WORMWOOD 16

Wormwood issue 16 has just gone to print. George Johnson surveys two 1911 visionary fantasies, Algernon Blackwood's The Centaur and J. D. Beresford's The Hampdenshire Wonder; James Doig reveals his research into H.W. Bousfield, author of anthologised supernatural stories; Tim Foley talks about Charles Allston Collins, brother of Wilkie, friend of the Pre-Raphaelites and writer of strange tales; John Howard celebrates Weird tales author Carl Jacobi; Ray Cavanaugh contributes a note on Nineties author Vincent O'Sullivan; William Charlton exemplifies the work of Thomas Love Peacock via a modern updating; and Paul Newman draws ateention to a neglected Sixties bohemian novelist, Walker Hamilton. With Doug Anderson's Late Reviews of forgotten classics, Reggie Oliver's reviews of contemporary books, and the Camera Obscura column listing unusual new titles, Wormwood 16 is crammed with rare and unusual writing.

Brothers of the Blood by J.P. Quaine

Brothers of the Blood (Biblionews: Monthly Letter of the Book Collectors' Society of Australia, Vol 4, No. 5, April 1951)

By J.P. Quaine

With a pang of regret I must admit that the good old Cult of the Blooddrinkers is now but a memory! Most of the stalwarts who laughingly agreed when I suggested the gory title have been added to the bag of the biggest collector of all – Death! The passing of my old friend Barry Ono in 1940 was the beginning of the end. A new school has arisen. The “Old Boys” of today are the lads who read Magnets and Gems, Plucks and Union Jacks, and they have little in common with the few old fogies worshipping at the shrine of Jack Harkaway and Sweeney Todd. Nevertheless, the modern “Old Boy” has established his cult on efficient lines undreamed of by the pioneer “blood” collectors. We certainly used Joseph Parks’ “Collector’s Miscellany” (published in Yorks.) as our official organ but even the redoubtable Joe has gone over to the new old uns. References to our ancient loved ones in that periodical are paltry compared with the paeans of praise sung for the antics of Billy Bunter.

They have a president and an executive committee, a “digest” and an anuual “Who’s Who”, and a coat of arms. This is divided into four quarters: one with a book, a cricket cap and an inkpot; another with a pipe and magnifying glass; the third has a pistol and a mask and the fourth a slouch hat, bandolier and revolver. The motto is Puer manebit- the boy shall remain. So, while we old codgers are dying off, these boys who will never grow up, with the exception of a few octogenarians, range from men in their forties to boys in their teens. The British pontiff of this organisation is a very energetic Bunterite named Herbert Leckenby. In Manitoba, Canada, William Gander (old enough to cling affectionately to the early bloods), publisher of the Red River Rambler, devotes another little journal, Story Paper Collector entirely to “dreadfuls”. And right through the English speaking portion of the American continent, from the Red River to the Rio Grande, there are numerous groups, mostly Dime Novel Collectors, who also hanker after the British Bloods. They, too, issue publications devoted to their hobby; to my way of thinking, the most important of these is the Dime Novel Round Up issued by Reckless Ralph Cumming, the Sleuth of the Sierras, at Fisherville, Mass. USA. Ellery Queen, writer of detective thrillers, and Bragin, the well-known collector of bygone Yankee Bloods, formed a company some years back for the purpose of reprinting some of the rarer items in facsimile. These are sold to brother collectors at a dollar each. I have seen a couple and they were certainly masterpieces.

