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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Ghost stories and tales of the supernatural
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
If you really want to spook yourself out, you can't do better (IMO) than read the short stories of M.R. James. Original and gripping, they have to be the best of the genre. Some of his stories are online, if you're interested.
How about you? Have you read any particularly good ghost stories (from any era or culture) you'd recommend? Pull up a chair, ignore that strange creaking from the empty room next door, and tell us about them...
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Since I mentioned it a bit ago in the Styx, I would like to recommend the short story Selectra Six Ten. by Avram Davidson, written in the '50s.
It poses as a one-way correspondence in Davidson's voice, aimed at the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, in which he is apparently blowing off a deadline while hinting around at dalliances with other publications. He is using a newfangled electric typewriter, and the letters are full of strikeouts and typos-- and every once in a while a screed of all-cap, threatening-sounding pronouncements runs on for a line or two, which Davidson breezily dismisses as equipment malfunction.
It seems, as the notes progress, that Davidson has missed a deadline of intergalactic proportions, and something calling him a TREACHEROUS NON CHITINOUS BIPED is calling in accounts, using the typewriter to get his attention. It has one of the creepiest endings of any story I have ever read, and still is one of my favorites.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I'd agree with Ariel. There are people before and since who have written excellent spooky stories, but M. R. James is consistently the master.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
There are stories by M.R.James that I seriously won't read if I'm home alone at night. I've never read anyone who can use mere words to create a feeling of skin-crawling unease better than James can. I find Lost Hearts one of the most disturbing and Rats is one of those stories that has you shouting "Don't open the door!" as the protagonist nervously approaches the room at the end of the corridor. (There are no rats in the story, by the way. Just something far worse that sounds like rats...)
With James it's all about building the atmosphere. A favourite story of mine is Canon Alberic's Scrapbook, in which all is sunny and bright until we meet a nervous sacristan, and hear a sound like echoing laughter coming from the church tower. From that point on, you know nothing good will come of flicking through the book that contains the engraving of King Solomon confronting ... well, I won't spoil it.
But one of the greatest is surely the one by the other James - Henry. The novella The Turn of the Screw is just terrifying. The worst part is, you're never quite sure whether the apparitions are real, or whether the governess is going mad. *Shudder*
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
Oh yes. I heard Britten's opera of The Turn of the Screw on the radio a little while ago- just heard it, didn't see it- and even that managed to scare me.
[ 01. November 2012, 11:34: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Oh yes. I heard Britten's opera of The Turn of the Screw on the radio a little while ago- just heard it, didn't see it- and even that managed to scare me.
Yes, but that could be Britten's fault. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Actually, I like a lot of Britten, but I've never seen The Turn of the Screw. My favourite adaptation of the story is the film The Innocents - very, very creepy.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Yes – that’s seriously scary. One of my other favourite M.R. James stories is "The Mezzotint" - that one with the picture that changes. Though "Whistle and I'll Come to You" with the Thing in the bedclothes is enough to be going on with, or the one about the vanishing room...
One of the most frightening ghost stories I ever read is one that still lingers with me years later. I don't remember who wrote it, or much of the details, only that it was about someone who got the chance to have three wishes granted, and with their first wish, they wished that the person they loved, who had died a while ago, could come back to life again.
There was then a quite horrible moment as something shuffled up the path towards the house, followed by silence, and then a heavy, leaden, thunderous knocking at the front door, which started to splinter...
Needless to say the person's next two wishes were that this wasn't happening and that they'd never been granted three wishes!
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Sounds like the classic The Monkey's Paw by W.W.Jacobs, Ariel.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Kitten
Shipmate
# 1179
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Posted
I love M.R. James' ghost stories, my favorite is 'The Residence at Whitminster'
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Maius intra qua extra
Never accept a ride from a stranger, unless they are in a big blue box
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I'll have to look that one up, Kitten ... I've either forgotten it, or I've repressed the memory.
Has anyone read E.F.Benson's ghost stories? Rather more genteel than James, and usually not as atmospheric, but still very good. He does a very nice line in monstrous creatures (e.g. in And No Bird Sings) and vampire women (e.g. The Room in the Tower. Benson was as gay as a daisy in May - do the math.)
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I would like to recommend the short story Selectra Six Ten. by Avram Davidson, written in the '50s.
