We don’t really do ‘Best Of’ lists, because most of them are silly and far too idiosyncratic to whoever picks them. But we like to pick out works which embed themselves at the back of your mind. So we’re back again, this time with ten supernatural stories, some of which you’ll know, some of which you might not.
We have no reason to believe these will resonate with you as they do with us. But we did sort of have rules. As before, the stories picked had to be:
- properly supernatural or unnatural (no pretend hauntings, let-downs or mundane explanations that the cat did it)
- memorable for their themes, key elements or imagery
- different from the usual fare in some way, either in style, approach or resolution
- free of the standard vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies and cthulhoids
And each had to be a tale which remained in memory after the book was closed. Remember, these are not the ‘Goodness Me Bestest Stories Ever’, they’re simply ones we can’t forget.
The entries are given order of the author’s year of birth; the rating system is badly-thought out, unreliable and of no real value whatsoever. Again, it’s purely that we understand lists do this sort of thing, and didn’t want it to look like we hadn’t tried.
1) Thrawn Janet
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
We might give two arguments as to why this tale lingers. The obvious one is that the central figure of the strange housekeeper with the thrawn (twisted) neck is memorable enough. The other is that it was written in Scots (sometimes called Lowland Scots), and has a way with words which is fascinating to a non-Scots speaker. Writing in Scots was a risk for an author wanting a wider English-speaking audience – he only tried this twice – but it was still accepted and published.
Onyway it behoved him to get an auld, decent wife to keep the manse for him an’ see to his bit denners; and he was recommended to an auld limmer – Janet M’Clour, they ca’d her – and sae far left to himsel’ as to be ower persuaded. There was mony advised him to the contrar, for Janet was mair than suspeckit by the best folk in Ba’weary. Lang or that, she had had a wean to a dragoon; she hadnae come forrit for maybe thretty year; and bairns had seen her mumblin’ to hersel’ up on Key’s Loan in the gloamin’, whilk was an unco time an’ place for a God-fearin’ woman.
It’s slightly easier for we Northern folk, but for those who struggle, you can find a handy Anglicized version at Michael Kellermeyer’s most enjoyable site for OldStyle Tales Press:
Scary rating: 5
Style Rating: 6
2) The Hall Bedroom
Mary E Wilkins Freeman (1852 – 1930)
A story published in 1905 which is questionably not a haunting as such, but an early exploration in the style of the weird fiction genre which was to blossom in the twenties and thirties. Replete with disturbing imagery which opens up concepts of other dimensions and realities, it straddles the border between the haunted room tale and the weird.
We said a bit more about Freeman here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/edith-wharton-hears-whooo/
Scary rating: 5
Style Rating: 7
3) The Legend of Madam Krasinska
Vernon Lee (1856-1935)
Although entitled ‘The Legend of Madam Krasinska’, the central figure of this grim story is really Sora Lena, an old woman seen struggling to the railway station every day in tattered and outmoded black raiment. An awkward, almost ugly, red-faced figure, she is captured in a sketch by a young artist, a sketch which catches the eye of Madam Krasinska…
You might call it a story of a haunting, but it’s also about identity and sanity, developed and delivered in such a way that the image of Sora Lena herself remains with you long afterwards.
Scary rating: 3 or 8, depending on how you take it
Style Rating: 7
4) The Haunted Mill or the Ruined Home
Jerome K Jerome
Short and never forgotten, because Jerome basically takes the mickey out of every standard ghost story written in this simple tale. We laugh every time we read it.
Scary rating: 0
Style Rating: 8
5) The Mezzotint
Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936)
It’s very easy to slam an M R James into articles like this, and we had our doubts, but on reflection, we went with ‘The Mezzotint’ for two reasons which relate to our stated approach. Firstly, the use of the figure in the drawing is a rather original handling of the concept of a haunting, and secondly, the subdued imagery of the figure changing position over time is one which does linger more than a whole raft of explicit/shocking depictions of wicked folk and evil deeds. He knew what he was up to, did Monty.
