Scottish Ghost Stories

Elliott O'Donnell - Scottish Ghost Stories (1911)

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Time to close out a month of Halloween books with something from the prolific Elliott O'Donnell (whose 1912 novel The Sorcery Club is getting some attention recently due to a Michael Dirda review of a reissue in The Washington Post).  O'Donnell wrote, lectured and broadcast about ghosts for decades, claiming some sort of factual basis for what are in all other respects fictional stories.  (Though I wish his 1934 Strange Cults & Secret Societies of Modern London was available online.)  In this book the titles are careful to give a location as if that will convince any dubious reader.  Though I realize it's not intended that way the opening title with its "death bogle" sounds comic today as to some degree "The Bounding Figure of '--------- House'".  The contents also promise a floating head, a choking ghost, a white lady, a grey piper, a phantom regiment and a "room beyond".  Happy Halloween!

The Shape of Fear

Elia Wilkinson Peattie - The Shape of Fear, and Other Ghostly Tales (1898)

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Another one I haven't read and hope it doesn't turn out too badly.  Couldn't resist for a couple of reasons - Peattie was the Chicago Tribune's first woman reporter and there's a story here called "The Grammatical Ghost".  It turns out that this story has been reprinted a few times but as far as I could see none of her other fiction (though almost certainly I'm overlooking something considering how obsessive ghost story fans are) until 2013 when Lightning Press in England issued a collection of her supernatural stories.  In 2005 University of Nebraska Press put out an anthology of selected writings, mostly journalism, that seems to overlook her fiction (though it does include "Grand Island and Its Beets: The County Seat of Hall and What Beet Cultivation Has Done" and "The Women on the Farms: A Chapter of Advice for Them Which City Women Need Not Read").

The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

Andrew Lang - The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897)

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Andrew Lang was a prolific Scottish author best remembered (at least in the U.S.) for his fairy books, running from The Blue Fairy Book (1899) to The Lilac Fairy Book (1910).  (Dover has kept them in print for years and years.)  The Book of Dreams and Ghosts collects accounts of ghostly and weird events in a somewhat disinterested inquiry (the introduction quotes William James) but perhaps with more emphasis on entertainment.  Selections range from "The Ghost That Bit" to "The Creaking Stair" to "The Dancing Devil" to "The Lady in Black".  I'll have to read just to find out what "The Cow with the Bell" and "The Ducks' Eggs" are about.  (Only swan eggs would be less spooky than duck's.)

Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies

Im Pang & Yi Yuk - Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies (1913)

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This book collects folk tales from two different writers - Im Pang (1640-1724) and Yi Yuk (1438-1498).  (I've used the more common current romanization rather than what's actually in this book.)  The translator James S. Gale was a Canadian missionary who not only set up a church but translated works into Korean (the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress) and into English (including Cloud Dream of the Nine - no, I hadn't heard of it either but that's an intriguing title).  Stories include "The Wild-Cat Woman", "The Grateful Ghost", "The Thousand Devils", "The Old Woman Who Became a Goblin", "The Magic Invasion of Seoul", "The Snake's Revenge" and "A Visit from the Shades".

 James H. Grayson's Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials (2001) seems like a worthwhile source of broad background.

Weird Tales from Northern Seas

Jonas Lie - Weird Tales from Northern Seas (1893)

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19th century Norwegian writer Jonas Lie is little-known in the English-speaking world but apparently a major figure in Norway.  This collection of strange ocean-connecting stories includes the one most likely to have been encountered due to its inclusion in Roald Dahl's book of ghost stories (though under a slightly different title) - "The Fisherman and the Draug".  This book is a selection of his stories done by the translator Robert Nisbet Bain (a British Museum linguist who also translated the Hungarian writer Mor Jokai).  I assume when he says the translations are from Danish he really means Norwegian since the langauges are very similar and Norway's National Library lists Lie's books in Norwegian.  In any case Nisbet Bain says "Finn Blood" is actually a "charming love-story" though I doubt that's true of "The Wind-Gnome."  Though you never know.....

A Book of Ghosts

Sabine Baring-Gould - A Book of Ghosts (1904)

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Baring-Gould was a Devon priest and prolific author whose best known works are the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" and that wonderful Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, so shot through with references and miscellaneous learning that its subject almost vanishes.  He also wrote fiction including several novels and this collection of stories that either re-tell folk stories or mimic them (or so it appears from skimming the book).  Apparently one story is about the ghosts who haunt the British Museum if that has any appeal.  He also wrote The Book of Were-wolves and another collection of weird tales called Margery Of Quether.

Devil Stories

Maximilian J. Rudwin - Devil Stories (1921)

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Not sure I could imagine Knopf publishing this today (it was only a few years old at the time) though this is still a fairly substantial group of authors - Thackeray, Baudelaire, Gorky, Machiavelli, de Maupassant.  The editor excluded anything not in prose and anything somewhat off-color (he mentions skipping Rabelais and Balzac) but that hardly matters.  The notes in the back are more substantial than usual and are well worth reading.  The author is covered in a very nice post at the blog Lesser-Known Writers that's far more substantial than anything I'd do.

Greek and Roman Ghost Stories

Lacy Collison-Morley - Greek and Roman Ghost Stories (1912)

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Not really a collection of stories but more an overview of Greek and Roman opinions and beliefs in ghosts and related spirits (if you were ever curious about the difference between a lemure and a larvae this explains).  For me this makes it all that more interesting.  Drawing mainly from familiar sources (Suetonius, Plautus, Petronius, Lucian) though not always things you remember, it's one of those fun collections of assorted information and odd tales that are almost impossible to put down.  The author also wrote books about more recent Italy including one on how Shakespeare was received and performed there.

