On gothic romances, mortality and reading - with a mini book review

I've been thinking lately – and I swear I'm not being morbid – about how many more books I'll be able to read in my lifetime. It's becoming a real concern, because even the best scenario probably doesn't give me much more than 50 years, if I plan on reading into my 90s. And while I read pretty quickly, I also like long books, and I like to savor things a bit, so I average about 50 books a year most of the time. 

In other words, I can look forward to reading possibly 2,500 more books in my lifetime, if I am blessed with a long and healthy existence (not counting any possible Brain in a Jar time that might come along in the future). 

A few of our books. There are many more.

But you see, we probably have at least 5,000 books between us. So this is becoming something of a concern. There are a lot of things I like to do besides reading, so I'm probably stuck with this 2,500 number, which means I need to start being selective in what I read. That means I'm not going to waste a lot of precious reading time with throwaway "light" reading, "just for fun." Fun? Reading is dead serious around here. At its best, grim and doom-filled, awash in candlelight and stirred by cracks of thunder and lightning. 

I admit, my 18^th century gothic novels and penny dreadfuls; the 19^th century ghost stories and pulps of the early 20^th century, might have been "throwaway" in their time, but there is an atmosphere and craftsmanship about them that still trumps the potboilers of today, in my estimation. 

From the British Library website:

Ela the Outcast; or, The Gipsy of Rosemary Dell. A romance of thrilling interest - See more at: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls#sthash.EwZ1RJCZ.dpuf

This is all a longwinded way of explaining why I am reading a few of the 1960s and 1970s gothic romances that I have collected for quite some time, simply for their covers, lurid titles and garish plot descriptions. The writing in these books doesn't typically measure up to what I need from a book – it's a little over-simplistic, and is still too recent to have acquired that sheen of antiquity from obscure language and references.

Click here to see my gallery of gothic romance book covers at Pinterest -- adding to it regularly as I acquire more!

But I'm giving it a try, so I will chronicle a few of these adventures. These books are from the era which happens to also be my favorite time period in cinema and they deal with the same subject matter: inherited castles, or mansions and manors with family curses and decadence; heroines in peril; witches and vampires, ghosts and satanic cults; and in general, the kind of gothic soap opera material you might find in Dark Shadows, a show that I grew up watching and deeply love, wobbly scenery and all. These kind of book covers have also inspired countless paintings that I've done, and plan to do, all with gowns and candelabras. I wrote about this several years ago in greater depth. Needless to say I am delighted that the forthcoming film "Crimson Peak" prominently features these items, and incidentally I plan to spend Halloween in a white old-fashioned looking nightgown that I made, with a candelabra.

"Terror in the Crimson Castle," a 7 x 9 original painting in my Etsy shop

These are also the subjects beloved by the original gothic authors of the 18^th and early 19^th century – the imperiled heroines of Ann Radcliffe's sumptuous novels and her many imitators, exploring every permutation of book title including the words "abbey," "castle" and forest." Everything that I love about the old novels, with the addition of go-go boots – what's not to love?

Please explore the Valancourt Books site for reprints of these wonderful original 18th and 19th century gothics

The first book I tackled from my personal stash was "Secret of the Pale Lover," by Clarissa Ross, AKA Marilyn Ross, the author of the Dark Shadows novels. Ross was actually William Edward Daniel Ross, and he wrote over 300 novels – mostly romances and gothics. 

The first page drew me in and I have to say, it was a pretty enjoyable read, particularly when imagined as a novelization of the kind of movie I would watch -- a wild student party in Paris dungeon in 1969 sounds like just the place I want to be, in my head.

I can't quite remember if the actual skeletal hands ever showed up.

I imagine the main character played by an actress like the beautiful Rosalba Neri, and the "hawk-faced" Count Henri Langlais who entices her to his castle, is clearly meant to be played by Peter Cushing. She attracts his attention when she gets up on a table at the party and jokingly invokes Satan. As you do.

Rosalba Neri

You already know this is Peter Cushing, but it's always nice to have a photo of him around.

On the gothic cliché checklist, we have quite an admirable assortment of devices to admire here as the plot develops. Eve Lewis is as good as imprisoned at the chateau after accepting Count Henri's invitation to further her occult researches at his library, only to learn that he wishes to have her as the bride for his pale, sickly nephew Leonard. She is administered medication by a doctor who appears to have a double at the seaside resort where she first became acquainted with the count and a young man who appeared to be his nephew.