That sounds excellent; am definitely going to check that one out.
Re: Whistle and I'll Come To You. I'd seen both adaptations on tv and found them atmospheric, but not scary, until I saw the Michael Horden version on a big screen. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
The first chapter of Vampyr by Simon Clarke is scary (the rest of the book is good in patches). A young woman staying in an old hotel near Whitby finds an episode of a ghost hunting (think Derek Acorah) programme on video in her room and watches it. The episode is based in the same hotel. A picture appears from the point of view of a person walking slowly down a corridor that looks suspiciously familiar and stops in front of the room in which she is staying. At the same time she can hear footsteps come to the door, the shadow of a pair of feet in the gap underneath, a knock and then silence....
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Sounds like the classic The Monkey's Paw by W.W.Jacobs, Ariel.
Yes, I think that's it! Thanks for that.
Re "Whistle and I'll Come To You", I couldn't bring myself to watch it on TV after reading the short story. So no idea whether it translated well or not.
After M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood is probably my second favourite supernatural-story writer. His short stories aren't all frightening, but the Haunted Island was one I was glad to put down.
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I've just refreshed my memory on The Residence at Whitminster - But what an odd story: no real conclusion, just an undefined threat standing forever in the attic of the house. Several nasty moments in the course of the story, though.
The Michael Horden tv version of O Whistle is excellent. He plays the slightly dotty professor perfectly, and the production brings out the humour that adaptations of James so often miss. (The humour highlights the horror when it comes.) I didn't like the recent version with John Hurt at all. Although it had a good few scary moments, it rewrote the story from top to bottom, and - cardinal sin - gave an explanation of the whatever-it-was. James's stories rarely go very far with explanations, and are better for it.
I've liked the few Blackwood stories I've read. But (apologies to Cthulhu if he's still around) I've never liked Lovecraft, or found his stories at all scary.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Mary LA
Shipmate
# 17040
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Posted
Browsing through a review copy of Alasdair Wickham's The Dead Roam the Earth: True Stories of the Paranormal from Around the World and can't get this little anecdote out of my head:
"In the early 2000s, a little girl began appearing to employees in a call centre in Cebu City. The firm had just moved into a converted warehouse. It was a large space and, as in all call centres, people worked in close proximity, gathered in large open-plan offices, but separated into individual units by their phones and computer. It was when individuals were alone with their thoughts that the little girl came.
First she appeared as a reflection in a female employee's computer monitor, wearing the kind of smart dress Filipino girls put on for Sundays. A few days later a male employee was standing in the men's toilets when in the mirror he saw the cubicle door behind him swing slowly open, to show a little girl sitting on the toilet, looking at him. He closed his eyes and started praying; when he looked again, the girl was right in front of him, chanting the prayer along with him. He had a horrifying impression that her skin was starting to fall away from her flesh before he fled in terror."
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“I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams.”
― Muriel Spark
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
Second the praise for M.R. James, Blackwood, and E.F. Benson. H.R. Wakefield, whose stories are nasty little pearls of misanthropy, is also quite good.
Ash-Tree Press, a small publisher operating out of Canada, issues reprint editions of all sorts of Victorian & Edwardian ghost stories. Not cheap (around US $50 per slim volume), but many of them are worthwhile, and you won't find most of this stuff elsewhere. Occasionally a bit too genteel, but mostly very good.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Arthur Machen yet. Unparalleled in atmosphere, that one. And "The Great God Pan" is a horrific classic.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
It seems, as the notes progress, that Davidson has missed a deadline of intergalactic proportions, and something calling him a TREACHEROUS NON CHITINOUS BIPED is calling in accounts, using the typewriter to get his attention.
Yes! That's one of "the one about" stories. When you are in a bar in a convention and chatting to someone abotu this really great story and you can't remember who wrote it or what its about and you say "Oh, you know, the one about..." and everyone knows which story you mean because it was so good it defined itself by the trope and defined the trope by itself.