The practice of collecting and retailing old and rare penny weeklies began in England when George R. Sims, the playwright and novelist, introduced the hobby, though a bookseller named John Jeffrey had dabbled in the old publications as far back as 1890. But the real giant was Frederick Harrison, better known as Barry Ono, the vaudeville artist who pioneered the revival of old-time hits on the variety stage. He started his collection in 1906, when such oddments could be procured at moderate prices. His greatest competitor was a man named Frank Jay, who afterwards sold his lot at Brigand’s prices while the going was good. Ono, however, hung on to his collection which eventually reached over 6000 well-bound volumes. For fifteen years we corresponded with each other and swapped, wrangled, and exchanged Rabelaisian insults. I had the pleasure of entertaining him for a fortnight when he visited Melbourne in 1939 during a world tour. The following year he died of a heart attack brought on by the blitzing of Britain. His collection now reposes in that great book-mausoleum, the British Museum Library. [Ono’s collection is fully catalogued in James, Elizabeth and Helen R. Smith. Penny dreadfuls and boys' adventures : the Barry Ono Collection of Victorian popular literature in the British Library. London: British Library, 1998.]

Another oldtimer, Herdman, who was alsoa collector of old-plate, was murdered one night, in the middle of the thirties, by a burglar who was after the silverware. Herdman’s brains were bashed out, and the blood, appropriately enough, was splashed on the backs of a shelf of “dreadfuls”. So of the myriad pen pals with whom I used to correspond and swap lunacy, there remain but four alive! The before-referred-to Joe Parks of Yorkshire; Arget Harris, a sturdy old octogenarian of Brynnfrydd Road, Dowlais, Glamorganshire, who still lives in the days of Tymm Shon Catti (the Welsh Robin Hood); Henry Steele, a Cockney musician, and an expert on old London and its dark deeds, its bravos, swashbucklers, and cloak-and-dagger miscreants, and last, and most important ofall, John Medcraft. He is an Essex Hydraulic Leather Manufacturer in a large way of business, who has amassed the biggest collection in the world. He has runs of all the old journals, and practically everything that was issued that was issued in the penny weekly numbers between 1828 and 1900. His little lot runs into countless thousands; all mint copies, with startling coloured wrappers, and all the points of allure so dear to the heart of the collector. For be it known that the “blood” collector shares with his highbrow brother the desire for tall copies, wide margins and original wrappers. With Barry Ono’s collection out of the way, as aforesaid, Medcraft’s collection of “bloods” ranks first in the world.

South Africa has its group of collectors also. Every now and again overseas enthusiasts who know my weakness, send me copies of journals containing matter relating to the hobby. Of such is the Johannesburg Outspan which has featured several interviews with South African collectors. These have been written in the main by a brilliant scribe named Rosenthal. And in Australia Leon Stone, of Gordon, N.S.W., well-known as a collector of amateur journals, is also a modern “old boy” and is linked, through correspondence, with most of the overseas Billy Bunterites, including the creator of Bunter himself, Frank Richards. I think I have written enough to show that there are Brothers of “the Blood” in every country where there are men whoare still boys. Anyway, brother collector, don’t you think that he’s poorer man who never, in his boyhood, dabbled in “bloods”, and he’d be a poor collector who would not make just a little shelf-room for a Sweeney Todd, Varney the Vampire, Jack Harkaway, Deadwood Dick, or even Billy Bunter, Sexton Blake, and Nelson Lee. But I do regret the passing of the good old “Cult of Blooddrinkers”.

The Realm of Redonda--Facts and Legends

John D. Squires has posted an especially interesting essay on the history of the kingdom of Redonda, from its Sheilian sources on to the various modern day claimants.  The full title is "Of Dreams and Shadows: An Outline of the Redonda Legend with Some Notes on Various Claimants to its Uncertain Throne", and it's posted here.  

An extensive ancillary piece, "The Redonda Legend: A Chronological Bibliography" appears here.

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber

There have been a couple of excellent scholarly editions of Sweeney Todd in recent years. Wordsworth Editions recently published its 3rd edition of the text with a new introduction by Penny Bloods expert, Dick Collins, and Robert L. Mack edited the Oxford University Press edition in 2007.

Sweeney first appeared in The String of Pearls: A Romance, which was serialised in Edward Lloyd's The People's Periodical and Family Library in 18 weekly parts in 1846-7. A much expanded version was published in book form in 1850 by Lloyd and subtitled 'The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance'. Charles Fox published a celebrated version as Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street in about 1880, which was much reprinted. Above is an ad for it in Fox's Boy's Leisure Hour from 1888.

