'The Cone' at Ice Floe Press

The rather raffish town of Wells-next-the-Sea, North Norfolk, is always worth a visit for The Old Station Books & Pottery, which sells an unusual selection of second-hand books, curios and ceramics. We once found ourselves locked in here as the proprietor did not realise we were still wandering around its many nooks, and had closed up for the evening. Fortunately, a hand-bell at the foot of the stairs summoned him from his upper quarters, though there are worse fates than an enforced sojourn in a second-hand bookshop. 

The bookshop once had for sale in a glass case a copy of Through Beatnik Eyeballs (1961) by R.A. Norton, depicting a bearded guitarist and a girl in a min-skirt. I must admit this was tempting, especially as it included a ‘complete glossary for squares’. I suspect there could be nothing squarer than my own liking for second-hand bookshops, tea shops, walled gardens and ancient monuments, so this might have been highly educational, but it is a collectible book, especially among what I believe are known as hep dudes, and it was priced accordingly.

There was a further mysterious second-hand bookshop in the town. Carousels of crumpled holiday paperbacks could be discerned through the window, and miscellaneous correspondence scattered on the doormat, but it was seldom found open. It did once display a rather sunned Len Deighton first edition, though this might, of course, have been a clandestine signal to an espionage contact. At any rate, it has now closed.

However, Wells proved to have other arcane attractions. In my story ‘The Prospero Machine’ I wrote about seaside fortune-telling machines, and we chanced upon one just like these at the entrance to an arcade: Zoltar, an exotic mannequin in the garb of a sultan, with tarot cards spread out in front of him. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he demands, ‘I am a magic gypsy’:  and, in return for £1 (it would once have been a penny) he issues a card with your ‘fortune’ on it.

It was while perambulating through Wells that I also had an encounter with a giant upturned plastic ice cream cone. This unexpected apparition made me wonder about a slightly alternative world where the cone has become the subject of rumours and legends.

The result was a brief one paragraph prose fiction, and associated image, and ‘The Cone’ has just been published at Ice Floe Press,  a website journal based in Canada and edited by Robert Frede Kentor, Moira J Saucer and colleagues. Their Autumn 2026 running issue has the theme of ‘Dis/enchantments/Anomie/Spectacle’ and includes a selection of multi-media, visual and literary work.

(Mark Valentine)

 

A Men Only Magazine Anthology, April 1936 -- July 1963: The Best Writing from Its Initial Years

 

Earlier this year, I published a notice of Chris Harte's newest magazine history and bibliography (read it here). This was on the UK magazine Men Only, which ran from 1936 to 1963. Just out is the associated anthology, A Men Only Magazine Anthology (Sports History Publishing, ISBN 9781898010241), containing over one hundred of the best writings from the magazine. 

Notable authors include Negley Farson (a US newspaperman who married Bram Stoker's niece), Maurice Richardson, Alec Waugh, Andre Maurois, Winston Churchill, Ludwig Bemelmans, and Anthony Lejeune (a friend of Arthur Machen), among others. Of the other writers I notice Denys Baker from 1956-1958--this is the writer who later became known as Denys Val Baker. And I see one piece by Arthur Mills, who wrote many books, including one volume with fantasy short stories. Mills was the husband of Lady Dorothy Mills, notable explorer and author, from 1916 to 1933, when Lady Dorothy divorced him for infidelity. There are many authors unfamiliar to me. 

For other Wormwoodiana articles on Chris Harte's books, use the find function on your browser to search his name on this page, which will turn up, via the Labels function, that there are seven previous such articles. The Labels function at this blog (at the lower right of this page) serves as a kind of index. Click on the link and you will get all seven articles. 

