That means that, much more often than not it seems to me, autumn gales blow the leaves off the trees before they can build up a good display of autumn colours. And if we do get good colours I've forgotten a camera that day and it rains for the next week ...

Rooks are similar size to crows, close relatives, look similar but more disreputable-looking. Just looked them up online and I was quite surprised to find you don't have them. I'd assumed they were all round the northern hemisphere―evidently not.

Okay, this is wildly off-topic for this group, but ...

When you're logging on and you tick off all those cookery books, does anyone else get (probably irrationally) annoyed at how skinny some of the women authoring them are? Especially books on desserts ...

>51 alaudacorax:

Sorry about that. It's one of those itches that seems to occur every time I log in. And I dislike cookery books anyway. What's the point? Most of them are full of recipes and you rarely come across one that actually teaches you how to cook.

>52 alaudacorax:

Sorry about that one, too. WAY off topic ...

>51 alaudacorax:

I don't really look long enough to notice, I just take in "food..food..not food"..and hit button.

You've reminded me though that (1) I picked up the reprint of Len Deighton's (very '60s) Action Cook Book and that does set out to teach the reader to cook. Perhaps I'll give it another go, although it's not really in tune with modern living (a blender is more useful than a refrigerator?) and (2) I backed a Gothic cookbook through Unbound a few months ago so that should be coming out at some point in the future.

>51 alaudacorax:
I was always told never to trust a thin cook.

>54 housefulsfilmtv:

A Gothic cookbook? Now that's food for thought ...

A question that's going to niggle me if I can't work it out:

I've just (quite accidentally—can't even remember what I was searching for at the time) come across what appears to be a quite well-respected, young adult, Gothic fiction called A Great and Terrible Beauty. My first thought was that it was a rather inappropriate title for her to use as I connected the phrase with the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. However, searching online doesn't give any hint of that (in fact, it's quite difficult to get past the book itself in online searches). On top of that, my brain did an about-turn and started connecting the phrase with the Easter Rising and possibly W. B. Yeats but all I could find on that was 'a terrible beauty' with no 'great'.

But I'm sure she's quoted that whole phrase from somewhere—it's so familiar to me and I'm sure I've never been familiar with the book—so can anyone tell me where she got it?

>57 alaudacorax:

It does seem like a very familar phrase, but when I tried to pin it down I firstly latched onto the Yeats poem too.

Then I recalled the title of a Clive Barker novel: The Great and Secret Show - two words in the phrase are the same, and the whole thing has the same rhythm. I put "great and terrible" into a search engine and a Biblical quotation came up: "Great and terrible day of the Lord".

>58 housefulofpaper:

It's River Song's 'Well, soldier, how goes the day' all over again. I spent absolutely ages trying to track that one down as a quotation, but I came to the conclusion that my subconscious somehow cobbled the 'memory' together from two or three half-remembered passages—some sort of déjà vu.

There's a small exhibition currently on at Reading Museum entitled "In the Company of Monsters". It's chiefly exhibiting the work of two contemporary artists, Eleanor Crook and Paul Reid, but there is some other works and materials on display as well.

The exhibition catalogue describes Paul Reid as "a rare phenomenon in today's art world; he is an academic history painter". That is, his work consists of large oil canvases in the style that begins in the renaissance and lasted until the Modernist movements of the last century. The paintings on show in Reading mainly take the monsters (and "monstrous" Gods) of Classical Greece as their subject. Sometimes a straight Classical scene, such as Apollo and Pan in a the Classical landscape of wood and hillside; or a jarring mix of the contemporary and the Classical, for example the image reproduced on the catalogue cover, a Cyclops looming over a factory building.

Eleanor Crook works in several different media, from collages to prints of AI images, to bronze models. There's an astonishing one of Marsyas, flayed, standing on his own skin (laid out like a hearth rug) and recoiling from his own face. The catalogue says she has a "special interest in mortality, anatomy and pathology" and worked as a medical artist in the 1990s.

In addition there are prints and bronzes, mostly of the minotaur, by the late Michael Ayrton, who I have to confess I'm most familair with from his work as a book illustrator.

There is one case with Classical Greek pottery (not included in the catalogue) painted with monsters such as harpies.

Drawings by Minnie Jane Hardman, who studied at the Royal Academy in the 1880s and, as a woman, was not permitted to attend life drawing classes. The studies here are of plaster casts of Classical statues - their perfection the very antithesis of the monstrous. But she also went further and drew the musculature of a skinned Greek athelete, and the skeleton beneath the skin. Images which could be perceived as monstrous, admittedly if pretty tame today (modern media has given us a good idea of what our insides are like, even if we've been fortunate enough not to see them in reality!) - but having obvioud parallels (and differences) with Eleanor Crook's art (whose work as a medical artist took her, inter alia, into the dissection room).