Melbourne book dealer John P. Quaine, who I've mentioned several times before, was a Sweeney expert, and, according to his obituary, owned several copies of the Fox version. He also wrote a radio play version in 1935 which was published in The Collector's Miscellany between May and December 1935.

The following article appeared in the Melbourne Argus on Saturday 8 July 1950, and was clearly influenced by Quaine, incorporating a couple of his inventions such as Sawney Bean, The Man-eater of Midlothian. Recent research has shown that James Malcolm Rymer, not Thomas Peckett Prest, was responsible for The String of Pearls.

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street!
By John Drake

Devaluation of the pound and demands from American book collectors, have turned the shilling shockers of the 19th century into prized possessions of 20th century bibliophiles.

In the last year British book dealers have watched with delight while the price of a bound Sweeney Todd, in good condition, has risen from about £25 to over £35.

Destruction of many 19th century blood and thunder magazines by people ignorant of their rarity, and the activities of collectors with a nostalgic yearning for the full-blooded fiction of the Victorian era, have all combined to force up the prices.

Sweeney Todd, Springheel Jack, The Blue Dwarf, and a hundred other characters, first appeared in weekly and bi-weekly instalments known as "penny parts" or "penny bloods." Periodically they were issued in collected form as "shilling shockers."

The 19th century shockers were created to satisfy the desires of the huge new reading public which sprang to life with the spread of literacy through England at the beginning of the century.
First story form to appear was the Gothic shocker.

Based on the framework constructed in such pure Gothic shockers as Horace Walpole's "Castle of Otranto" and Ann Radcliffe's "Mysteries of Udolpho," all Gothic shockers were set in huge castles and monasteries of the architectural style whose name they took.

These huge buildings almost invariably possessed a wing which, although closed down and never used by the owners, teemed with strange and dreadful life after dark. In the cobwebbed, dusty halls, the great organs played wild and terrible music on stormy nights, and behind the tattered curtains burnt flickering red lights.

And just as invariably the hero of the Gothic shocker entered the closed down wing to chase a pet dog, or track down the sounds of a child's weeping, and spent the rest of the novel heartily regretting his curiosity.

Typical of Gothic shockers were "Geralda the Nun," "The Black Monk," "Varney the Vampire," or "The Feast of Blood," "The Ranger of the Tomb," and "The Secret of the Grey Turrets."
One of the earliest breakaways from the rigid style of the Gothic shocker was "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street."

Sweeney's line of business, of course, was supplying human flesh for the manufacture of veal pies, and he was the most successful of all the characters ever created in popular thriller literature.

From his first appearance in a novel with so mild a title as "A String of Pearls" in 1840, until the shocker's popularity began to wane around 1900, Sweeney appeared again and again in stories based on cannibalism.

For half a century theatrical companies played Sweeney Todd to packed houses, and for half a century no stage carpenter thought himself a master of his craft unless he could make a barber's chair fitted to drop through the floor of the stage.

It is possible that Sweeney Todd was modelled on Sawney Bean, who was tried and executed for cannibalism in Scotland in the 13th century. Sawney Bean's exploits were retailed at one time in a shocker titled "Sawney Bean, the Man-Eater of Midlothian."

More probably he was based on a French barber in whose cellars 300 skulls were found shortly after the French Revolution. After the discovery of the skulls neighbours realised that, although the barber's next door neighbour made the finest veal pies in Paris, nobody had ever seen meat delivered to his door.

Sweeney was the creation, on his first appearance, of one Thomas Peckett Prest, who had already won fame among penny blood readers for his stories "The Maniac Father," "The Victims of Seduction," "Vice and its Victims," and "Phoebe the Peasant's Daughter."

