Oliver Onions (1873-1961), born in Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, began his working life as a commercial artist but switched to journalism and then became a versatile author of novels in several different fields, embracing comedy, romance, bohemian life, political satire and crime fiction. He earned late recognition for a brooding and powerful historical novel, The Story of Ragged Robyn (1945), about the inexorable working-out of a curse, and a further historical novel, Poor Man's Tapestry (1946) won the prestigious James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. The Hand of Kornelius Voyt (1939), set in Bradford, has uncanny elements, and he is now respected also for his subtle, reflective ghost stories, some published in Widdershins (1911), and gathered in a Collected Ghost Stories (1935).
Edna Worthley Underwood (1873-1961) was born in Maine, USA, but lived mostly in Kansas and New York. She pursued a determined course of self-education and wrote and published widely. As an anthologist and translator, she introduced writing from Haiti, Mexico and elsewhere to American audiences. She also wrote historical novels and poetry, and one collection of macabre stories, A Book of Dear Dead Women (1911), which was compared to the work of Hawthorne. In his introduction to the 2010 Tartarus Press reprint, ST Joshi noted the “distinctive atmosphere of horror in which beauty is inextricably mingled” in her stories.
Herbert Russell Wakefield (1888-1964), like so many other ghost story writers, was the son of a clergyman: his father became the Bishop of Birmingham. He was educated at Marlborough and Oxford, served at the front in the First World War, and later worked for a while in publishing. He wrote some crime novels and an efficient and nuanced study of a noted murder trial acquittal, The Green Bicycle Case (1930), but he is remembered now for his several volumes of assured, crisply-told ghost stories. These are found in They Return At Evening (1928), Old Man's Beard (1929), The Clock Strikes Twelve (1940) and other selections. Wakefield is regarded as one of the most impressive contributors to the supernatural fiction field in the period after MR James. ‘Present At the End’ reflects his humanitarian opposition to blood sports.
Edith Newbold Wharton (1862-1937) was born into prosperous New York society but spent much of her later life in Europe, particularly in Paris, reflecting her cosmopolitan outlook. Choosing to remain in France during the First World War, she did tireless work for refugees and the destitute and in 1916 was made a Chevalier of the Legion D’Honneur for her war work. She wrote about France and Italy in sympathetic and well-received studies, but achieved eminence for her society novels, particularly The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911) and The Age of Innocence (1920). Her work in the uncanny is sophisticated, measured and subtle and she was one of the first to see the opportunity for literary distinction in this field.
On And Over Grave Cartoons
All artwork for, and in, this volume is by David Tibet.
Front cover: The Children In The Midst Of The Graveyard At The End Of Their World; front endpaper: The Children Dance Around The Grave In Their Midst; rear endpaper: The Children Ascend From The Grave In Their Midst; frontispiece: The Children Lament Over The Grave In Their Midst; back cover: Bella Beyond The Midst Of The Mist. Front cover, back cover, frontispiece, and endpapers rendered into darkness and larkness and nightness by Ania Goszczyńska.
The font used in this book's design was created by Ania Goszczyńska as an expansion of the font used on the boards of the first edition of Studies of Death by Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (David Nutt, London, 1894), designed by Aymer Vallance. Photograph of David Tibet in Heptonstall, West Yorkshire, January 2019 by Ania Goszczyńska.
Grateful Moons
David Tibet
If A City Is Set Upon A Grave…
A thousand thanks and singing flowers, numberless and free, to all of those who have helped me, in ways known and unknown, as I built and tended this Graveyard:
Mark Pilkington and Jamie Sutcliffe, Supreme and Strangest of Attractors, whose Energized Enthusiasm for Moons and Graveyards brought this book to both you and me; Mark Valentine for laying so many trails for me to chase, and for the perfect biographies he supplied for this volume; Ossian Brown for his Touches of Pan, his Love and Inspiration, and his Kitten Paws and Claws; Ray Russell of Tartarus Press, for helps beyond the Calls of the Æthyrs and books beyond compare; Keith Richmond who has not only sent me a Magus or two, but more importantly gave me his friendship as well as a message directly from Bournemouth, or at least from The Spirit Of Irene; Henry Boxer for his lucid Channellings from the pellucid planets, and for the kittens, and for Madge too; Martin Worthington for his Assyriological advice, and the inspiration and knowledge he so readily gives me from his hood; Ola Wikander for Biblical Hebrew and for singing me sweet from Ugarit since the beginning, or at least a beginning—; Seth Sanders for his uniqueness and his utter Ugariticity and books and too; Hugo Lundhaug for shared Coptic obsessions and magic bowls—; Sam Goodman for more Borley than my heart—and our house—could hold; Douglas Anderson for werewolves and moonshines and Housmans too; Robert Eldridge who Swept And Garnished my bookcase, and who perhaps one day will even deliver Mists to Our Lady; Daniel Wilson for Zodiacs, Gefs, and the Pseudo-Occult; Timothy Mark Lewis for farsight and friendship and for looking after me and my unruly Family and Friends; and Jake Gill for lovelily looking after those things that don't look after me.
And I too shall not forget, and I am OverMoon too to thank: Anohni, Nina Antonia, Phil Baker, George Barnett, Jack Barnett, Ruth Bayer, Aloma Ruiz Boada, Mark Bourdeau, William Breeze, Jacqueline Bunge, Dylan Burns, Nick Cave, Ben Chasny, Shirley Collins, Kat Cormie, Geoff Cox, Jennifer Cromwell, Baby Dee, Rosie Evans, Stewart Evans, Michel Faber, Bill Fay, Reinier van Houdt, Christopher Josiffe, Michael Lawrence, Andrew Liles, Melon Liles, Thomas Ligotti, Mark Logan, Giulio Di Mauro, Rose McDowall, Tony (TS) McPhee, Chris Mikul, Rita Knuistingh Neven, José Pacheco, Jim Pascoe, Charles Peltz, Davide Pepe, Steven Pittis, Edwin Pouncey, Shaun Richards, Alasdair Roberts, Steven Stapleton, Stephen Thrower, Alexandra Waliszewska, Patrick Wells, Boyd White, Lauren Winton, Michael J. York, and Paschalis Zervas.
The brief translation from the Akkadian text of Maqlû is by me. I used Tzvi Abusch's edition of the text, published in 2015 in Volume XI of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project's series of the State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts. The Assurbanipal font was used for the Neo-Assyrian cuneiform text in this volume.
Thank you to everyone and everything and All Shall Be Well— one day we shall all meet again on the Dear Old BattleField, under soft black stars.
David, ŠapšuDay, the 5th of Hare, Hastings 2020.
David Tibet was born in Batu Gajah in 1960 and is the founder and Baʿal of the PickNick Cartoon Chariot Family Current 93. He lives in Hastings with Ania St. Polka, their 3 cats, Fairy, Gef!, and Voirrey, all the ghosts of all their past and coming Cats, and the fetch of Sunex Amures who communicates with him by means of skittles.
Strange Attractor Press 2020
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