It has especially interesting contents, but one particularly sad piece is a memoir of Sandy Robertson (1952-2025), a rock journalist (and author of The Aleister Crowley Scrapbook from 1988) who had a great interest in horror fiction, especially obscure and forgotten titles. I didn't know Sandy well, but he was a reader (and occasional commentator) of Wormwoodiana for many years, and we exchanged occasional emails. I'd noticed recently that I hadn't heard from him in over a year, and now I know why. Sandy was diagnosed with tonsil cancer in 2023, and died in April 2025. I saw no mentions of his passing online, so Chris Mikul's reminiscence was new to me, and added much to my knowledge of Sandy. R.I.P.
Another article of immediate interest is review of the first English translation of Hanns Heinz Ewers's Fundvogel (1928), which concerns a woman, Andrea, having a sex change operation to become Andreas. Most of the plot, however, is melodrama, and Mikul notes that it is "Ewers's weakest novel" though it remain "an interesting and enjoyably strange piece of work."
Mikul also delves deeply into the 1801 volume, Tales of Terror, often mis-attributed to Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of The Monk (1897). Mikul helpfully reproduces (in color, no less) some of the elegant and grotesque illustrations from the book.
The articles, with the opening page numbers, include:
p. 2, "The Storm of London" (1904) by F. Dickberry [pseud. of Fernande Blaze de Bury]
8, “Fundvogel" (1928; trans. 2025) by Hanns Heinz Ewers
13, “Tales of Terror" (1801)
20, “A Kiss of Fire” (1988) by Masako Togawa
23, “A Time Before Genesis” (1986) by Les Dawson
30, “The Master Beast” (1907) by Horace W.C. Newte and “The Red Fury: Britain Under Bolshevism” (1919) by Horace Newte
36, “The Unloveliness of Love-Lockes” (1628) by William Prynne
40, Remembering Sandy Robertson by Chris Mikul
As usual, inquiries/orders to the author/publisher: chris<dot>mikul88<at>gmail<dot>com.
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