Sweeney was "a long, low-jointed, ill-put-together sort of fellow, with an immense mouth, and such huge hands and feet that he was, in his way, quite a natural curiosity; and what was more wonderful, considering his trade, there never was such a head of hair as Sweeney Todd's. We know not what to compare it to; probably it came close to what one may suppose to be the appearance of a thick-set hedge in which a quantity of small wire had got entangled."

Sweeney also had a laugh which was so horrible that "people had been known to look up to the ceiling, then on the floor and all around them, to know from whence it had come, scarcely supposing it possible that it proceeded from mortal lips."

Sweeney's shop was in Fleet Street, by St. Dunstan's Church. On the other side of the church "was Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, which could be reached from Sweeney's cellars by means of underground passages.

Mr. Lovett's pies were famed for miles around, and were particularly esteemed by members of the legal profession.

"There was about them a flavour never surpassed and rarely equalled; the paste was of the most delicate construction and impregnated with the aroma of a delicious gravy that defied description. Then the small portions of meat which they contained were so tender, and the fat and lean so artistically mixed up, that to eat one of Lovett's pies was such a provocative to eat another that many persons who came to lunch stayed to dine, wasting more than an hour perhaps of precious time, and endangering (who knows to the contrary?) the success of some law suit thereby."

But while Mrs. Lovett's customers slavered over her supreme pies, industrial unrest was brewing below stairs.

The pieman who worked in her underground bakehouse was becoming dissatisfied with his working conditions. He was allowed to eat as many pies as he wanted, and he was housed and clothed, but he was never permitted to leave his dungeon. Nor did he ever see the supplies for his piemaking arrive. While he slept fresh supplies of meat mysteriously appeared in the room.
One morning he found a sheet of paper on the floor. On it was written: "You are getting dissatisfied, and therefore it becomes necessary to explain to you your real position, which is simply this: you arc a prisoner, and were such from the first moment that you set foot where you now are ... it is sufficient to inform you that so long as you continue to make pies you will be safe, but if you refuse, then the first time you arc caught sleeping your throat will be cut."
As he finished reading the threatening note a trapdoor above his head opened and Sweeney Todd's face appeared.

"Make pies,"advised Sweeney Todd. "Eat them and be happy. How many a man would envy your position - withdrawn from the struggles of existence, amply provided with board and lodging, and engaged in a pleasant and delightful occupation; it is astonishing how you can be dissatisfied."

But, not the slightest bit cowed by Sweeney's menaces, the pieman broke through a barred door at the back of the bakehouse, and in an instant discovered the source of the piemeat in an adjoining cellar.

The climax of the story finds Mrs. Lovett laboriously winding a fresh batch of pies up on a service lift from her underground kitchen, spurning offers of assistance, but tiring rapidly with the labour of hauling up an unusually heavy batch of pies.

"How the waggish young lawyers' clerks laughed as they smacked their lips and sucked in all the golopshious gravy of the pies, which; by the way, appeared to be all delicious: veal that time, and Mrs. Lovett worked the handle of the machine all the more vigorously that she was a little angered with the officious stranger. What an unusual trouble it seemed to be to wind up those forthcoming hundred pies! How she toiled and how the people waited, but at length there came up the savoury steam, and then the tops of the pie's were visible."

On top of the pics, of course, was sitting the young cook from the cellar.

In the midst of dead silence from the astounded crowd he announced: "Ladies and gentlemen, I fear that what I am going to say will spoil your appetites; but truth is beautiful ¡it all times, and I have to state that Mrs. Lovett's pies are made of human flesh!"

"How the throng of persons recoiled! What a roar of agony and dismay there was! How frightfully sick about 40 lawyers' clerks became all at once . . .!"

Mrs. Lovett collapsed and died of shock, and of the effects of poison which Sweeney, who had made his pile and wanted to get out of the business, had put in her brandy.

Sweeney himself was arrested and later hanged.

