At the Change of the Moon by Bernard C. Blake

Johnny Mains has passed on news of a reissue of his discovery of the 1902 collection of nine tales At the Change of the Moon, by Bernard C[ecil] Blake (1882-1917). 

The nine stories tell of a competition between two men during a lengthy storm as they relate stories of madness and horror, each in an attempt to top one another. This reprint from Mislaid Books is considerably expanded, not only by Johnny's lengthy and well-illustrated Introduction and additional matter, but also with other items the author wrote around the same period, including five tales, two poems and one piece of non-fiction from issues of Vectis from 1903.  

It is available in hardcover from Amazon.co.uk at this link for £19.00; and at Amazon.com in the US at this link for $25.38. 

Johnny writes in his introduction that:

In 1901, aged nineteen, he wrote his only collection of weird stories, At the Change of the Moon—an example of horror portmanteau, and possibly inspired by the Dickens-curated ‘The Haunted House’, published in All the Year Round in 1859—about two men who swap strange tales while stuck in an inn during a storm. It was published the following year. 

Here are some extracts from original reviews that are quoted in an appendix:

“This book, itself not long, strings upon a narrative of strangers entertaining one another by story-telling at a mysterious village inn, eight short tales of ingeniously imagined horror. There is madness—fancied madness—in them all to make the background appropriately lurid. The particular motives are like those of Poe, and the smaller shudder-bringers who have followed him. In one tale a man tells how he took delight in poisoning his friends and watching the symptoms of their agony. Another is philosophically fantastic, and tells of murder as a homeopathic remedy for lunacy. Then there is one of an ominous bird, the sight of which brings the coldness of death to him who sees it; another of horrific mesmerism, and another in which the teller asseverates that the sun is hell, for he has been there, and he knows. All are short and he writes with a rapid lightness which gives them as much verisimilitude as this sort of story need carry to be convincing to a complacent reader. They make a suitable book for holiday reading.” —The Scotsman, June 23, 1902 

“At the Change of the Moon by Bernard C. Blake (2s. 6d.). We have not had the pleasure of meeting with any of Mr. Blake’s work before the present volume. If it be his first effort, we can only say it is a very fine one, proving him to be a writer of rare imaginative power. The stories in the volume are nine in number, and are supposed to be told to the author by a strange old being named Pharaoh and a doctor who has made lunacy his special study. The tales are weird and uncanny, and here and there somewhat morbid. The latter feeling, however, by no means predominates, and the reader, while now and again getting a creepy feeling, finds his sympathy with the personages brought before him thoroughly enlisted. Mr. Blake has the touch of a fine artist, and knows the value of a suggested horror as against a plainly elaborated one. All who like weird literature and are fond of thrills.” —Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, June 29, 1902

“This is a weird book, as might be expected from the fact of its material having been gathered in a hitherto untilled, but certainly fruitful, field—the lunatic asylum. The writer has evidently made a study of the morbid as seen in such places, and has out of his knowledge put together some curious and startling stories. Not the least of these is the man who killed his father, and in so doing considered that he had performed a service to humanity, because his father was in the habit of wearing a collar without a necktie!” —Weekly Dispatch (London), August 3, 1902

 

'An Exciting Weird Plot': Ducdame by John Cowper Powys

 

 

I have always greatly admired the fiction of John Cowper Powys, while finding the length and spread of his novels rather formidable. I like the beginnings of them, which settle the reader into interesting surroundings, with enjoyably eccentric characters, and I usually set off with high hopes. But at some point I almost invariably break off, and do not then resume. It is not that the plot is complex or tedious, but simply that it does require stamina, and other things are calling.

One possible way in, therefore, is with his earlier novels, which are a bit shorter: these, however, are not so rich in theme or engaging in the telling. A compromise might be found with the fourth of them (though the third published), Ducdame (1925).

