Gothic Ghost and Horror Fiction (WhhhooooooOO!)

For just about as long as I have been able to read I have always loved 'scary' fiction; ghost, horror, the supernatural, I'll read it. I am working on a blog article / series about the legendary 'Pan Book Of Horror Stories' so I won't go on about them now, other than to say that when I was an impressionable youngster, I favoured the trahsy 'torture porn' and anatomical horror of the later 'Pans' which was far more blatant and a quicker fix than the subtle horrors of the classic gothic tales. These I found a bit of a bore simply because they took a little effort to read, and besides, some poor put upon doormat of a bloke wasn't chopping his nagging wife into little pieces halfway through the second page (I'm thinking directly of a story called 'Case Of Insanity' in Pan Vol 11 by the way - just shows how they stick in my mind)

My interest in the classic 'gothic' tales by Le Fanu, M R James, Stoker, Bierce, etc etc etc has been revived in adult life by the excellent Vault Of Evil website, where there is a wealth of information and synopses of Victorian, Edwardian and Pre-War horror fiction (thats only a small part of the site - you are equally welcome to read about - or chat on the boards about - 'Rubbish Movie Monsters' if you want to) I have written some stuff for Vault myself; I did a few 'Pan Horror' reviews on there last year.

I have learned from my recent renewed acquaintance with Vault that the excellent 'Wordsworth' (responsible for publishing a huge and good quality budget priced range of 'The Classics' in the early 1990s) have for the past couple of years been publishing a (huge and good quality) range called 'Wordsworth Mystery & The Supernatural' a comprehensive collection of gothic horror fiction both well known and obscure. And of course because it's Wordsworth, the books look excellent and are an absolute bargain at just £2 or £3 a throw.

So naturally enough I got straight on to Amazon this evening (I can afford a grand total of ONE book!) and have spent ages trawling through the 65 titles currently available, finally settling on the excellent sounding 'Gothic Short Stories' - the first of many I'm sure.

(I have just read back what I have written so far this evening, and to be quite frank, if this was someone else's blog that I was reading I would be thinking 'get a life you sad freak, so you bought a sodding ghost book for two quid and you're wetting your knickers with excitement, and you spend ages on a nerdy-arsed horror site - Great! all the more reason to hit 'publish post' immediately without editing.....)

But before I do, let me just recommend what is to me the best and scariest 'gothic' horror story I have read; it's called 'The Judges House' by Bram Stoker and it's a genuinely unsettling tale. I've got a copy you can borrow if you're interested (sorry I'm now subconciously writing direct to my brother Brian who I know reads my blog, that's if you didn't give up with sheer boredom weeks ago) or you can go here;

http://www.online-literature.com/stoker/820/

(That's not a link to 'Vault Of Evil' by the way!

More to follow


Col