The one about the subweay train that got lost. The one about the man staying in a hotel and there is an ancient sort of flute and a boy on the beach. The one about the passenger on the train who tells you this story about the shapeshifting monster in Canada. The one about the mentally disabled man who gets intelligent and then gets stupid again. The one about the world with all those suns and the stars come out. The one about this small town where every year they have a lottery and no-one wants to win. The one about the asteroid that crashed into a cornfield. The one about the little boy and when he was angry everything he thought about happened. The one about the man who is in a psychiatrists office and hallucinating tht he is on a wrecked spaceship and the doctor offers him a pill that will let him see things as they really are. The one about the garden at the end of time and the buds of the flowers are all the time that's left. The one about the crossword. The one about the man's dead wife whose image is still in the glass window.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
You're just trying to get us to guess those stories, aren't you, ken?
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
I reckon I could guess some of them, but quite a few of them didn't ring a bell at all!
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
[QUOTE]The one about this small town where every year they have a lottery and no-one wants to win.
... would be Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. Whic I've never read. But her novel The Haunting of Hill House was made into the film The Haunting, which is one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen. (The black & white version, not the ghastly remake with Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones. What was Neeson thinking?)
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
What was Neeson thinking?)
He was thinking "I still got one more movie left on that three-movie deal I signed..."
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Huntress
Shipmate
# 2595
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Posted
For supernatural novels, I highly recommend:
'The Ghost Writer' by John Harwood, for multi-layered edge-of-the-seat suspense.
'The Woman in Black' by Susan Hill. There are notable theatrical and screen adaptations of this but the book remains icily frightening. I've read it about five times now and I still find myself saying 'don't try to open that door!'
When I was young I borrowed 'The Haunting' by Margaret Mahy from the library more than once and now want to get a copy to own.
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The Amazing Chronoscope
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
What was Neeson thinking?)
He was thinking "I still got one more movie left on that three-movie deal I signed..."
He'd have been better off picking up the script of "Two hours I spent watching paint dry."
Huntress, my first exposure to The Woman in Black was a tv version - I think it must have been in the early 80s. Boy, was it scary! Later, I went to see the stage version in London - hearing a whole theatre full of people scream (including the large, straight, butch friend I was with) is quite an experience. After that, I'm afraid I found the book a bit tame when I eventually read it. Still pretty good though.
Not long ago, I read Michelle Paver's Dark Matter. Very scary, and very good. I read about the last 50 pages at one sitting (unusual for me), late one night, and then went to sleep with the light on.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Earwig
Pincered Beastie
# 12057
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Posted
I'm sure M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood are very good. My boyfriend loves them, you all seem to think they're fab, but I WILL NEVER READ THEM. I'm just not good with ghost stories!
The creepiest book I read recently (you may laugh, but it scared me) was "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters. I had to sleep with the light on for two nights after reading it. Brr!
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
'The End of the Corridor' by Rudyard Kipling. It starts off as a boys-own Injah yarn, with three civil servants passing the time, but it soon becomes clear that something very horrible is happening in the bungalow where they are all staying. And the ending is really disturbing ... what did the dead man see?
I also like 'The shadow in the corner' by Mary Braddon. It's not the scariest ghost story ever, but it puts a ghostly finger on the exploitation of servants by their masters and on the dark corners of the home.
I second the recommendation of Arthur Machen, and would add Sheridan Lefanu. 'The House in Aungier Street' is a fantastic haunted house story.
Haven't read 'Dark Matter' but I found Michelle Paver's 'Chronicles of Ancient Darkness' books seriously scary. Gripping, but couldn't sleep afterwards.
[ 06. November 2012, 10:16: Message edited by: Niminypiminy ]
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Oh yes – Kipling wrote some good ones! The ones I remember particularly are one about a haunted villa in the mountains which was fine by day, just not at night; and the one where the officer came back from the dead to dance at the ball with his fiancée.
Blackwood also had a couple of stories on the theme of someone embarking on a romance with someone who subsequently turns out to be dead. There's a great one on a portrait that comes alive, and another on a young man who meets a mysterious girl by moonlight...
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Earwig:
The creepiest book I read recently (you may laugh, but it scared me) was "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters. I had to sleep with the light on for two nights after reading it. Brr!
I thought it was an odd book. I didn't like the narrator/protagonist. But large parts of it were very effective - the slow corrosion of the family by whatever it is that's in the house was quite gripping. I felt particularly sorry for the mother of the family.
