Woodiwiss, John C. Some New Ghost Stories (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1931).
Here is another collection of ghost stories by a mostly forgotten English author—in this case, a friend of the noted editor Christine Campbell Thomson. This volume contains ten tales, along with a short preface by the author in which he writes: “I offer the following stories in the sincere hope that they will amuse my readers without sending them to bed in that state of uneasiness and terror, which I have known what it is to experience so often after hearing the Ghost Stories of others.” Woodiwiss need not have worried, for there is nothing in these sloppy stories besides an occasional (minor) shudder.
These tales are even less ambitious than most in the genre, and although they appear to be based on actual “hauntings” or superstitions (Woodiwiss comments obliquely in the preface that “names and localities are disguised in every case”): they mostly read as sketches or early trial-drafts for tales, not as finished things in their own right. They are poorly plotted too, as insubstantial as a late summer breeze and as quickly forgotten. In the past several years, various small presses have revived a number of worthy collections by obscure authors. This one, however, would be a good one for them to skip.
Wormser, G. Ranger. The Scarecrow and Other Stories (New York: Dutton, 1918).
I first heard of this book from John Pelan, who recommended it as an unusually good book by a completely forgotten writer. Indeed, it has remained virtually unknown for over eighty years, and only one of its twelve stories has ever been anthologized. The author, Gwendolyn Ranger Wormser (1893-1953), published another twelve stories that have been traced—one entitled Abraham Goode (1924), a fine non-weird tale with a subliminally Gothic feel to it, was published only as a limited edition booklet. The stories in The Scarecrow have a wide range of topics, but their strengths lie in the areas of psychology and atmosphere. The descriptive passages are frequently very fine, though the dialogue occasionally stumbles and the plots are not particularly original. Save for the title story, which opens the volume, the contents seem rather oddly arranged in that most of the lesser stories are towards the beginning of the book, while the stories grow in intensity and accomplishment as the volume progresses. The best tales are “The Effigy,” a twist on Oscar Wilde’s Portrait of Dorian Gray, and “The Wood of Living Trees,” an unusual werewolf tale. Wormser’s stories deserve a modern revival.
Edward J. O’Brien selected the book as one of the “Ten Best American Books” of short stories of 1918, describing the stories as “subtle studies in unfamiliar regions of the spirit, and their vivid imaginative quality is not unlike that of Algernon Blackwood, though Miss Wormser’s style is somewhat more self-conscious.” The New York Times took a predictable stance against the weird or fantastic, complaining that the book gives “the impression of an artificer’s bungling use of Poe’s methods without Poe’s genius to put life into them. The result is a morbid agglomeration of discredited ghost-seeings, werwolf [sic] metamorphoses, and unsuccessful efforts to depict some of the phenomena of hallucination.” The book has flaws, but still retains great interest.
In 2001, Midnight House produced an expanded edition, which I edited, of this Wormser collection; an updated edition is coming from my own Nodens Books in 2018.
Wray, Roger. The Dweller in the Half-Light (London: Odhams Limited, [1920]).
This story centers on Arnold Gray, who lost an eye and had his face badly scarred in the war. Arnold is recovering in a house with his strong-minded sister Helen. Arnold believes that he has lost the love of his fiancée Rhodwyn Hughes because of his disfigurement, but she admits that she had fallen in love with another man—a man who recently died when his hotel was bombed. Rhodwyn, wanting to retain her friendship with both Helen and Arnold, visits them and moves in with them for some months, during which time she begins secretly meeting the ghostly manifestation of her dead lover. This scenario drags on for many pages, with complications and various theories proposed and argued between Arnold and Helen over this nocturnal, occasionally simplistic, occasionally menacing intruder, who has no long term memories but some memories apparently shared with Rhodwyn. Eventually the real life lover turns up, alive, seeking renewed acquaintance with Rhodwyn, but she discovers that he is a bounder, and it is determined that her ghostly Jack was some kind of projection of her idealized version of him. Some aspects, such as the vampire-like psychic attacks, are never really explained. The love interests are central, Helen becomes engaged to a friend of Arnold’s, and by the end, Arnold himself and Rhodwyn are back together. This is all typical lending-library fodder of the time period, and unexceptional.
“Roger Wray” was the pseudonym for four novels, plus short stories and articles, used by James William Marriott (1884-1953), who worked first as a school master and later on the editorial staff of a weekly paper in London. As “J. W. Marriott” he published a number of successful school text-books, and edited several volumes of one-act plays. In 1950, with the Newnes Educational Publishing Company, Marriott published four volumes in the “Islands in Literature” series, each illustrated by R. Charles Roylance. The four “Roger Wray” novels include The Soul of a Teacher (1915), Madcaps and Madmen (1916), The Dweller in the Half-Light (1920), and a mystery novel, The Rayner Case (1925).
Wright, R.H. The Outer Darkness (Toronto: William Briggs, 1907) [Canadian variant, made from imported sheets with a cancel title, of the 1906 edition published by Greening of London].
I first heard of this book when I saw it named in an article by George Locke as “a forerunner of the mystical but very imaginative type of interplanetary which was to culminate in David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus.” The comparison is based on a few superficial elements that are common to both books, and while The Outer Darkness is by no means of a similar quality to A Voyage to Arcturus, it is nevertheless of some interest.
Basically, it is an afterlife fantasy, told in the method of a found manuscript. The set-up is that R. H. Wright has read in a Tasmanian newspaper about a sailor who has found a curious silver casket which contains an even odder manuscript. Wright buys the manuscript, and has served as its editor for publication.