Legends of Gods and Ghosts (Hawaiian Mythology)

W. D. Westervelt - Legends of Gods and Ghosts (Hawaiian Mythology) (1915)

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If you've ever wanted a story about a dragon ghost-god, well here you go.  Plus a poison god, a maid of the golden cloud, a shark god and a bride from the underworld along with stories titled "The Strange Banana Skin", "Hawaiian Ghost Testing" and "A Giant's Rock-Throwing".  Westervelt was a pastor who collected Hawaiian folktales and published several books about them.

The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain

John Henry Ingram - The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain (1884)

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This is a guidebook to various haunted houses and castles in England, places with names like Clegg Hall, Epworth Parsonage, Sykes Lamb Farm, Peele Castle and Combermere Abbey.  I have no idea where any of these are (well other than Cambridge and Oxford universities) but it's a fun collection of stories, drawn from various memoirs and periodicals.  Worth note is the entry for Roslin Chapel, better known today as Rosslyn Chapel and beloved of various kook ideas.  The author wrote about Marlowe and particularly Poe - his collection of Poe material is now at the University of Virginia.

The Haunted Hour

Margaret Widdemer - The Haunted Hour: An Anthology (1920)

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A collection of ghostly poetry drawing from the likes of Yeats, Kipling, Freneau, Longfellow, De La Mare and others I don't recognize.  The editor won the Pulitzer for poetry in 1919.

Oh, when the ghosts go by,
   Under the empty trees,
Here in my house I sit and cry,
   My head upon my knees!

Humorous Ghost Stories

Dorothy Scarborough (ed) - Humorous Ghost Stories (1921)

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After publishing her dissertation The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction (it's quite readable) Scarborough edited two anthologies of ghost stories.  This is the more unusual one as it focuses on the comic and I've always had a weakness for these types of stories.  Opening with Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost" it runs through some familiar writers such as Frank Stockton, Washington Irving and Theophile Gautier to some half-forgotten (Gelett Burgess) and others I've never heard of.

Note:  Since posting this I've actually read the book and it's a mixed bag.  First warning is that there's some racial humor (including one story entirely in dialect) which is not unexpected from something of this date but still a definite negative.  The Wilde is easily the best thing here but there are several other amusing stories including fake ghosts, a ghost extinguisher and a ghost ship that's stuck in the middle of a town.  Many are not what I would consider humorous (no proto-Beetlejuice) but like the Gautier lean towards the light-hearted.  But there's also one story that's a straightforward and rather violent not-at-all-funny ghost story and something from the Ingoldsby legends that's completely incomprehensible.

Halloween planning

Stanley Schell - Hallowe'en Festivities (1903)

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Ruth Edna Kelley - The book of Hallowe'en (1919)

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For this month of Halloween posts here's one to help prepare for your parties.

The Schell book is everything you'll need from how to make invitations to planning to recipes to some scary tales to tell.  You'll learn about the Witches Dance ("Enter eight Witches riding brooms and dancing around stage in a circle, while constant hissing is kept up as if lots of cats were present."), a suggested menu that includes lobster rolls served with cheese straws and mashed potatoes, a game called Pulling Kale which involves pulling kale (or cabbage if you prefer), a raisin race, and a reading from Bulwer Lytton.  (Bet that last one is in few Halloween parties nowadays.)

The Kelley book is background, ranging from the Celts to various spots of the British islands and even France before concluding in America.  There are plenty of quotations, some poems and a reference guide to magazines with Halloween tips.

The Watcher and Other Weird Stories

Sheridan Le Fanu - The Watcher and Other Weird Stories (1894)

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Le Fanu isn't a discovery or oddity by any means but I couldn't resist including this posthumous collection with illustrations by his son Brinsley.  How can you pass up stories titled "Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" or "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter"?  (If you want more Le Fanu then Delphi Classics has a huge ebook with pretty much everything and a book about him by E.F. Benson as well.)

Human Animals

Frank Hamel - Human Animals (1915)

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The title isn't clear but historian Hamel (despite the "Frank" she was a she) collected examples of "the curious belief that certain men and women can transform themselves into animals".  There are wer-wolves (her spelling) along with wer-foxes, wer-vixens, human serpents, cat phantoms, bird women, lion men, swan maidens, witches familiars and so forth.  I've only skimmed bits but it looks like one of that era's wonderful gatherings of assorted legends and myths (see Frazer) that are then often forced into some kind of universal template.  The accounts range from Homer to Renaissance broadsides to collections of Indian folktales.  (While trying to find more about the author I discovered that Dover recently reprinted this under the title Werewolves, Bird-Women, Tiger-Men and Other Human Animals.)

Songs of the Valiant Voivode

Helene Vacaresco - Songs of the Valiant Voivode, and other strange folk-lore, for the first time collected from Roumanian peasants and set forth in English (1904)

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A quick scan doesn't show any vampires but then the widely accepted idea that Dracula was based on Vlad Tepes is unsupportable and almost certainly wrong (see for instance the work of Elizabeth Miller).  However this does have dragons, enchanted whistles, talking snakes, fairies, tree-people and, well, pig thieves.  Sort of the usual folk tale mix but it does seem lively.

Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters

H. Addington Bruce - Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters (1908)

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Kicking off a month of Halloween posts is this collection of somewhat true stories related a bit more to spiritualism than the title suggests.  For instance it opens with the events at Loudun that Aldous Huxley later wrote a novel about while later chapters cover John Dee and Emanuel Swedenborg.  Its approach (narrative, unsourced, all too trusting) is pretty much the same as similar books a century later.  The author was a journalist who found a niche turning out popularized history and psychological books.