And finally a case of books, from a 16th Century book of "monstrous births" to an edition of Frankenstein (likely one volume from a 19th-Century three-volume edtion) to an early 20th Century novel about a nobleman with a birth defect. Illustrating changing attitudes to deviations from the accepted norm. Again, the catalogue doesn't include these exhibits.

The exhibition is on until 24 February 2024. Is it work visiting? I thought so, but it's barely more than a mile from my front door. I don't think you should, say, cross an ocean just for this!

If you're interested, the catalogue's ISBN is 978 0 704 91587 9. In The Company of Monsters.

Merry Christmas, everybody!!!

Merry Christmas, Mithrasmas, and any other mas celebrated!

Merry Christmas/happy holidays!

Greetings all. I hope you're all having a mellow holiday season.

We're doing our annual "watch all the Harry Potter" movies (well, at least the first 4-5). It's become a tradition.

I'm enjoying Cruise of Shadows by Jean Ray.

Then right before New Years' I will re-watch Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), another tradition of mine, that drives missus crazy but she does listen in on the music/soundtrack.

>64 benbrainard8:

Thank you. The holiday season is interrupted by a few days back at work, and it's always a shock to the system (even after nearly four decades as an adult in full-time employment, my body evidently still expects a two-week end-of-school break!) - but I'm intending to enjoy a relaxing long weekend now.

Ironically, I'm having issues with the opposite in an odd manner. During the pandemic, I worked FT at the hospital, though many of my co-workers were beginning to work at home. Many have remained so----we're administrative. Now that the pandemic is over (endemic), I've begun working at home three days weekly, only going in 1-2 days weekly.

As you all probably know, working at home has unique advantages and disadvantages.

Great advantage, during legal work-breaks, I can traipse downstairs, grab a book, and read. But then have had to train myself to be very disciplined and put the book away. Sigh, that's so difficult to do.

Our bodies also have to adjust to new schedules, no longer have to wake up early for commute in (28 minutes by car one-way for me). And forcing myself to take longer walks or jump on stationary bike to make up for the longer sitting.

Am slowly working way through Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux. And greatly enjoyed Cruise of Shadows, by Jean Ray.

Also, on completely different note, wasn't there recent mention of this movie in one of our threads? There is a BBC online article about it:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231222-the-wicker-man-the-disturbing-cult-...

Um, someday I will try to watch this film, if for anything to see Christopher Lee's wild hair (is that his real hair or a wig?!).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I managed to achieve one of my reading goals for 2023 - (not Gothic, though). M. John Harrison's Viriconium sequence - The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, Viriconium Nights (three novels, one short story collection) - that starts as the kind of sword and sorcery that is set in the far far future rather than in a mythical past, then muddies the timelines, geography and characters as the sequence progresses, until the final story may be a piece of literary, but general fiction, about an imaginary neverland.

I've read and very much enjoyed all the Jean Ray editions from Wakefield Press. I'm hoping they'll continue with the series.

We have definitely discussed The Wicker Man on here before. One of the key "Folk Horror" films from the late '60s/early '70s. And, wig!

It's nine years since the British Library held its "Terror and Wonder: the Gothic Imagination" exhibition. I don't think I've been back until last week, when I visited the current exhibition (ending on the 25th of this month) "Fantasy: Realms of Imagination".

Naturally, the majority of the exhibits were books and manuscripts but (like the Gothic exhibition) this was augmented with other types of exhibit, and there were a couple of interactive exhibits. Naturally, although there was some overlap with what we would class as Gothic (as difficult as that exercise can prove) not everything was relevant to this group.

After my visit I looked online and noticed a few people have filmed their visits on their phones and uploaded it to YouTube, if you want to see some of what was on display. I can say that the curators resisted the temptation to make it either Tolkien- or Harry Potter-heavy, and if anything seriously underplayed the popularity of Sword and Sorcery (the exhibition took a thematic rather than a historical approach, but even so mighty-hewed barabarian heroes and princesses in metal bikinis are surely a big part of the story of Fantasy!).

Here are some of the things I saw:

Given that Alice in Wonderland has been co-opted into Goth culture, I'll mention the manuscript of the original version of the story, Alice's Adventures Underground; and two Mervyn Peake original illustrations (of the White Rabbit, and of Alice passing through the looking-glass)

Angela Carter's notebook and a section of the typescript of The Bloody Chamber

An Alan Garner manuscript (in red biro! it couldn't be further from any "quill-pen" fantasy image, but then he's not that kind of writer.)