Reggie Oliver's first novel

I just received my copy of Reggie Oliver's new novel, The Dracula Papers Book I: The Scholar's Tale (ISBN 9781907681028, $18.00 trade paperback), the first of a planned four book series, published by Chômu Press.  I usually don't read series books until I have all of them at hand, but I may have to make an exception here.  This is the third book published by Chômu Press, who have a highly interesting list of new and forthcoming books.  Check them out here. 

Wormwood indexed, also Avallaunius, Faunus and Tolkien Studies

If you don't know about the massive magazine index maintained by Bill Contento, you might want to.  It goes by the name of The FictionMags Index, but there are a lot more than just magazines with fiction indexed there, including a lot of small press journals relating to fantasy, horror and science fiction.  Bill just put up the latest update, which includes indices I submitted of all seventeen issues of Avallaunius (1987-1997), the old journal of The Arthur Machen Society, and all twenty-two issues (so far) of Faunus (1998-present), the journal of The Friends of Arthur Machen.  It's also been updated to contain the newest issues of Wormwood and Tolkien Studies, thus bringing the indices of these complete and up-to-date. The home page is located here.  You can search by magazine, article author, article title, etc. etc.  I find it very useful when I want to find which issues of Faunus had those articles on Amy Hogg, or in which volume of Tolkien Studies appeared the review of Douglas Charles Kane's Arda Reconstructed. The answers are only a few clicks away.

Mark Hansom

I've mentioned the enigmatic Mark Hansom before. In recent times Golden Age thriller publisher, Ramble House, has been reprinting the novels in affordable paperback editions. Hansom appears to have been particularly popular in Australia. The publisher, Wright & Brown, sent copies of its publications to Australian newspapers where they were reviewed or noted. A few examples of thumbnail Hansom reviews are given below. Such was Hansom's popularity that the Australian Women's Weekly published a short story, a crime thriller titled "The Last Trick", on Saturday 1 May 1937.
Reviews
The West Australian, Saturday 9 November 1935

The Ghost of Gaston Revere, by Mark Hansom. Wright and Brown, London. 3/6. From the publishers.

Conceived somewhat to the spirit ot Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein,' Mr. Hansom's weird story concerns the in genious Dr. Gale's treatment of a patient's brain previous to an operation, that has the startling and unforeseen effect of letting loose a monstrous apparition on the world. The author is out to make his readers' flesh creep; but he a little overdoes it; and not everyone will have the patience to persevere with the book until Sir Bertram Knotts, the famous brain specialist, finally lays the unquiet spirit of Gaston Revere.


The Hobart Mercury, 13 December 1937

Master of Souls, by Mark Hansom, published by Wright and Brown, London; price, 3s 6d.

Labelled a "horror novel" in the publisher's blurb, the name is apt. A lightless ship in the Channel, a wrecked swimmer climbing on board, a man who plunges over the side to his death, are merely the preliminaries. These are followed by an introduction to the "Master of Souls" and a corpse which he partially revives, also the disembodied spirit of an ancient Egyptian woman, malignant and vile. With this setting follows a series of nerve-racking adventure sufficient to delight the heart of every lover of horror and crime.


The Launceston Examiner, 4 September 1937

The Beasts of Brahm, by Mark Hansom (Wright and Brown, London). Here be thrills a-plenty so long as one does not ask that the author should stick to possibilities. Mark Hansom exploits the macabre to the utmost. This tale opens with the finding of the dead and mangled body of a man in a lonely lane in Surrey. It is thought to have been mauled by an escaped wild beast, and the inhabitants live through a reign of terror wondering where the next blow will fall. The "horror," however, is something more loathsome than any wild beast. The mysticism of the East, magnified many times over for the purpose of the horror, is used freely until the accomplished Jeremy arrives on the scene to take charge, and free the district from its terrors.

The Hobart Mercury, 16 November 1937

THE BEASTS OF BRAHM, by Mark Hansom; published by Wright and Brown, London; price, 3s 6d.