I've never read any Machen or Kipling. I must try Machen (free!) on my Kindle. I've remembered that my favourite Blackwood story was a disturbing little number about a man who, taking a hotel room, begins to feel a depressing influence in it. The dénoument is quite shocking.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mary LA:
Browsing through a review copy of Alasdair Wickham's The Dead Roam the Earth: True Stories of the Paranormal from Around the World and can't get this little anecdote out of my head:
"In the early 2000s, a little girl began appearing to employees in a call centre in Cebu City. The firm had just moved into a converted warehouse. It was a large space and, as in all call centres, people worked in close proximity, gathered in large open-plan offices, but separated into individual units by their phones and computer. It was when individuals were alone with their thoughts that the little girl came.
First she appeared as a reflection in a female employee's computer monitor, wearing the kind of smart dress Filipino girls put on for Sundays. A few days later a male employee was standing in the men's toilets when in the mirror he saw the cubicle door behind him swing slowly open, to show a little girl sitting on the toilet, looking at him. He closed his eyes and started praying; when he looked again, the girl was right in front of him, chanting the prayer along with him. He had a horrifying impression that her skin was starting to fall away from her flesh before he fled in terror."
Dear God, that's terrifying!
I love this kind of stuff, but I have to be careful what I take in. For some reason, it can be thoroughly enjoyable and then one night, late at night, I won't be able to get it out of my head and it'll be so creepy... Especially when I'm hypo-manic.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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Huntress
Shipmate
# 2595
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Earwig:
The creepiest book I read recently (you may laugh, but it scared me) was "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters. I had to sleep with the light on for two nights after reading it. Brr!
I thought it was an odd book. I didn't like the narrator/protagonist. But large parts of it were very effective - the slow corrosion of the family by whatever it is that's in the house was quite gripping. I felt particularly sorry for the mother of the family.
I'd agree with both of these views, I thought the book was very good and built up the atmosphere and the characters well (especially the house as a 'character'). I also wasn't keen on the protagonist, as a person, but felt he was well-constructed to inspire the feelings in me which he did. It had some similarities to The Turn of the Screw in whether events were happening due to supernatural, or psychological causes.
A short stories recommendation: 'The Real Opera Ghost and Other Stories' by Gaston Leroux, edited by Peter Haining. These are not all ghost stories; others deal with the macabre and grotesque but they're chillingly great, set during the Belle Epoque and originally published in obscure French journals and later, some American ones.
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The Amazing Chronoscope
Posts: 431 | From: Lancashire / Nottingham | Registered: Apr 2002
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Earwig
Pincered Beastie
# 12057
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huntress:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Earwig:
The creepiest book I read recently (you may laugh, but it scared me) was "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters. I had to sleep with the light on for two nights after reading it. Brr!
I thought it was an odd book. I didn't like the narrator/protagonist. But large parts of it were very effective - the slow corrosion of the family by whatever it is that's in the house was quite gripping. I felt particularly sorry for the mother of the family.
I'd agree with both of these views, I thought the book was very good and built up the atmosphere and the characters well (especially the house as a 'character'). I also wasn't keen on the protagonist, as a person, but felt he was well-constructed to inspire the feelings in me which he did. It had some similarities to The Turn of the Screw in whether events were happening due to supernatural, or psychological causes.
Yes - the narrator was quite unlikeable, and possibly untrustworthy... I lkijed the way we were left with a number of interpretations in the trial at the end...
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
The one that left me sleeping with the lights on was Philippa Gregory's The Little House - it's a psychological thriller but it affected me far worse than any of the other ghost stories, including Edgar Allan Poe, although the bricking up in a cellar one was pretty horrible.
[ 08. November 2012, 10:55: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Mary LA
Shipmate
# 17040
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Posted
Churchgeek I found that extract I quoted so creepy that I felt sheepish about having put it up. Other Internet commenters have remarked that it has elements of Third World call centres as ghost hyperconnections, the paedophile culture (a small girl in a men's toilet) and the echoing of prayer as a kind of diabolic mimicry, flesh-eating monsters. Layers of taboo or phobic material.
It is interesting to remember that Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories were once as topical and disconcerting -- the banshee, a staple of country house hauntings had to do with
stories from colonial India and a screaming Bengali woman in a shawl who would appear and terrify retired colonels after dinner.