Scary rating: 7
Style Rating: 9
6) The Dead Valley
Ralph Adams Cram (1863-1942)
A tale set in Scandinavia which manages to be sad, grim and weird, evoking terror in the way it unfolds – not a comfortable read. Also not a haunting, but an unexpected and awful place of fear.
H P Lovecraft said it achieved “a memorably potent degree of vague regional horror through subtleties of atmosphere and description.”
Trigger Note: A young dog dies, which we don’t like.
Scary rating: 7
Style Rating: 8
7) Lukundoo
Edward Lucas White (1866-1934)
One of the more unusual of ‘those tales’ which people used to delight in – dark and strange happenings to explorers who dared the depths of Africa. Of its time, of course, but the core ‘problem’ is an unusual one.
“It stands to reason,” said Twombly, “that a man must accept of his own eyes, and when eyes and ears agree, there can be no doubt. He has to believe what he has both seen and heard.”
“Not always,” put in Singleton, softly.
Every man turned toward Singleton. Twombly was standing on hearthrug, his back to the grate, his legs spread out, with his habitual air of dominating the room. Singleton, as usual, was as much as possible effaced in a corner. But when Singleton spoke he said something. We faced him in that flattering spontaneity of expectant silence which invites utterance.
“I was thinking,” he said, after an interval, “of something I both saw and heard in Africa.”
Scary rating: 6
Style Rating: 6
8) The Business of Madam Jahn
Vincent O’Sullivan (1868-1940)
A tale which is easily passed over, concerning a calculating and unrepentant murderer – excepting that the supernatural part has a less common twist, building up to the dreadful last line, and it sticks more than a number of contemporary tales, for some reason. A curio.
How we all stared, how frightened we all were, how we passed opinions, on that morning when Gustave Herbout was found swinging by the neck from the ceiling of his bedroom! The whole Faubourg, even the ancient folk who had not felt a street under them for years, turned out and stood gaping at the house with amazement and loud conjecture. For why should Gustave Herbout, of all men, take to the rope?
Scary rating: 4
Style Rating: 6
9) Nightmare Jack
John Metcalfe (1891-1965)
A claustrophobic tale of men who row to an inn in late Victorian London to hear the words of Nightmare Jack, and of a cursed venture years before in Burma. A dreadful legacy has followed those involved, and true to the title, Jack has nightmarish truths to tell his visitors. Part supernatural vengeance, part weird fiction, all fascinating – distinctly more interesting than the usual ‘we robbed a temple’ story.
He told us in a cowering breath of fear of the old, still temple near Mogaung, and of the foul God that tottered there upon its stool. Whilst the wind without raced up against the yellow tide and his face within went grey upon the pillow, that little, whispering man spoke to us—by his frantic hands and eyes as much as by his dying mouth—of the mythos of the Web and Loaf, and the faded terror of the Triple Scum.
Scary rating: 7
Style Rating: 8
10) Outside the House
Bessie Kyffin-Taylor (d.1922)
The secret of the Low Lawn, and a house turned around – indeed, inside out in a way – by fear. It has an entirely satisfactory supernatural plot and delivery, but the real bit which lingers is the Low Lawn itself and the strange room the family have built to avoid the gardens – when the sun is low.
I was idly wondering how I could best escape to smoke a quiet pipe in the fresh air, before turning in, when my worthy father-in-law to be dropped into a chair beside me.
“Getting tired, John?” he asked. “I should turn in early if I were you, we are all early-to-bed folks here.”
“No thanks,” I replied, “I’m not tired, I was admiring that painted view of the far end of this lovely place, though I should have thought glass on all sides would have better carried out your idea. What would the view be if that end were also glass?”
“It all depends upon the time of day,” was his reply. “In the morning it would show you the garden, the Low Lawn,” he said, “but—now for instance—well, it wouldn’t, or if it did, you would rather not see it.”
http://greydogtales.com/blog/out-of-the-silence-with-bessie-kyffin-taylor/
Scary rating: 7
Style Rating: 6
Our original pick can be found here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/twelve-tales-which-linger/
And for the classic stuff, we do like visiting Oldstyle Tales Press, where numerous illustrations embellish their editions.