"The Beasts of Brahm" is a good example of Mr. Hansom's work, which has come into prominence since the publication of "The Wizard of Berner's Abbey." The dead and mangled body of a man is found in a lonely valley in Surrey, and it is thought that he has been mauled by an escaped wild beast. The inhabitants find themselves in the midst of a reign of terror, which continues until one of their number who has a knowledge of Eastern mysteries discovers the solution. The plot is carefully constructed and the identity of the murderer is not revealed until the last.


The Launceston Examiner, 29 June 1935

In "The Wizard of Berner's Abbey," by Mark Hansom, published by Wright and Brown (London), the assertion of Paul St. Arnaud, the wizard of Berner's Abbey, is that will is the supreme force in the universe - that will can transcend even death - gives the keynote of this tale of mystery and horror. John Richmond, a young medical student, finds himself faced with the apparently hopeless task of freeing a girl from the power of a man who has departed from this life. The ghost of Paul St. Arnaud is finally laid, and the mystery is scientifically ex plained; but in the meantime those concerned pass through horrifying experiences - experiences that the reader shares because of the skill with which the story is told.

The Launceston Examiner, 14 May 1938

"The Madman," by Mark Hansom (Wright and Brown, London). Perhaps it was inevitable that the author of "The Wizard of Berner's Abbey" should turn to the theme of insanity for one of his novels, and in his latest book, "The Madman," he has treated this theme with a high degree of artistic skill, providing a story of unusual interest. The story opens with a piano recital given by Margaret Kerr, a famous artist, where her fiance, a solicitor, learns that an old man has claimed to be a distant relative. He finds that this person is one Silas Goser, destined to be a client of his firm. The career of the mad man provides some exciting episodes before he is finally unmasked in a sensational climax. The narrative is absorbing and well written, dominated by an atmosphere of horror. There is a strong human interest in Mr. Hansom's work-an interest that reaches its height in the superficially casual but tragic conclusion.

KATHLEEN SULLY

In the file of letters from the publisher Peter Davies to Sarban, there’s a brief letter from Nico Davies of 24 November, 1960, where he recommends to Sarban another of his authors, Kathleen Sully, citing a few books in particular. He says: "I'm glad you found things to like and admire in "Skrine". As I told you, I am sure, she is one of my favourite authors. Of the eight books of hers which have come our way - there is a new one scheduled for next February - there are to me splendid things in each. If my favourite is still her first, "Canal in Moonlight" ["Bikka Road" in the USA - MV], "Merrily to the Grave" and "Skrine" are not far behind."

I sent off for a few, and have read the one he sent to Sarban, Skrine (1960). It is set in a post-apocalypse world, very clearly and tautly told, and follows one man through hunger and desolation to a surviving community where by chance he is taken as a healer. At first feted, he comes into conflict with the boss of the town, and the wavering townsfolk turn upon him. Uncompromisingly bleak, it certainly lowered the spirits while at the same time eliciting admiration for her hard style and dark vision. Her other books seem no more sanguine in outlook but almost as good in her terse composition. Skrine, at least, has a possible supernatural element, in that the character sees the figures of those he has had to kill to survive, although a gap is left for these to be hallucinatory.

Kathleen Sully is another author whose work seems to have almost entirely passed out of view but on the strength of the books I've read so far she could attract the kind of devoted following that Phyllis Paul has acquired thanks to the efforts of Glen Cavaliero. They share a highly pessimistic, bleak outlook, although Sully also has an austere and remorseless prose style.

It was the resourceful Doug Anderson, as so often, who uncovered some biographical details: “Kathleen Maude Sully was born in 1910, died in 2001 at the age of 91… She gave an interesting comment about her writerly interests (c. 1970s): "Main interest now and ever since I could think: Man--why and whence .... Have written since a child but stuff mostly too off-beat for publication. Interest in general: philosophy; art; realistic literature; dancing; swimming and diving; teaching;' diet and health--mental and physical; why the chicken crossed the road." “ One of her dustwrappers gives a long list of workaday jobs she has held: they look like bread-and-butter chores to sustain her while her real soul was in her writing.