While I was never completely convinced that there were actual supernatural forces at work, the novel builds a pretty strong case that vampirism is afoot in the chateau, and then we have fantastic lines like this, which occur once or twice without any seeming purpose except to excite us for a moment. 

Throughout the book she is subject to various minor frights and spooky scenarios, such as becoming lost in the crypt beneath the castle, and terrified by strange happenings at night. Ultimately, she finds that the sickly nephew has a double as well -- a hired actor portrayed the young man at first when she met him and the count on her seaside vacation. The actor's job was to get her to fall in love with the pale boy, and then step aside as nature took its course. A heroic plot is launched to free her from the castle's grip and bring an end to the youth who is revealed as a vampire.

The ending was actually a bit of a surprise, as we see the heroine seemingly happily brainwashed, overmedicated or hypnotized to her fate, with Rosemary's Baby-ish implications.

One of the weaknesses of this style of book, from the perspective of a reader, is the way in which the authors constantly remind us of the questions being turned over in the main character's head, with narration along the lines of: "But what was the meaning of the mysterious symbol on the old book? Why did she seem to recognize the strange man in the cloak? What did the housekeeper mean when she told her to keep away from the basement?" Not actual quotes, but you get the idea. The reader is handed everything in very obvious, distinct terms, rather than given information and details from which to draw their own questions and conclusions. I also find it intrusive in writing when character's inner dialogue and motivation are spelled out in every line of dialogue.

This particular volume I would rate as pretty enjoyable, and while not terribly well-written, the plot advances in an entertaining way, with changes of scene and moments of dramatic impact. There were a couple of genuine surprises, as well, with the actor showing up on the scene to save the day, and then an unexpected twist in which the happy ending is actually a fairly diabolical one.

I've read a couple of more of these recently and will attempt to write up a little about them as well in forthcoming weeks. The good ones are definitely worthy of a day or two of my reading time, to feed the monster in my brain that constantly craves this kind of imagery and scenario. 

The forgotten pulp horror weirdness of Ramble House books

A few titles in our own Ramble House collection

 While you're likely to find me reading 19th- or early-20th century supernatural fiction at any time of the year, it is pretty inevitable that the ghost stories and menacing weirdness will hit their peak in early October.

The best setting in which to read them, in my experience, has always been in the autumn woods as the first wave of color sweeps across the landscape. Well, that magical autumn feeling is a little different where I'm living now, but even if the color palette is different, and long sleeves and scarves probably won't happen until Christmas, you can still tell by the angle of the setting sun that it is time to amp up the reading of ghost stories and weird fiction.

One of my favorite publishers to explore at this time of year is a glorious imprint called Ramble House. While forgotten/neglected and rare crime fiction is the main thrust of their publishing, there are also a fair number of titles that fall under the heading "weird menace" -- stories from the horror pulp magazines of the 1930s and 40s. Some rare and unusual stand-alone novels also make an appearance at Ramble House, and I am guessing most people come across them for the same reasons I did... on a search for titles on the legendary Karl Edward Wagner book lists.

A number of titles on these lists -- famed for their inclusion of fairly obscure titles and authors -- were not available for decades, until reprinted in limited quantities by Ramble House's predecessor Midnight House in the early 2000s (Midnight publisher John Pelan heads RH's horror imprint, Dancing Tuatara Press). Take a look at this list of supernatural horror titles, for instance...four of them are available at RH (and several are still in print from other publishers as well).

 The Thirteen Best Supernatural Horror Novels:

1.            Hell! Said the Duchess by Michael Arlen
2.            The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr
3.            Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers
4.            Dark Sanctuary by H.B. Gregory
5.            Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg
6.            Maker of Shadows by Jack Mann
7.            The Yellow Mistletoe by Walter S. Masterman
8.            Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
9.            Burn Witch Burn by A. Merritt
10.            Fingers of Fear by J.U. Nicolson
11.            Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven
12.            Echo of a Curse by R.R. Ryan
13.            Medusa by E.H. Visiak


I'm not going to attempt to give book reviews in this short space, or attempt to relate an unofficial history of the company cribbed from their website, but I am going to just give my wholehearted endorsement to weird old book lovers.

There are several different "presses" under the Ramble House umbrella, and you can also view by title, author, series and recent releases. If you have trouble choosing where to start, here are a few quick recommendations. Also, I always order straight from the source, as they offer free shipping, and often will discount titles if you email them your order. Most importantly though it directly supports this wonderful publisher.

All artwork below is copyright the artist, Gavin O'Keefe, and used with permission; the introductions are courtesy of the Ramble House website.