The Centenary of 'Harmer John' by Hugh Walpole: A Guest Post by John Howard

For some three decades Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) was a popular and prolific author who was capable of writing (if not publishing) at least one novel per year. These were substantial books, with heft not only in weight but scope and intention: products of a man who loved the work of Victorian novelists skilled in the creation of wide worlds to be entered and explored at leisure, settings teeming with characters and incident that reflected society – even as they could also lean towards its darker and more sensational aspects. Walpole would throw himself into his own novels with an engagingly childlike enthusiasm, writing swiftly and fluently with a reliability that enabled his books to be announced and published with an almost clockwork regularity. However, there was one novel that did not follow this established routine: Harmer John, first published one hundred years ago in October 1926.

In his biography Hugh Walpole (1952), Rupert Hart-Davis described how Walpole began his new novel at the end of 1922 but had almost immediately to put it aside for work on another novel that he could have complete and published in a magazine and in book form before the more complex and reflective Harmer John could have been ready. (The ‘extra’ novel, written over a few weeks, was The Old Ladies, which became the second of the ‘Scenes from Provincial Life’ set in the Glebeshire cathedral city of Polchester, preceding Harmer John, the third.)

Problems over scheduling were not the only reason for Walpole’s atypical delay in finishing Harmer John. In 1920 he had attended a concert and heard the young Danish tenor Lauritz Melchior (1890-1973), who was ‘the joy of the evening […] quite superb. Just the voice for me’ (Hugh Walpole 197). The two men met – and Walpole embarked on one of his most important and intense voyages of friendship, one which survived, despite initial discomfiture when Melchior remarried, until Walpole’s death. It was during that period of emotional and time-consuming distraction that Harmer John was written; it was perhaps out of relief as much as gratitude that Walpole dedicated it to Melchior, under the name he always used for him, ‘David’.

Subtitled ‘An Unworldly Story’, Harmer John is the account of the Dane Hjalmar Johanson’s time in Polchester from his arrival during a storm in December 1906 to his sudden and violent departure less than a year later. It dramatizes the conflict between the unworldly and the world, narrated in hindsight from 1926 by an unnamed native of the town who later reveals himself to have met and helped Johanson at the time. Characteristically, Walpole did not only show Polchester as a community consisting of people, but broadened his gaze to also take in and involve their setting: the streets and buildings of the town with its great cathedral, under all kinds of weather and effects of sunshine and moonlight.

Johanson was an innocent and rather naïve young man when he found refuge at Mrs Penethen’s boarding house. Handsome and with a superb body, a qualified instructor in gymnastics and masseur – ‘personal trainer’ – Johanson set himself up in business. Polchester quickly seemed to catch his enthusiasm and embrace him, accepting, on the surface at least, the novelty of his foreignness even as it stumbled over his name and adopted him as ‘Harmer John’. Johanson wanted to be friends with everyone, no matter who they were – and expected the same in return. He saw the best in everyone and always tried to do the right thing: to do what he thought was right. From that basis Walpole worked out and depicted the consequences of such an attitude – especially when held by a visitor, an immigrant – in a small, isolated, rather conservative community.

Book I, ‘His Arrival’ portrays Johanson’s ambition to transform Polchester and improve its people. He will have ‘a school for sculptors and artists and painters and make this town beautiful, keeping the old lovely things and making new things in tune with them’ (66). Things seem to be going well for the new inhabitant, yet he is unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that in his drive to make his mark he has also made enemies – including the unscrupulous and driven Samuel Hogg, owner of most of the property in Seatown, Polchester’s small but shamefully nasty and repulsive slum district.

It is Seatown, rather than Polchester, that would determine Johanson’s fate. Angered by what he had heard, he goes exploring for himself and enters a house lived in by a woman nursing her dying child. Perhaps thinking him the doctor, she allows him to stroke the girl’s forehead. ‘Over all the house there stood silence. For a long time his hand moved, then, the child gently sleeping, he took her and laid her gently in the bed’ (206). Soon rumours that Johanson had healed her start to spread; and from that time Hogg takes for himself the role of ensuring that Johanson’s plans come to nothing and will lead to his departure. Johanson’s developing relationship with Polchester, and several of its key citizens, is elaborated in Book II, ‘Of How He Stayed With Us’. Setbacks occur and relationships turn sour due to misunderstanding and intransigence. To his friends Johanson still ‘has the divine gift of tenderness and compassion’ – but for all his desire to ensure the best for Seatown, he still fails to realise that many of its inhabitants hate him (350ff).

