The Short Story Thread

"Breath of Life" by Enid Harlow (USA, 1975) -- Very "literary" story of a woman and her young daughter at an asthma clinic. A bit overwritten for my taste.


"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (USA, 1961) -- Famous, frequently reprinted satire of enforced equality. Still packs a punch.


"Be This Her Memorial" by Caradoc Evans (UK, 1915) -- An poor old Welsh woman makes a terrible sacrifice in order to purchase an expensive Bible for the preacher she all but worships. Leads up to an ending straight out of a horror story.
 
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Read Hal Clement's Space Lash. There's a short review in my somewhat revamped webpages. Shorter version: I really enjoyed it. One of the nine stories was adequate and all the rest were good to great. My favorites were "Dust Rag", "Sun Spot", "Uncommon Sense", "Raindrop", and "The Mechanic".
 
Starting a series of brief reviews of the stories collected in The Lifted Veil: The Book of Fantastic Literature by Women 1800-World War II.

"The Spectre; or, The Ruins of Belfont Priory" by Sarah Wilkinson (1806) -- Unfortunately, this anthology begins with a dud, probably just selected to include a story from the very early 19th century. It's a poorly written and plotted ghost story. The main weakness is that the protagonists encounter some ghosts who play no important part in the story, then later encounter other ghosts who start the real plot going.

"The Immortal Mortal, A Tale" by Mary Shelley (1833) -- The next entry is a big jump up in quality. Written in a clear, direct style, without the extreme prolixity of the previous story, this deals with an alchemist's assistant who imbibes an immortality elixir, and how it ruins his extended life.
 
"Napoleon and the Spectre" by Charlotte Bronte (written 1833; published 1919) -- Brief, trivial bit of juvenilia by the famous author. The Emperor has a ghostly vision.

"The Old Nurse's Story" by Elizabeth Gaskell (1852) -- Effective ghost story, with emotional and psychological meaning to the haunting. An elderly nursemaid relates the spectral encounter she had as a young woman caring for an orphaned little girl.
 
"The Lifted Veil" by "George Eliot" (Mary Anne Evans) (1859) -- Rather "literary" novella narrated by a man who has the ability to see into the future and to know the feelings of others, with tragic consequences. Although an introspective, psychological story for most of its length, there's an unexpected turn of events near the end which turns it into pure Gothic horror.
 
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"Circumstance" by Harriet Prescott Spofford (1863) -- Wow, this is a wild one. Set in Maine during the early days of European settlement, this story deals with a woman walking home from visiting a friend one night. She has a weird vision of a shroud waved in the air by four spectral hands as a voice cries out "The Lord have mercy on the people!" This doesn't seem to have much to do with the main plot, which is all about the woman being attacked by an "Indian Devil" (apparently a panther, although from the way it's described it seems more like a supernatural monster.) She saves her life by singing to it all night, until her husband finally shows up and shoots it. At the end, they return home to find out

***SPOILER ALERT***

Their settlement has been burnt to the ground by Indians.


Narrated in a lush, vivid, poetic style, this story can be read as an allegory for all kinds of things. Sexual violence, the status of women, art, religion, race; these are just of a few of the themes which seem to be suggested.

P.S. Don't ask me what the title means.
 
"The Phantom Couch" by Amelia B. Edwards (1864) -- Frequently anthologized ghost story. The narrator gets lost on a snowy night, finds shelter at the isolated home of an eccentric amateur scientist who discusses the possibility of the supernatural with him, and encounters the subject of the title. Pretty much the archetype of the spooky story told around the campfire.
 
"The Abbot's Ghost, or, Maurice Treherne's Temptation" by "A. M. Barnard" (Louisa May Alcott) (1867) -- This short novel is mostly a romantic melodrama, with the appearance of the title ghost a sort of deus ex machina which leads to the revelation of certain secrets and the resolution of the plot. More or less a "Gothic Romance," emphasis on the "Romance." OK if you're in the mood for that sort of cozy reading.


"Kentucky's Ghost" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1869) -- Pretty predictable plot -- young stowaway is abused by a sadistic mate, dies, comes back to lead the mate to his doom -- but an unusually vivid and realistic nautical setting.


"The Ghost in the Cap'n Brown House" by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1871) -- Oddly open-ended anecdote about a figure, which might be a living woman or a ghost, seen in a house. Comes to no conclusion, and it's written in heavy dialect ("Be there ghosts? Wal, now that are's jest the question, ye see.") which is a pain to read.
 
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"Behold It Was a Dream" by Rhoda Broughton (1873) -- Another predictable story -- the narrator has a dream of the murder of her friend and her husband, so guess what happens -- but written in an unusually modern, present-tense style.
 
"The Secret Chamber" by Margaret Oliphant (1876) -- A young heir confronts his wicked sorcerer ancestor in a hidden room in his castle. The actual encounter is pretty effective, but what happens before and after isn't too exciting.
 
"The Ghost of Charlotte Cray" by Florence Marryat (1883) -- A newly married man is haunted by the spirit of a woman who thought he was going to marry her instead. Told in a realistic style, with a very human motivation for the specter.

"Lady Farquhar's Old Lady, a True Ghost Story" by "Mrs. Molesworth" (Mary Louisa Molesworth) (1888) -- A young woman meets a ghost and later finds out who it was. Just an anecdote, really.