"The Shadow on the House" was one of the first titles I read from RH -- the Introduction is available online.  It would fall under the category of supernatural thriller or psychological horror most likely, but this moody piece from 1934 is full of gothic atmosphere, hints of madness and family curses/ghosts, and a series of strange deaths. The hints of an inheritance of evil and unexplained phenomena were very exciting to me while reading it, and it fits in perfectly with my early 20th century mystery and ghost reading.

This 1937 book is another excellent example of something that straddles the line between gothic mystery, suspense, psychological thriller and supernatural/weird horror. From the Ramble House site: "Very strange things are going on at Cold Stairs, the country manor home of the Harman family. BBC correspondent Jack Hartley has been there to report on the findings of the 'Committee of Three,' a delegation of researchers from Psychical Research Society. All signs point to a most bizarre haunting, and Sir John Harman is concerned for his household, comprising niece Sybil, governess Mrs. James and her disabled son Eric, and the servants." The cover gives enticing hints of some of the content of this book (as many of O'Keefe's wonderful cover illustrations do) -- as you read the book, the meaning of some of these images starts to unfold. A picture of a skeleton? A girl clutching a strange box? Sounds pretty exciting to me!

You can read the Introduction  here. I have not yet read all of these stories, but the titles should be enough to get you interested: in addition to the title story, we have "Satan Sends a Woman," "Song of the Dead," "Hours of the Vanished Boarder," "Satan's Thirsty Ones," "Village of the Dead," and Models for Madness." The title story is particularly lurid, and the themes are unapologetically supernatural, including grotesque imagery, generous use of evocative adjectives, and themes such as swamp-women luring men to their death (note the cover picture)...sound good? It is!

 

The opening line of this Introduction should whet the appetites of anyone whose taste in fiction runs along the same course as mine: "Among all the writers of weird fiction in the 1930s two authors shared the rather unique background of being accomplished poets with solid reputations established in the little magazines and limited editions of the time. The two men were Clark Ashton Smith and John H. Knox."

That, along with story titles like "The Thing That Dined on Death," should excite the adventurous reader. If you are already a fan of the "weirds," here's a whole new cavern for literary spelunking.

Here is the Introduction to this fine volume. "Dark Sanctuary" is one of those Wagner list books, and quite an excellent one indeed. I read this one in a Midnight House edition, so I am delighted that it is still available from Ramble House. Published in 1940, this novel is dripping with occult atmosphere. Family curses and madness, an abbey on an island, a ghastly crypt -- it's all here. The RH site gives a good summary of some points to look forward to in this one: "The story opens with Anthony Lovell, Sr., master of the ancient abbey of Kestrel and its like-named island off the Cornish coast, raving in madness and fear over the ancient family curse that 'dwells in the bowels of the abbey rock.' What has caused his madness is unclear, but it is obviously linked to something seen or experienced in Kestrel's ancient crypts." This book made the strongest impression on me of all of the Midnight/Ramble House books I have read.

There is quite a lot to say about R. R. Ryan so I suggest reading the Introduction for more information, but suffice to say here that Ryan wrote a small number of truly excellent books that were all but forgotten until the Wagner lists resurrected three of the titles in collector circles.  The identity of the writer has been up for debate for some time, and although I've read several definitive answers to who he/she is, I've honestly lost track of whether a final determination has been reached. Either way...it's great stuff. Ramble House is working on making all of Ryan's titles available again. "Echo of a Curse" is up there with "Dark Sanctuary" as my two favorites from these lists that I have read so far, with an engaging and fast-moving plot, involving everyone's favorite gothic plot point: the family curse. We have possible lycanthropy, a sideshow attraction, occultism in the family, babies switched at birth, and some very brutal behavior from a character you really come to despise.

There are many more titles that I still need to explore that may prove excellent fodder for your Halloween season reading, particularly in the short story department. Here's a tiny sampling. But I strongly advise just getting anything that ignites your fancy. The rest of the titles in my picture at the top of the post are also of excellent quality.

Tales of Terror & Torment: Stories from the Pulps
The Corpse Factory and Other Weird Stories (the weird tales of Arthur Leo Zagat)
Hostesses in Hell and Other Stories (the selected stories of Russell Gray)
Food for the Fungus Lady (see below...I mean seriously, that title. I can't live without it).

Since these titles are printed on demand, chances are that you won't find a lot of them in secondhand shops. The people buying them know what they want and know what they like and probably won't ever let them go! Get your copies now and cherish them as we enter that time of the year that is best for reading spooky stuff. Order now and by Halloween you can be knee-deep in 1930s pulp weird fiction that relatively few people living today have explored in depth.