Horror Masterworks Series...

[j d worthington]

Jumbee
The Shadows
Cassius
Black Tancrede
Sweet Grass
Mrs Lorriquer
The Passing of a God
Hill Drums

Some good stuff there, but lacking about half the original contents of the Arkham House book -- including, now I notice it, the story "Jumbee" itself; peculiar....

Hmm, I've checked both amazon.com and amazon uk and it seems to be available only as used and new.

Hard to say, then, as they are sometimes rather difficult to get in touch with. Which is a shame, as they've put out some very good things.....

 

[nomadman]

Some good stuff there, but lacking about half the original contents of the Arkham House book -- including, now I notice it, the story "Jumbee" itself; peculiar....

The title story is first in the collection.

 

[j d worthington]

All right... I really do need to get my eyes checked! Sheesh!....

As for entering Shiel in as part of the Masterworks set... I don't see why not. We're not limited to the fifteen mentioned above, and certainly many of his shorter works (as well as The Purple Cloud) are high-water marks in the field....

 

[GOLLUM]

I'm going to have to perform research into Leonard Cline then....sounds fascinating.

 

[nomadman]

As for entering Shiel in as part of the Masterworks set... I don't see why not. We're not limited to the fifteen mentioned above, and certainly many of his shorter works (as well as The Purple Cloud) are high-water marks in the field....

I'd also probably include Hodgson, though there's the danger of overlap considering quite a bit of his work has recently become available. Certainly his excellent nautical tales and a selection of his other shorts wouldn't go amiss.

Early in her career, Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote some chilling supernatural tales alongside Robert Aickman, of which Three Miles Up is a minor masterpiece. The later short story, Mr Wrong, is very very good as well, smooth, subtle and chilling.

Of relatively newer works, Thomas Tessier's excellent novels The Nightwalker and Finishing Touches could do with inclusion.

 

[j d worthington]

Not read Tessier, so I ought to look into that at some point. Agree entirely about Howard. We Are for the Dark is an excellent collection, for example, and her contributions to it well worthy of her pairing with Aickman.

As for Hodgson... yes, it would be nice to see several of the pieces from Men of the Deep Waters in such a book, along with numerous other tales from other collections (or uncollected). Or, for that matter, see the entire trilogy The Boats of the "Glen Carrig", The House on the Borderland, and The Ghost Pirates issued in one volume....

 

[nomadman]

I'm going to have to perform research into Leonard Cline then....sounds fascinating.

Unfortunately Cline died young, possibly due to the rigors of a time spent in jail after shooting his friend in a drunken argument. The Dark Chamber was also his only overt horror novel that I know of, the others being (so I read in the introduction at least) the relatively light-hearted Listen, Moon and Godhead.

 

[nomadman]

Or, for that matter, see the entire trilogy The Boats of the "Glen Carrig", The House on the Borderland, and The Ghost Pirates issued in one volume....

That's already been done, in the Fantasy Masterworks title House on the Borderland (no. 33 in the series). Hence it might be better to concentrate on his shorter or lesser-known works.

 

[j d worthington]

What about a collection of the best supernatural fiction of "Q" (Arthur Quiller-Couch)? Not to mention a goodly selection of the best of Edward Lucas White? Robert S. Hichens? And I think a fairly sizable collection of the best weird tales of Walter de la Mare (possibly including The Return) wouldn't be amiss, either; nor would one of John Buchan's best work in the field.

 

[j d worthington]

That's already been done, in the Fantasy Masterworks title House on the Borderland (no. 33 in the series). Hence it might be better to concentrate on his shorter or lesser-known works.

Ah. I'd never seen a copy of the Fantasy Masterworks volume, so was not aware of that.....

 

[nomadman]

One question: How recent are we going here?

Michael Cisco's The Divinity Student, published in 2000, is as authentically weird a novel as any I've read, and definitely worthy of a larger audience (as is Cisco's work in general, but that's another matter...). Mark Samuels, whose collection The White Hands has garnered praise from such luminaries as Ligotti, Klein and Campbell, is another author who deserves to be more widely known.

 

[j d worthington]

I don't think any dates have been set; so I think they would be valid suggestions. I do think, however, that (with rare exceptions) those which are easily available, such as bestsellers like King, Barker, etc., which are either still in print or prominent in the used shops, should give way to those which are often better works but less well known....