John Cowper Powys wrote to Dorothy Richardson, author of the Pilgrimage sequence of autobiographical novels, about his first three published novels (another, After My Fashion, though written in 1919, was not published until 1980):

‘The truth is in Wood & Stone & Rodmoor I exploited most wickedly a certain sadistic vein in my disposition. Then I became more virtuous; & resolved that it was wrong to do this – unless the thing was ‘spiritualized’ as in Dostoevsky – for fear of actually spreading the ‘aura’ of it around. And in Ducdame my third novel I left it out altogether and tried to make an objective work of art using none of my own secretest feelings (except my love of Nature and of simple Romantic sensuality & of an exciting weird plot & of abnormal characters).’

Ducdame, which was published at the end of July one hundred years ago, may be seen as signalling the deep interest in landscape and its influence on contemporary lives, which dominates his noted set of four ‘Wessex’ novels, starting with Wolf Solent (1929), and continuing with A Glastonbury Romance (1933), Weymouth Sands (1934) and Maiden Castle (1936). In many respects it is a sort of prologue to these major works, with the advantage for the rather daunted reader of being not quite so extensive. It has not had the same attention as these four. There was a Village Press paperback edition in 1974 alongside other Powys reprints, and a Faber and Farber reissue in their Classics series in 2008.

What did Powys mean by Ducdame’s ‘weird plot’? In the opening chapter we are introduced to the brothers Rook and Lexie Ashover, of Ashover, scions of a line of squires going back to Norman times. Their indomitable mother is conspiring to ensure this centuried lineage continues, despite certain awkward circumstances. As well as her, there are three other leading women characters: Rooks’s lover Netta, who lives with him at the Manor, in defiance of convention; his cousin Lady Ann, invited as a guest by his mother, with matchmaking in mind; and Nell Hastings, the vicar’s wife, for whom both brothers have a passion. This family lineage theme and the emotional complications are not in the least “weird”.

However, the novel also picks up two of the themes Powys mentioned to Richardson. The Romantic love of nature finds expression in poetic evocations of the countryside. In the opening chapter, he conjures up the eerie effect of bright moonlight on the local landscape and wonders if certain places have a particular affinity to the moon, and in the second chapter he conveys well how rain changes the light, the sound and the atmosphere of rooms, and how a drenched terrain may have a grey magic. This sense of a country steeped in a deep, elemental magic recalls the lyrical work of de la Mare, Blackwood or Machen.   

Secondly, Powys’ mystical idea that sinister writing might spread its “aura” is also presented in his novel. There are hints of an ominous mystery concerning a book being written by the vicar, William Hastings. The vicar’s library includes volumes of “Philo, Iamblicus, Plotinus, Paracelsus”, three ancient Neoplatonists and a Renaissance alchemist, suggesting he is delving in arcane matters.  His scratching away at the book in his study affects his wife’s nerves with “an almost supernatural terror”. Powys ponders, “Is there, perhaps, a power of destruction in human thought capable of projecting its magnetism beyond its own realm of immaterial ideas?” (pg, 45). The vicar’s wife thinks so: “he’s—thinking something—that destroys—you know?—that destroys everything!” (pg. 54).

The novel’s landscape mysticism and idea of the uncanny power of certain writing do offer some of the “weird” elements Powys claimed for the book. But they are not its main thrust, which remains a concern with the fate of the family’s ancient line, and the way this might be resolved by various permutations of relationships. That is by no means an original plot, but a common device in Victorian inheritance melodramas, and it cannot be said Powys much surpasses this origin, however idiosyncratic and unusual his style and way of thinking. We might prefer the sense of place and the Vicar’s book to come more to the fore. If Ducdame is weird, as Powys said, the reader of fantastic literature might wish it were weirder still. Even so, the evocation of the elements, the pantheism, the full-flavoured characters, and the hints of bibliomancy are certainly compelling enough.

 (Mark Valentine)

Newly Published: T. Lobsang Rampa by R.B. Russell

  

In a post in November 2014, 'The Naming of the Rows', I discussed the various terms used by second-hand booksellers to describe the subjects of books, and how it is often worth looking in unlikely categories for books that do not belong there. One of the most variously named subjects, I suggested,  was one 'which I have seen designated by some at least of the following terms in my forays among second hand bookshops: Paranormal, The Unexplained, New Age, Alternative, Esoteric, Occult and Folklore', to which I could have added 'Mind, Body, Spirit' and several others. For obvious reasons these may sometimes harbour books of fantastic literature, especially literary ghost stories, so should not be overlooked by the assiduous collector in this field. 