The issue of Weird Tales containing the first publication of "The Call of Cthulhu"

And although it's maybe out of scope of this group, an unexpected highlight was the painting "The Fairy-Feller's Master-Stroke"
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-fairy-fellers-master-stroke-117744/searc...
What isn't apparent from reproductions is (1) the three-dimensional quality of the daisies and rocks towards the top right of the picture. It actually looks more like worked leather than paint; and (2) the effect of the twigs in the foreground is that your eyes struggle to focus on the main action and it makes them seem both more insubstantial and more real - more fairylike, in fact.

Also, Andrew Lang's late-Victorian coloured fairy books were represented by a full set of the modern Folio Society edition, which gave me a quiet chuckle given the complaints over in the Folio Society Devotees group about their prices in the second-hand market and the Society's failure to reprint them (this is, apparently, because they were typeset on software that's already become obselete).

And an exhibit that gave me a pang was the issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction from 1981 that was the first appearance (as a novella, later expanded to novel-length) of Mythago Wood. I used to own it!

Happy February 29th, everyone ...

Here's a disappointment: I've just been having a quick online search for 'the occult significance of February 29th'; didn't find anything ...

It's a weird Brigadoon sort of a day and there ought to be an Occult significance to it!

hello all,

Managed to watch two movies I've never seen, Nosferatu (1922), colorized version and The Vampire Lovers (1970).

Well, I don't know where to begin. Both were interesting, if not just for the stories per se, but seeing such completely different kind of vampire films.

I feel like quite the bumpkin, I only know Peter Cushing from his Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin role in the Star Wars franchise.

>73 benbrainard8:

Hello! I have to confess that my purist hackles rose at the thought of a colourised version of Nosferatu - unless it was a tinted print, which is how the film ought to be presented, otherwise Nosferatu will appear to be going about in broad daylight, in complete defiance of the story's logic.

I think a wrote a while ago that The Vampire Lovers is pretty faithful to "Carmilla" story-wise, while having a very different feel.

I've managed to watch some things.

A Haunting in Venice is the third Poirot film from Kenneth Branagh. It is an adaptation of Hallowe'en Party (which I haven't read. I have seen the TV adaptation starring David Suchet, which I assume is more faithful to the source material).

There is a supernatural flavour to this version, different from but of course complementary to the Gothic atmosphere of the Venetian locations, the story, and the directing style. I've mentiond before that I couldn't help but see (Seabury Quinn's Weird Tales Occult Detective Jules de Grandin in Branagh's Poirot. Well, in this film I actually felt it less rather than more, as he's profoundly unsettled by any hint of the Unseen World, where de Grandin accepts it, already knows all there is to know about it, and does not hesitate to take it on.

There are quite a lot of weird fish-eye lens type shots in the film and it has a rather old-fashioned feel (like some shots in Ken Russell's 1980s horror films - which felt old-fashioned even at the time). However, after watching the disc extras it turns out the film was shot digitally for Imax. I've never seen anything presented in that format but I understand the screen is curved (as well as huge) and the apparent distortion in other formats does not happen.

A US/Japanese co-production from 1982, directed by Kevin Connor (who made the low budget, Doug McClure starring, Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations for Amicus films in the 1970s), The House Where Evil Dwells.

I think this is pretty obscure (I saw a German DVD listed on Amazon UK). It's a ghost story. After the opening scene set in 19th Century Japan (samurai kills unfaithful wife, her lover, then himself) the action moves to the present day. An American couple, with their young daughter, rent the samurai's old house, which is of course haunted by the tragic (and now malevolent) trio. (I should mention that the family friend who unwittingly finds the house for them is played by...Doug McClure!).

The film plays out as The Amityville Horror transplanted to Japan and as such I wouldn't exactly call it an undiscovered gem. One thing I would say, apparently all the ghost effects were done in camera, using the old "Pepper's Ghost" stage effect.

I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey again recently, upgraded to Blu-ray.

It hadn't occurred to me before, but the scene where the monolith on the Moon is being excavated reminded me of Quatermass and the Pit - the original TV series that is, where the action takes place in the foundations being dug for a new office block. The film version substitutes a London Underground station, which is still underground of course and might even conjure overtones of a Dantean underworld if you don't enjoy the Tube, but loses the obvious symbolism of an actual pit being dug on the screen.

I am wary of suggesting that Quatermass as an influence on Kubrick though, as I have seen similar theories that he had borrowed from, or taken inspiration from, Doctor Who, for 2001 and The Shining. Theories that have been debunked (although the idea that the domestic scenes in A Clockwork Orange are as they are, because Kubrick took early '70s ITV sitcoms as truthful reflections of UK working class life, has an air of plausibilty!)

The blu-ray box set from Radiance films entitled The Horrible Dr. Hichcock includes three versions of the film. There's the original Italian version, L’orrible segreto del Dr. Hichcock and a completed English dub which was entitled Raptus: The Secret of Dr. Hichcock, plus the shorter, re-ordered (with alternative shots not used in the Italian version), North American version The Horrible Dr. Hichcock.