 

[nomadman]

at

I don't think any dates have been set; so I think they would be valid suggestions. I do think, however, that (with rare exceptions) those which are easily available, such as bestsellers like King, Barker, etc., which are either still in print or prominent in the used shops, should give way to those which are often better works but less well known....

Absolutely. It can never hurt, though, to bring to light more obscure authors whose works may be currently available but only through online stores or limited distribution small press publishers. Cisco fits both states of affairs. Pretty much all his work can be found at amazon, but unless you're aware of the name or the quality of his work then it's likely to remain unsold.

 

[j d worthington]

Absolutely. It can never hurt, though, to bring to light more obscure authors whose works may be currently available but only through online stores or limited distribution small press publishers. Cisco fits both states of affairs. Pretty much all his work can be found at amazon, but unless you're aware of the name or the quality of his work then it's likely to remain unsold.

I may have expressed myself badly; but this is essentially the same point I was trying to make. Yes, I think Cisco & Co. should definitely be considered....

 

[GOLLUM]

Off-topic: Well sort of.... Have you J.D. or in fact anyone here, ever come across an author by the name of Carmen Laforet (1921-2004) ? Her debut effort was the Gothic novel Nada for which she was awarded the Premio Nadal (1944) and I'm reading it as I type this. She's recognised as a great of post-war Spanish literature and this novel, described as a fascinating danse macabre residing within a Goyaesque world imbued with apparent strains of Grimm, Kafka and Poe; one of the great works of 20th Century literature.

Lofty claims I know but of the little I've so far read the terms wonderfully atmospheric prose, skilfully wrought via the use of short but powerful sentences, subtle multi-level undercurrents, claustrophobic, sinister and to a degree disturbing spring to mind. To be clear, this is more by way of implication, a social commentary on lives quite literally distorted in the wake of Francesco's post-civil war Barcelona and a coming of age story than a straightforwardly overt piece of Horror literature. Nevertheless, if she maintains her current standard, it will probably become something I would like to see forming part of the wider Masterwork canon, albeit this is a very recent translation (2008) and I suspect not widely known yet.

I'll post a review once I'm done.

 

[iansales]

JD - sorry for the tardy response. I've read some Lovecraft, and have The Call of Cthulhu Penguin collection on my TBR pile. And The House on the Borderlands too (The Fantasy Masterworks edition, natch). I've also read Robert Chambers' The King in Yellow, although I can remember nothing of it. And I've read a lot of Clive Barker and Graham Joyce.

 

[Fried Egg]

What about this hardback collection of Machen's tales: Tales of Horror and the Supernatural

Contents:

* The Great God Pan • (1894) • novella by Arthur Machen
* The Great Return • (1915) • novelette by Arthur Machen
* The Inmost Light • (1894) • novelette by Arthur Machen
* The Shining Pyramid • (1895) • novelette by Arthur Machen
* The White People • (1904) • novelette by Arthur Machen
* Children of the Pool • (1936) • shortstory by Arthur Machen
* N • (1936) • novelette by Arthur Machen
* The Bowmen • (1914) • shortstory by Arthur Machen
* The Happy Children • (1920) • shortstory by Arthur Machen
* The Novel of the Black Seal • (1895) • novelette by Arthur Machen
* The Novel of the White Powder • (1895) • shortstory by Arthur Machen
* The Terror • (1916) • novel by Arthur Machen
* Out of the Earth • (1915) • shortfiction by Arthur Machen
* Introduction (Tales of Horror and the Supernatural) • essay by Roger Dobson

It's a whopping £35 so I doubt I'll rush out and buy it no matter how highly anyone praises it...

 

[j d worthington]

It's a good collection of Machen's work overall, though some of the pieces are far from his best. I have a two-volume paperback edition of that one, and it certainly has a sentimental importance to me (it was the first actual book of Machen's I got my hands on), but there are other collections which, I think, would give you more for your money....

 

[thatollie]

Some thoughts,

• The Golem - Gustav Meyrink
• The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
• Melmoth the Wanderer - Charles Maturin
• The Monk - Matthew Gregory Lewis

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Yes, they'd certainly fit in, and I enjoy them all, although the Walpole and Lewis books would get a lot of complaints, I suspect. People tend to read a couple of chapters of The Castle Of Otranto and stop short, put off by all the melodrama. The same may apply to The Monk, although it has the more overtly lurid and horrific elements of the two. Early Gothic literature really is a case where some historical context being necessary to fully understand what to expect. I was a little disappointed by The Golem in some ways, but it is a landmark work of supernatural fiction.