The manuscript is the first person narrative of one Martin Sandford, a businessman of Wrexwelton, who died on the 21st of February, 189--. Having neglected his wife and children in his pursuit of wealth, he was also cruel to his fellow man. Sandford is taken bodily through space to be judged by the King before the Great White Throne. Sandford is not accorded passage to the Kingdom of Heaven, but is instead directed to a narrow path that leads to a forest. Martin finds himself in the Kingdom of Kellecheura, ruled over by the mercurial Queen Kotah, whose inhabitants fear her. Martin is first befriended by one of Kotah’s officers, a woman named Valleura. The favor that Kotah shows Martin is resented by the other citizens of the city of Manzuloto. He is renamed Maxulu, and made an officer, becoming very close to the Queen, and replacing Valleura in various duties. Maxulu is warned by Valleura not to anger the Queen, and he witnesses the results of her wrath on others, when she calls forth ravenous wolves to kill them, or transforms them into strange beasts.
The nearest Maxulu gets to an explanation of this realm, and of the Queen’s position in it, comes in the middle of the book when she reveals:
“I, Kotah, am absolute monarch of this land of Kellecheura, which extends over many worlds—or rather, parts of worlds. You are surprised, but it is so. . . . A certain portion of each star is reserved by the King for the accommodation of His subjects, just as it is here. A great barrier of mountains, infested by hordes of wild and ravenous beasts, encloses it. Outside that barrier is my kingdom. Inside it is heaven! The King judges all that leave the earth—as you were judged. If He considers them worthy of honour they are admitted to heaven at once; if wholly bad, they return to the place whence they came. . . . That which mortals know by the name of hell is the earth, and nothing else. If, in his opinion, there are such as He cannot permit to become His subjects, and yet will not c
ondemn to hell, they are directed to a path which brings them to Kellecheura, there to be under the rule of she who speaks to you. I may as well inform you, Maxulu, that the numbers that come to me are as the sands on the sea-shore, and far in excess of those who go to the other two places combined.”
Maxulu learns that it is possible for someone of Kellecheura to reach the land of the King by escaping the bloodthirsty beasts that haunt the plains and thereafter crossing the barrier of mountains. Maxulu sees the writing on the wall when a new arrival is given pride of place above him with the Queen. He is soon sent away to act as governor in Laakut, a city of blackguards who, Maxulu suspects, are intended by the Queen to bring about his demise. As the tension mounts, Maxulu plans an escape to the barrier of mountains.
What makes The Outer Darkness interesting is that it is not a preachy tract but a series of strange episodes that gradually unfold the mystery of the story. It has sentimental touches, as when Kotah plays the harp and sings for Maxulu, this action somehow allowing him to see the misfortunes and eventual death of his wife back on earth (he hears his wife’s plea, “Come to me, Martin—my husband!”). And it is this plea that inspires his attempt to cross the barrier of mountains—the result of which is intriguingly left ambiguous.
Little is known of R. H. Wright. According to Stephen J. Brown’s Ireland in Fiction (1919), Wright was a Belfast man who served with the Rimington Guides in the South African War and afterwards emigrated to New Zealand. He published three novels and one book of nonfiction. A Plain Man’s Tale (Belfast: McCaw, Stevenson & Orr, 1904) is an adventure story of a young Yorkshireman who comes to Ireland. This was followed by The Surprising Adventures of My Friend, Patrick Dempsey (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Walker, [1906]), a collection of seven comedic Irish stories published in wrappers. The Outer Darkness was Wright’s third book, followed by the anonymous The Scout in War: What He Does and How to Do It (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Walker, 1908), signed as by “One of ‘Rimington’s Tigers.’ ” Wright was wounded in World War I, after which time nothing further is known of him.
Wuorio, Eva-Lis. Escape If You Can: 13 Tales of the Preternatural (New York: Viking Press, 1977).
Wuorio (1918-1988), at the time of publication of this book, was described as a Canadian citizen of Finnish descent who has been living and writing in Finland for the last several years. Most of her novels are for young adults.
This short story collection, also marketed for children, has a deftness to the writing and a cosmopolitan feel overall. There is little questioning of the supernatural, or shock at the experience of it: it merely is. Some of the stories are from a child’s perspective, while others are more adult. All are somewhat unconventional, and even when using familiar tropes (like werewolfery) Wuorio creates a story that is uniquely her own, moody and introspective, with a distinct sense of place and setting. I wouldn’t expect these stories to be popular with many children, but some will like them. More adults should read them, despite their being packaged as for children.
Wyke Smith, E. A. Bill of the Bustingforths (London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, [1921]).
E.A. Wyke Smith (1871-1935) published eight books, four for children and four for adults. His best-known work is his final book, The Marvellous Land of Snergs (1927), whose half-high Snergs were the inspiration for Tolkien’s half-high Hobbits. Of Wyke Smith’s eight books, Bill of the Bustingforths is the one which most closely resembles The Marvellous Land of Snergs in style and content, for it is the same kind of humorous fairy tale. It originated in a series of letters written to Wyke Smith’s older daughter, which were collected and reworked into his first book, published in 1921. It concerns the three children, “Bill (whose real name was Montressor), his sister Gwen, and their very small brother, Montmorency, when they went on their travels.” The tale is set in the past when there were still a large number of fairies in England.
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