A friend of mine working in Kinshasa in the Congo said there are rumours of a haunted derelict hotel near the river with an upstairs bedroom -- guests who open the wardrobe at 6pm in the evening find the small body of a dead child curled up inside like a foetus. She says the story is apocryphal, the hotel closed in the early '80s, and yet the rumours persist because they express a kind of deeply felt cultural trauma in central Africa.
And I reread Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger again a few months ago -- children and animals remain staples of the ghost narrative. The scene in which the friendly old dog suddenly attacks a child is edgy stuff. Echoes too of Henry James all the way through, the hysterical governess and frightened children in Turn of the Screw.
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“I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams.”
― Muriel Spark
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mary LA:
Churchgeek I found that extract I quoted so creepy that I felt sheepish about having put it up.
It was good though. I'd like to see the rest of the book.
CK - Philippa Gregory has a good line in creepy, for someone who writes historical novels. I don't know if you've read The Wise Woman? It's about a girl who goes to work as a servant in a castle, falls in love with the (married) lord, and resorting out of desperation to magic to try to get her way, creates some little wax dolls.
Reality starts to reflect what she does to the little wax dolls. After the lord's wife has a miscarriage and gives birth not to a baby, but, horribly, to a shapeless, malformed mess of candlewax, the heroine decides to have nothing more to do with the dolls and buries them at some distance from the castle. Daily life goes on and things get back to normal, until one of the servants remarks some days later that he saw the oddest thing recently: some little wax dolls which were grimy with earth, walking slowly along in the direction of the castle...
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Nobody's yet mentioned Augustus Hare; I remember reading something of his years ago that scared me silly. Something about something outside trying to get in. That, in the words of the poet Keats is all I know and all I need to know. It was very horribly described.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
On the Residence at Whitminster, Adeodatus said: quote:
But what an odd story: no real conclusion, just an undefined threat standing forever in the attic of the house.
Well, this is what happens when people behave sensibly in ghost stories. "Don't do that! It's dangerous!" "Oh, OK, I won't then". [Nothing happens]. Although it does leave you wondering what will happen when someone comes along and decides NOT to be sensible.
'Mr Poynter's Diary' was the M R James story that had me too scared to turn out the light.
I liked Dark Matter too, but it's really put me off holidaying in the Arctic... perhaps 'like' is the wrong word. It scared the bejazus out of me, anyway.
There are some rather fine short stories in Ash Tree Press's collections, eg 'Shadows and Silence'.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Huntress
Shipmate
# 2595
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Posted
Ariel - The Wise Woman is indeed extremely creepy and better written, IMHO, than Ms Gregory's more recent works.
Jane R - My current favourites from Ash Tree Press are the stories of Margery Lawrence, which suck me in and are well-layered. I wish I had sufficient funds to buy a lot of their publications!
Book recommendation: The Virago Book of Ghost Stories edited by Richard Dalby; a book of ghost stories written by female authors, some of whom I had never heard of / read any supernatural fiction by, before. My first experience of reading Margery Lawrence was 'The Haunted Saucepan' which is included in that anthology. I'm now on the look out for the collected Margaret Irwin ghost stories; 'The Book' is included in the Virago tome and is soooooo creepy and the chilling 'The Earlier Service' crops up in some other collections.
[ 11. November 2012, 11:15: Message edited by: Huntress ]
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The Amazing Chronoscope
Posts: 431 | From: Lancashire / Nottingham | Registered: Apr 2002
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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A radio version of The Woman in Black starts tonight on Radio 4Extra, and BBC iplayer. Live broadcasts are tonight at 6.30pm, repeated at 00.30am Thursday. iplayer should be available throughout the week.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Huntress
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Thank you for posting that Adeodatus, I'll be sure to listen on Iplayer during daylight hours!
Spooky book recommendation:
I've just finished reading The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones. It's a novel (though not a very long one). The setting is a remote country house - 'Sterne' - in the early 20th century on the day of Emerald Torrington's 21st birthday. Her (slightly dysfunctional) family are facing losing their home and, amidst these worries, domestic chaos, arriving guests and various personal misunderstandings, the tension is ramped up by the time the celebration is due to begin. The plans begin to fall apart, however, because a train has crashed nearby and the Railway requests that the survivors be accommodated at Sterne. Most are third class, and are shut away in the morning room. One is a first class passenger, who is invited to dine with the family.