In Book III, ‘How He Left Us’, despite the escalating gossip and misinformation about him, Johanson does not lessen his ambitions for change (422f). Johanson’s visit to a dying woman in Seatown and her death while there, gives Hogg and his associates an opportunity not to be missed. The incited riot is a fine example of one of the outbursts of violence and physical expressions of hatred and abuse that occur throughout Walpole’s work, as if he had been saving and impounding them for release at climactic moments. Left for dead, Johanson is thrown into the river: but his body is never found. Years later rumours still persist that ‘Harmer John’ did not die – and might return.

The date of Johanson’s death is given as 7 October: as well as the date of a fictional death, was it also that of a real birth? Walpole’s dedication to ‘David’ also included the date ‘October 7th, 1920’. Was this the date, a fortnight or so after Walpole first saw him, that he considered the inauguration of his deep friendship with Lauritz Melchior, another handsome blond Dane? Walpole always maintained a special fondness for Harmer John, one of his most ‘intensely personal books, into which he felt he had put more of himself than he had bestowed on any of his others’ (Hugh Walpole 358f). Friendship is never wasted.

(John Howard)

The Haunted Quarters of C.E. Ward: A Guest Post by Christopher Tompkins

C. E. Ward appears as a man who has stepped out of a different time and from another world. And because of that, his ghost stories are always welcome. Ward writes as great authors once did. His love of the English language and its grammar is manifest in every paragraph. His artful use of parts of speech and syntax are refreshing in an era in which adjectives have become endangered species and clauses identify as complete sentences.

Additionally, Ward consciously writes within a tradition. It is not quite enough to say that he is Jamesian, but rather, he is the orthodox Jamesian. (That modifier is intended in its deepest entomological meaning.) Yet, as a mature writer, Ward is not simply another M. R. James mimic, but a figure that has consistently exhibited an individual talent and voice.

A Ghost & Scholars alumnus, Ward has produced four collections of short stories: Vengeful Ghosts (1998), Seven Ghosts and One Other (2010), Malevolent Visitants (2016) and An Unheavenly Host (2022). All of his books have been published through Sarob Press, which means high quality and short supply. In the last decade, Ward has experimented by crafting five novellas. The longer length is employed by the author to great effect in terms of plot, atmosphere and tension. These novellas can be found in two volumes: Legionnaire (2019), a single story, and Ghostly Quarters (2025).

The second volume was printed in a limited edition of 325 copies and sold out rather quickly. As of writing, there are still few copies floating among online vendors. Naturally, there is an inflated price point by this time, but the show is worth the price of admission.

The first quarter, “Promenade Walk,” is a strong opener presenting the reader with an intriguing puzzle of death, revenge, deformity and occult hi-jinx. Incorporating the inherent weirdness of both a Punch and Judy show and an aging waxworks, we follow the reminiscences of the narrator who pays several visits to a seaside town, initially with his parents at ages ten, then sixteen, and finally, as a grown man with his partner. With each succeeding holiday, occurring from the late 1960s to 1990, the town has decayed and dilapidated further. More than once, he is attracted to a closed junk shop, but mysteriously denied entry. As the narrator slowly learns the strange history of the shop and its owners, the story gently flows with increasing tension until the final pages when the character gets his wish with a horrifying result. Ward adds vibrant motifs throughout the story such as the reoccurring vision of first his mother, then his partner Susan, standing away from the store with looks of apprehension. One mustn't expect a neat solution. As with all effective ghost stories, the mystery remains.