"In a Far-Off World" by Olive Schreiner (1891) -- We get a break from all the ghost stories with this very brief allegorical fable, supposedly set on a planet of a distant star. A woman offers some of her blood to a shrine in return for granting the man she loves whatever would be best for him. What that turns out to be is unexpected. This poetic, bittersweet little tale reminds me of Lord Dunsany.
 
"Death and the Woman" by Gertrude Atherton (1892) -- Not really fantasy at all, but rather a psychological portrait of a woman watching her husband die from a lingering illness.

"Man-Sized in Marble" by Edith Nesbit (1893) -- Effective chiller about a stone effigy that comes to life on All Saints' Eve. Would make a good episode of an old-fashioned horror anthology film.
 
"The Banshee's Warning" by "Mrs. J. H. Riddell" (Charlotte Eliza Lawson Riddell) (1894) -- An Irish doctor meets the howling harbringer of death, and confronts a secret from his past. Not bad, if a little wordy and overwritten.

"Caulfield's Crime" by Alice Perrin (1901) -- A hunter in Imperial India kills a fakir, and is stalked by a relentless jackal. Reminds me of Kipling, both for its setting and its plain, direct style. Would make a decent episode of Night Gallery.
 
"The Wind in the Rose-Bush" by Mary E. Wilkins. A woman arrives to take her niece from her stepmother after the girl's father dies, but the young woman never seems to show up at home. You'll probably figure out what's going on before the protagonist does.
 
"Sultana's Dream" by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossan (1905) -- Early feminist utopia in which scientifically advanced women run things while the men are kept in purdah. Besides the satiric aspect, there is some rather charming retro-futuristic technology; flying machines, solar power, and so on.

"The Woman with the Hood" by "L. T. Meade" (Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith) (1908) -- Typical ghost story in which a doctor helps a young woman haunted by a restless spirit.
 
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"If I Were a Man" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1914) -- A woman finds herself sharing the consciousness of her husband. The way in which she learns about the world of men still carries an important feminist lesson.

. . . what men really think of women.

. . . .

In the upper half . . . a veiled statue, blindly adored . . .

In the lower half . . . base traditions, coarse epithets, gross experiences . . .
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"Consequences" by Willa Cather (1915) -- A wealthy young playboy is visited by a mysterious old man. The author allows the reader to figure out the identity of the old man without spelling things out. (Hint: The old man is not a ghost.)
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
"The Wind in the Rose-Bush" by Mary E. Wilkins. A woman arrives to take her niece from her stepmother after the girl's father dies, but the young woman never seems to show up at home. You'll probably figure out what's going on before the protagonist does.
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One of the things I particularly liked about this one was the subtle sort of haunting, and its implications. I don't mean the stepmother's actions or guilt, I mean the retribution for them. Just as she had, essentially, isolated the daughter and gradually driven her to her death by means which allowed of no legal repercussions, so the ghost here isolates and drives her further and further into herself and forces her to confront what she has done, and will continue to do so as long as she lives (and, it is suggested, perhaps forever after). Granted, the stepmother appears to be indifferent to any feelings of guilt or remorse, but on those occasions when the ghost becomes manifest in one way or another to the narrator*, her immediate reaction of anger and fear shows just how much this is really affecting her.

For me, at any rate, Ms. Freeman took what could be a simple, straightforward and predictable ghostly tale, and made it a very powerful, albeit quietly told, study in the effects of the supernatural (and of guilt) on a type of person seemingly immune to the opinions or actions of others, and presented one of the most chilling intimated (never flatly stated) forms of punishment I've encountered; a bit like R. H. Malden's "The Man with the Roller", where the implications (and the horror of such a situation) tend to grow after the story has been read.

*And I must admit that I found both the movements of the rosebush -- whose blossom the stepmother is terrified may be damaged (why would such a thing terrify her so?) -- and the clothing which is laid out and then disappears to be very fine and unusual types of ghostly behavior.
 
Excellent comments.

Onward:

"Kerfol" by Edith Wharton (1916) -- The narrator visits a castle in Brittany which is full of oddly quiet dogs, and learns about the tragic events which happened in it in the 17th century. Another ghost story, but at least the ghosts aren't of the usual kind.

"A Suburban Fairy Tale" by Katherine Mansfield (1917) -- A brief tale which starts off with a very domestic scene of Mother, Father, and Child, then turns into something very strange. The family conversation seems to be entirely about food (I'm assuming the references to rationing are due to the Great War), and hunger seems to be the theme of the story. Subtle and effective.

"A Haunted House" by Virginia Woolf (1921) -- Very short prose poem, with no real plot, very introspective and impressionistic. Frequent changes from first person to second person to third person, jumping back and forth from the "ghosts" (if we are to take this literally) to the living inhabitants of the house. Interesting.
 
"The Nature of the Evidence" by May Sinclair (1923) -- The ghost of a man's first wife prevents him from consummating his second marriage. Surprisingly frank in its eroticism for its time. A description of the seocnd wife:

She had nothing, absolutely nothing on but a transparent white chiffony sort of dressing-gown.

. . . .

He was fascinated by her, by the sheer glamour of her body, gleaming white through the thin stuff . . .
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