I liked how many of the characters were drawn and the evolution of their behaviour during the night's events. The book kept surprising me and it managed to combine eeriness and sinister overtones with comedic moments which felt natural, because the characters (and animals) were believable constructs.
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The Amazing Chronoscope
Posts: 431 | From: Lancashire / Nottingham | Registered: Apr 2002
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Palimpsest
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I'm a huge fan of Avram Davidson.
Not a ghost story exactly, but The Golem by Avram Davidson is available online.
He wrote "Peregrine Primus" the story of the bastard son of the last pagan king of lower middle europe, and "The Phoenix and The Mirror" about Vergil Magus, a medieval sorcerer.
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Eigon
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I've no idea who wrote it, but the scariest ghost story I've ever come across was made into a Radio 4 play - a group of people meet at a country cottage which has recently been renovated for Christmas celebrations. Two hundred years before, however, the inhabitants of that cottage starved to death because of the cruelty of the local land owner - and although the house is full of food, the present day visitors suffer the same fate.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Pomona
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They're not ghost stories but several Agatha Christie books have terrified me, the most recent being Destination Unknown. I think Murder In Mesopotamia and The Man In The Brown Suit were the scariest though.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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The Intrepid Mrs S
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quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
A radio version of The Woman in Black starts tonight on Radio 4Extra, and BBC iplayer. Live broadcasts are tonight at 6.30pm, repeated at 00.30am Thursday. iplayer should be available throughout the week.
NOW he tells me! I'm actually listening to it as an audiobook from Audible, having paired it with The Woman in White (read by Gabriel Woolf - what a voice!) Now I'm concerned it may be too scary for me (ulp!)
Mrs. S, looking over her shoulder with wild surmise ...
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Don't get your knickers in a twist over your advancing age. It achieves nothing and makes you walk funny.
Prayer should be our first recourse, not our last resort
'Lord, please give us patience. NOW!'
Posts: 1464 | From: Neither here nor there | Registered: Mar 2012
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
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A long time favorite of mine is Carnacki, The Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson. I find the book to be deliciously scary.
When my kids were younger I offered to read them a story. They poo pooed me, but I got them to let me read a little. When the story was finished they were scared silly.
The book is certainly the right price now.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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When I was ten and my sister eight I remember the Clifton House Mystery scaring her shitless. I still only have to hum the little military tune from the music box...
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Ariel
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quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
A long time favorite of mine is Carnacki, The Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson. I find the book to be deliciously scary.
Oh yes! That was a really good read - The Hog, and the horse's hoof, and the ship at sea - really imaginative stories. I haven't read those in years but they're still vivid memories.
Thanks for the prompt - will get my copy off the shelf when I get home.
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Adeodatus
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quote:
Originally posted by The Intrepid Mrs S:
NOW he tells me! I'm actually listening to it as an audiobook from Audible, having paired it with The Woman in White (read by Gabriel Woolf - what a voice!) Now I'm concerned it may be too scary for me (ulp!)
Mrs. S, looking over her shoulder with wild surmise ...
The radio production is dramatised in 4 parts. The other evening was part one, and it covered happening till just after the funeral. You know, the funeral attended by a solitary pale-faced woman in a black dress ...
It's still on iplayer. I've been assuming it'll be a weekly thing. It's got a couple of very good voices - John Woodvine as the older Arthur Kipps and Robert Glenister as the younger.
But Gabriel Woolf! I must hear that. Woolf is famous for his two voice roles in Doctor Who - the first as the Egyptian god Sutekh ("All life is my enemy. All life shall perish under the reign of Sutekh!"). The second as ... well ... the Devil, I suppose, in The Impossible Planet ("Don't turn around ... I'm right behind you ... I could touch you ..."). A superlatively creepy voice.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Huntress
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
When I was ten and my sister eight I remember the Clifton House Mystery scaring her shitless. I still only have to hum the little military tune from the music box...
After reading your post I discovered the series on the internet's best-known video website and watched it all during this afternoon / evening and really enjoyed it for the ghostly happenings, the history lesson and also seeing Peter Sallis as the psychic phenomena expert.