As the title of the next story may indicate, “Some Episodes of a Family History” conforms closest to the themes and affectations of the tradition. Though more conventional in approach than the previous tale, it is nonetheless a welcome read due to Ward's erudition and phrasing. As with many of his stories, the writer works within two arcs of time: one in the remoter past, and one closer which affects the main characters. Each period remains comfortably distant from the present day. This technique allows repetitions in tragedy as long as the haunting continues. It is a tragic tale, unrelenting and terrible for those involved.

The best realized story in the collection, “Where His Feet Pass,” traces the history of a set of faulted but sympathetic characters. At the center, the Reverend Giles Rumney is a haunted figure, both by his experiences of the recently-ended world war, and an older and unconfessed sin. Doomed by his cowardice, Rumney is instantly horrified by the sight of a mural within the church of his newly appointed position in the parish at Betton St. Anthony. The painting by an unknown, and probably sinister Renaissance artist, acts as a mirror of the spiritual state of the observer, at turns showing St. Anthony either triumphant over a demon, or terrorized and flailing. This is certainly the collection's most theologically profound tale - the risk of spiritual destruction being the greatest terror. This is ground which Ward, and most other contemporary supernatural writers, seem hesitant or uninterested in exploring. The theme is well-handled here and benefits from a slow build-up afforded by its length.

In comparison with the preceding stories, “Warlock's End,” the final quarter, is a weak closer to the excellent volume. “Lucien Starlight,” the warlock of the title, is more a comic book villain than a ghostly menace. The narrative has the feel of a Hammer film which surely the author knowingly incorporated. Interestingly, the story contains characters from a few of Ward's previous short stories and perhaps the concept may have performed better in that format. Nonetheless, it is an entertaining ride with some genuinely nice touches.

Of course, nothing is perfect. Ward demonstrates his “ticks,” that is, the overuse of certain words or phrases: “impedimenta,” “momento mori,” and an archaic use of “remove.” This can be quite distracting and may momentarily pull the reader out of the narrative. Some of his bogies, such as the one found in “Where His Feet Pass,” are described in detail that is too reminiscent of James's specters. Depth of character development is variable. Admittedly, these are mostly minor complaints.

In regard to writing longer stories, Ward once wrote, “ . . . it just isn't easy to sustain either interest or atmosphere in such a specialist field as the ghost story beyond ten to twelve thousand words.” Yet, in tackling the novella format, Ward has succeeded beautifully in the goal of writing a longer, better ghost story. He has accomplished that difficult task more than once.

The above quote comes from the author's introduction to Legionnaire, perhaps his greatest work to date. That excellent story deserves more space on a different day.

(Christopher Tompkins) 

The Centenary of 'Crewe Train' by Rose Macaulay: A Guest Post by John Howard

 Novels can be journeys of discovery for their characters – and sometimes readers. Some describe development and bring revelation, while others expand on and confirm what has already been stated, perhaps early on. Among the latter is Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay (1881-1958). First published one hundred years ago, Macaulay’s fifteenth novel seems to have been in demand. There were four further impressions that year. The copy I read, discovered on the crowded shelves of a bookshop in Southeast London, was the sixth, dated June 1927. Full of wry and dry observation and comment, Crewe Train is one of those novels that cries out to be described as a ‘comedy of manners’. It is that, along with much else, including tragedy, misunderstanding – and love at cross-purposes. And perhaps above all, of a tremendous loneliness.

Denham Dobie – ‘named for her mother’s favourite Buckinghamshire village’ – was the daughter of a clergyman. Mr Dobie gave up his calling after his wife’s death because ‘he was tired of being so busy, so sociable, and so conversational, […] calling on parishioners and asking them how they did – an inquiry the answer to which he was wholly indifferent.’ Wishing to get away, he moved to Mallorca, taking his daughter, then seven, with him: ‘abroad you are less surrounded by inquisitive and sociable persons who wonder why you do nothing, and insist on conversing with you.’ After several years he found Mallorca had become too busy with visitors, so moved to Andorra, because it was difficult to get to. Rather to his surprise, Dobie married again and had two more children. But he still felt plagued by visitors who had discovered the ‘Hidden Republic’. Then he suddenly died.