Any reader who does consult these shelves, however, is sure to find sooner or later  one or more of the books of T. Lobsang Rampa, which were prevalent in paperback in the psychedelic Sixties and Seventies, but actually began with The Third Eye (1956). This ostensibly revealed the mystic secrets of Tibet, but some of the details would have been somewhat surprising to savants of the subject. Subsequent volumes, such as My Visit to Venus (1957) broadened the author's spiritual pilgrimage into even more unusual regions. It is perhaps for these reasons that Mr Rampa's books are more usually found in the Paranormal and New Age sections than in History, Religion or Topography.

The full remarkable story of T. Lobsang Rampa (earlier known as Cyril Henry  Hoskin) is now told by R.B. Russell in a new definitive biography, T. Lobsang Rampa and Other Characters of Questionable Faith (Tartarus Press). This may seem an unusual endeavour after the author's thorough and critically acute biography of Robert Aickman, but in both cases his subjects were enigmatic individuals with significant aspects of rather Corvine mystery about them. As with Aickman, R.B. Russell aims to sift the claims and counter-claims and arrive at a judicious analysis, and his approach has the thrill of the detective story as well as the intrinsic interest of the remarkable individuals he describes. The book also offers three further essays about modern prophetic figures.

This is a limited edition hardback of 300 signed copies with all the usual Tartarus attention to fine detail and will offer fascinating reading to connoisseurs of the recondite.  

Tales Nocturnal: A Collection of Stories of the Uncanny

Tales Nocturnal is a new collection of seventeen stories by Tim Foley.  It is published by the Drugstore Indian Press imprint from PS Publishing, in a 100 copy signed and numbered hardcover, and in a regular trade paperback edition. The cover art by Danielle Serra is nicely atmospheric.  

The tales in the collection range from the year 2000 to the present (three stories are newly published herein). Foley has published these stories in three distinct time periods:  2000-2005, four stories; 2013-2016, seven stories; and 2020 to the present, six stories.  Tales Nocturnal collects the bulk of Foley's output, from respected small press magazines like All Hallows and Supernatural Tales, and other places. I know of only one published story not collected herein, and that one was published in A Book of the Sea (Egaeus Press, 2018), edited by Mark Beech. 

The stories are not arranged chronologically, which ordering would have put two hommage stories at the very beginning.  "An Effect of Moonlight," dedicated to F. Marion Crawford, recalls certain aspects of Crawford's "The Screaming Skull" (1908); and "Flowers  along the Seawall," dedicated to Amelia Edwards, modernizes her "A Phantom Coach" (1864). Foley was more ambitious with his third tale, "Galen's Closet," which opens the collection. It works nicely as a kind of surreal take where the closet of a San Francisco Goth fan gives off sinister vibes, evidently related to the fact that a murder took place in this apartment. 

Many of Foley's characters are introspective, and the tales  follow their obsessions, often over what they think they are seeing or experiencing. In "Snowman, Frozen" a writer staying at a friend's isolated cabin sees a snowman in the distance--it becomes two, and later, three snowmen. "The House Opposite" tells of a couple forced to downsize to a smaller apartment, but the man becomes obsessed with the rundown house across the street. "The Sound of Children Playing" deals with another obsession, that given in the title. 

"Emir" is one of the best tales in the book, bringing in old occult books and their deleterious effects without resorting to silly Lovecraftian yog-sothothry. "Aneurism" starts with harrowing description of the experience of having an aneurism, and associates the experience with a childhood traumatic experience. 

Foley's stories work better when they center on uneasiness and are recounted with the author's own vision.  They work less well when they are mere riffs on common tropes, as with "The Ghost of Niles Canyon," which is a vanishing hitchhiker tale with a twist at the end. 

Overall, it's an interesting and promising collection.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

R.R. Ryan - another primary source

 Another brief but interesting source of information about Rex Ryan/R.R. Ryan.  The 1939 England and Wales Register provides details about Rex Ryan and his wife, Anne.  Rex Ryan's occupation is given as 'writer (fiction)' - not surprising given that he'd written a succession of thrillers under the name R.R. Ryan and other pseudonymous names for Herbert Jenkins.  This indicates he'd given up acting and managing theatres by this time. The occupation of his wife, Anne, is given as 'unpaid domestic duties'.