A supernatural stories recommendation (although a clergy friend would advise me to use the term 'transcendental' instead, but that's by the way): Star Over Bethlehem and Other Stories by Agatha Christie (yes, that Agatha Christie). The website linked to contains synopses of each of the stories, including the 'punchline' so don't scroll down to them if you don't want spoilers!!
I read these stories in an AC 'Complete Short Stories' book (though they are available to buy in their own volume) at Christmas two years ago when recovering from an operation and needing to rest up. They really moved me and, although sometimes perceived as being for children because of a couple of lighter pieces and poems, they have definite adult themes and messages.
I think my favourite is 'Promotion in the Highest' which is set in the then 'future': New Year's Eve 2000. A vicar wants to have the 15th century rood screen in his church restored - it is so damaged that the saints painted on it have all but disappeared. Meanwhile, a strange group of people wearing odd robes are spotting walking along the road: including a young woman with a wheel and a man carrying a gridiron....
Very moving is 'The Island' which imagines part of the life lived by Mary and St John in the years following the events of the first Easter.
[ 15. November 2012, 23:50: Message edited by: Huntress ]
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The Amazing Chronoscope
Posts: 431 | From: Lancashire / Nottingham | Registered: Apr 2002
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The Intrepid Mrs S
Shipmate
# 17002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by The Intrepid Mrs S:
NOW he tells me! I'm actually listening to it as an audiobook from Audible, having paired it with The Woman in White (read by Gabriel Woolf - what a voice!) Now I'm concerned it may be too scary for me (ulp!)
Mrs. S, looking over her shoulder with wild surmise ...
The radio production is dramatised in 4 parts. The other evening was part one, and it covered happening till just after the funeral. You know, the funeral attended by a solitary pale-faced woman in a black dress ...
It's still on iplayer. I've been assuming it'll be a weekly thing. It's got a couple of very good voices - John Woodvine as the older Arthur Kipps and Robert Glenister as the younger.
But Gabriel Woolf! I must hear that. Woolf is famous for his two voice roles in Doctor Who - the first as the Egyptian god Sutekh ("All life is my enemy. All life shall perish under the reign of Sutekh!"). The second as ... well ... the Devil, I suppose, in The Impossible Planet ("Don't turn around ... I'm right behind you ... I could touch you ..."). A superlatively creepy voice.
Must get those from the iPlayer - thanks Adeodatus!
GW was a superb Narrator, and St. John, in the BBC version's of Dorothy L. Sayers' 'Man Born to be King' series; also Detective Inspector Parker to Ian Carmichael's Lord Peter Wimsey in the BBC adaptations of those stories, which were just brilliantly done - I know the stories almost by heart but the plays were so cleverly put together that you never noticed the joins.
/tangent alert/GW has one of those voices that don't come between you and the story, but is just lovely to listen to. IMHO Simon Russell Beale has a fab voice too - but possibly not for St. John? /tangent over!/
Mrs. S, thinking the BBC really did do some excellent stuff
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Don't get your knickers in a twist over your advancing age. It achieves nothing and makes you walk funny.
Prayer should be our first recourse, not our last resort
'Lord, please give us patience. NOW!'
Posts: 1464 | From: Neither here nor there | Registered: Mar 2012
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
Oops! It turns out that The Woman in Black is being aired daily, not weekly - so the final episode is this evening at 18.30. But all four episodes should be on iplayer for a week after tonight. I think I'll treat myself to all four at once sometime over the weekend.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Jane R
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# 331
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Agatha Christie did write some supernatural stories for adults too - I remember being terrorised by the cover of my parents' copy of 'The Hound of Death and Other Stories' when I was little. And by (some of) the stories themselves when I was old enough to read them. The full-length mystery story 'The Pale Horse' also has a supernatural theme.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Huntress
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# 2595
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quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Agatha Christie did write some supernatural stories for adults too - I remember being terrorised by the cover of my parents' copy of 'The Hound of Death and Other Stories' when I was little. And by (some of) the stories themselves when I was old enough to read them. The full-length mystery story 'The Pale Horse' also has a supernatural theme.
Ah yes, they'd briefly slipped my mind whilst I was thinking of the religious ones, they are really good too - the one about the medium and the mysterious client was updated for Radio 4 a few years ago. The stories in 'The Mysterious Mr Quin' are also supernatural, truly weird.
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The Amazing Chronoscope
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