Alfred Hitchcock's influence on the film(s) goes beyond the main character's name (spelling slightly altered, probably, in an attempt to avoid any legal issues). The intended English title seems intended to echo Psycho (unfortunately, the accompanying booklet confirms that "raptus" is not a common medical term in the Anglophone world). There are several borrowings from Hitchcock films.

Dr Hichcock is a turn-of-the-century surgeon who has developed a pioneering anaesthetic that allows him to perform life-saving surgeries. He also uses it in sex games with his wife in which he indulges his necrophiliac urges. But then he overdoses her and she apparently dies. Seven years later the doctor returns to the house with his young new bride. What follows has elements of Rebecca and Gaslight (not Hitchcock, I know) and any number of Gothic womain-in-peril pictures.

>74 housefulofpaper:, >78 housefulofpaper:

Oops ... you've reminded me of a couple of things which had quite slipped my mind.

Browsing online somewhere or other, I came across the blurb for what I'm sure was a modern telling of Carmilla. Father and daughter take in girl from a car crash, strange things start to happen in the village, etc. Can't remember the title so, if I'm interested, I'm going to have to go on the hunt.

And I came across a new version of Rebecca: if I remember correctly it had the lead actress from that Guernsey potato peel thing Lily James in the Joan Fontaine part. I've pretty much decided that I'd like to reread the book and rewatch the 1940 film before going near that one. Mrs De Winter—don't know why I always think of her as not having a name—she's Mrs De Winter.

And that all reminds me ... umm ... I could have sworn I mentioned here having Symptoms lying around waiting to be watched. On rental from CinemaParadiso and it's probably been here a month, which is ridiculous. Really don't know why I haven't got round to it.

>79 alaudacorax:

That 'Carmilla' film has at least three names, which is a bad sign: Styria (Rotten Tomatoes), The Curse of Styria (IMDb) and Angel of Darkness (Amazon Prime), none of which seems to have a touchstone. Here's the IMDb page, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764614/?ref_=nm_flmg_t_18_act.

It stuck in my mind because it had Stephen Rea in it. Not a guarantee of greatness, of course, and, indeed, it only has 4.9/10 on IMDb, but at least it has someone I've heard of. And, to be honest, I'm a sucker for Carmilla films.

The trouble is there are so many Carmilla-based films floating around that I really don't know whether I'm suffering another bit of déjà vu on this one or have actually seen it. If I've seen it it must have been pretty unmemorable as I don't have anything but this vague feeling.

... umm ... I could have sworn I mentioned ...
You did—you're not on the film thread, idiot.

>80 alaudacorax:

So I finished writing that post, made myself a meal, sat down to watch Styria and Symptoms, immediately fell asleep and slept for about six hours, until a few minutes ago. No wonder I never get any films watched ...

>81 alaudacorax:
On the plus side, that sounds like a really good sleep. You must now have the energy to turn the film on again and get some more shut-eye.

Here are some photos I took on my visit to the British Library a couple of weeks ago.

This is the Victorian Gothic frontage of the St Pancras hotel, part of the St Pancras railway station.




And you can see the British Library building and St Pancras here. The British Library moved to this location from the British Museum, in Bloomsbury, in 1997.

>83 housefulofpaper:
Fantastic pictures.

I am kicking myself now. We visited the British Library in January 2020. We arrived via Euston Station and had lunch in Pizza Express across the road from the entrance to the library. I had no idea St Pancras was so close. Had I known I would have loved to visit it and taken a few pictures. This is the price of not doing sufficient research in advance of a trip. I had to make do with photos of the Paddington statues in Paddington Station. :-)

>84 pgmcc:

Thank you! It was your excellent photos over at the Green Dragon group that reminded me to post these.

I still get lost/miss interesting things in London. My sister, on the other hand, is almost like a black cab driver with "the Knowledge"...

Ray Bradbury's first book, the collection Dark Carnival (originally published by Arkham House in 1947) has just been reprinted as a trade paperback in the UK (pictures below).

Because Bradbury reworked the core of the collection as The October Country in 1955, this original version was never reprinted (bar, I believe, one limited-edition small press edition about 20 years ago).

The individual stories were also revised when they reappeared in later collections. I haven't had the time to make extensive comparisons, but as the story "The Emissary" (the one about the bed-bound sick child and the faithful dog who...brings things back) names the dog as "Torry" rather than the more archetypal "Dog", these seem to be the original texts.

There is apparently no news of a US edition in the offing.

>85 housefulofpaper:
Thank you for your kind words about my snaps.

Your sister sounds like a good source of tourist advice.