Denham’s maternal aunt, Evelyn Gresham, who was visiting at the time, carries Denham, now 21, off to London – which from the outset she dislikes intensely. Denham, who had grown up to not like people and talking, must adjust to a crowded and frenetic life in London. She had been taken into a large and loud family of high achievers. In effect swallowed alive, Denham is embarked on an odyssey: that of an unconventional young woman made to feel that she must seek the ‘Higher Life’: the constant activity of socialising and talking, reading and playgoing, parties and dinners and weekends at country houses that is normality to the Gresham family.

In Crewe Train places are more than just settings, backgrounds. In such a character-driven novel they take on some aspects of characters, their own distinctions, especially the vibrant all-embracing London of crowds and incident that Denham detested and longed to escape. (This is in contrast to the tired. shattered London of Macaulay’s penultimate novel The World My Wilderness [1950], in which Denham would have felt much more at home.)

Denham remained an outsider: ‘Into their gay, urbane civilisation Denham returned, like an explorer from solitary places, full of secret, savage joys and cares’ (173). Crewe Train explores how someone such as Denham can live in the world – and the world live with her. Late in the book, a cousin speculates: ‘Suppose…that people always did literally and precisely what they were bidden to do, took what was said to them at the foot of the letter, what a different world it would be, and how oddly it would behave. A world of people all behaving rather like Denham, who was at present perhaps the only literal adult person in it’ (269).

This is the Denham who has fallen in love with Peter Gresham’s publishing partner, Arnold Chapel. They marry, Denham having converted to her husband’s Roman Catholicism. Her loathing of London does not decrease, but her husband’s work dictates that he must live there. Denham finds and furnishes a cottage in Cornwall, but holidays are not enough. In love but deeply conflicted, the couple come to find themselves periodically living separate lives. Questionings occur. ‘Perfect freedom was never attained, never while you had a companion. […] Did one, then, never break down the prejudices of the well-bred about how to live? Did there never come a day when the well-bred said, “Dash it all, we won’t wash to-day, neither our persons nor the plates and cups?”’ (191)

Eventually Arnold and Denham buy a house in Metro-land Buckinghamshire – within commuting distance of London. In a sense Denham has come to where she started, named before the beginning of the novel by a family member the reader never meets. She gets back, ‘numbly acquiescent, to acceptance of the Higher Life’ and becomes resigned. ‘Love broke one in the end, ground one down, locked the fetters on one’s free limbs. […] You might struggle and rebel but in the end love got you’ (299). Faced with the prospect of her life being run to a timetable, Denham ‘thought of it…’ (307)

Perhaps only a reader as literal-minded as Denham Dobie would wonder about the title Crewe Train: although there are trains in the text, none of them go to Crewe. On the title page Macaulay quoted two lines from the music hall song “Oh Mr Porter” in which – as it’s surely not possible not to know – a young female train passenger laments: ‘Oh Mr Porter, whatever shall I do? / I want to go to Birmingham, but they’ve sent me on to Crewe!’ The lost young lady had found herself on the wrong track. She had missed her intended destination and ended up somewhere that only existed because it was a vast junction.

It was not Denham’s fault that she had the same experience: her father, through his outlook and example, had determined her direction and then abdicated all responsibility. Rose Macaulay dedicated Crewe Train to ‘The Philistines, The Barbarians, The Unsociable, and those who do not care to take any trouble’ – and showed that Denham was one of them. At the other, far, end of the book Denham came to a halt as if having hit the buffers. Or will she realise that the terminus was a junction after all and it might still be possible to change and set out again on the right track? Or was remaining on the platform, lost among the branching tracks, the only way for Denham to be true to herself? Any journey is made at a cost. Whatever should she do?

(John Howard)