The address on the book contract for R.R. Ryan's final novel, No Escape (1940), is the same as the residence given in the register - 80b Lansdowne Place, Hove. The contracts for his previous novels give the address 16 Granville Road. Electoral rolls and telephone directories indicate that the Ryans moved from Granville Road to Lansdowne Place in 1939. 

Enter Blowfish: 'Rain Before Seven' by Christopher Buckley

  

Christopher Buckley’s Rain Before Seven (1947) is a classic country house murder mystery with marginally uncanny elements. It is set in Shropshire: the nearest town, six or seven miles away, is Ludlow, and there are allusions to the Clun villages made famous by A E Housman (‘Clunton and Clunbury,/Clungunford and Clun/Are the quietest places/Under the sun’). The title refers to an English weather saying: ‘rain before seven, fine by eleven’.

 A variety of guests gather at the home of a second-rate (‘not quite bestselling’) romance novelist: none of them are particularly close to her, and some may have reasons to wish her gone. Strangers have been glimpsed in the house and grounds. This is a conventional crime fiction set-up, though neatly done.

 Also in the genre tradition is the knowing nods to other crime fiction authors, offered here through the character of a particularly unprepossessing child, a boy nicknamed Blowfish, who is obsessed by detective stories and refers to several of these as he does his own detecting, including Agatha Christie, G K Chesterton, Dorothy L Sayers and Victor Bridges. The latter is less well-known than the others now, but specialised in stories set in coastal Essex, often with sailing and smuggling aspects.

It is bracingly different that Blowfish is not of the Boy’s Own paragon type, but spoilt, sly, ugly, rude, greedy and self-centred. He is also, however, brainy and devious, and a hugely enjoyable and highly plausible creation.

One character in the book, a worldly artist, has a keen presentiment of evil in a highly effective tableau, after a noise is heard outside, when the dinner party are briefly seen as if frozen in time. The local vicar is also convinced of the active existence of evil powers here. Another unusual aspect is the evocation of Aubrey Beardsley in describing the house party, because of the black and white of the men’s evening dress and the similarly sombre black of the ladies’ gowns, all save the hostess, who is in flaming red. These elements give just a hint of the strange and eerie.

The novel has a picturesque cast of characters and the usual twists and turns and red herrings of the genre and is an accomplished, urbane and lightly-handled example: perhaps just a shade too leisurely in its development. But it is much enhanced by the character of the unprepossessing Blowfish, who uses shrewd observation and logic to find the solution to the mystery. 

The author’s only other novel, Royal Chase (1949), reintroduces Blowfish, to the delight of this reader at least. It is a Ruritanian romp in which a group of English tourists on a cruise become embroiled in the local politics and conspiracies of a country they visit, and are each in turn suspected by some to be the King, returned incognito from exile. But where is the real King and what are his plans? This is a lively and blithe exaggeration of the Anthony Hope mode. Buckley introduces a thoroughly modern denouement. It is Blowfish once again who has the solution first, informed by his intelligent reading, both of books and of character.

Christopher Buckley (1905-50) was a military historian, the author of several official accounts of campaigns, and war correspondent for the Telegraph. He was killed in the Korean War when the jeep he was travelling in struck a land mine. As well as the tragedy for his family and colleagues, this was a loss to literature: his two novels are well-crafted satirical thrillers, and we could have wished for much more of the immortally offensive Blowfish. 

(Mark Valentine) 

The Babylonian Messages and other pieces

  

At M58, edited by Andrew Taylor, 'The Babylonian Messages I-III', photocopy art: ancient cuneiform text imagined as transmitting through the aether in distorted form.

At dadakuku, edited by petro c.k., 'At Night', a brief fantasy, and 'Essential Phrases in Esperanto'.

At International Times, edited by Rupert M Loydell, ‘Incense of Gauloises’, a piece in tribute to a phrase from the Nineteen Seventies modernist poet Veronica Forrest-Thomson.  

(Mark Valentine)