Robert W. Chambers's Artwork for The King in Yellow

I've long understood that some of the artwork that appears on various covers of editions (but not the first printing) of The King in Yellow (1895) by Robert W. Chambers, was believed to be based on artwork by Chambers himself.  At last the evidence has emerged!  It comes in the form of original artwork by Chambers for a publicity poster from 1895, from the estate of Forrest J. Ackerman.  A truly gorgeous poster!

A close-up shows the signature in the mountains to the right:

Here you can see a few of the modified versions that appear on books, including a later printing of the Neely edition and the Ace paperback from the 1960s:

For information about the restoration of the original artwork, there is an article here.

Chambers's own color-scheme is infinitely more seductive. I'd really like to see more of Chambers's own art.

Tolkien Studies 8, and a new Blog on Tolkien and Fantasy

Tolkien Studies volume 8 has gone to the printer.  The contents of the new issue can be viewed at my new blog Tolkien and Fantasy, which I've started in order to post news and musings about more modern and familiar writers. I will continue to contribute to Wormwoodiana as in the past, but I have also felt the need for a different forum for posts on more modern writers. Thus the new blog. 

Medusa Press

For some years now Medusa Press has been quietly producing occasional volumes of weird fiction, nicely designed and of high production values. I believe their first book was Frank Chigas's The Damp Chamber and Other Bad Places (2004), and since then they have published two further collections of his work, and also branched out into reprinting older materials.


I was delighted with Left in the Dark: The Supernatural Tales of John Gordon, which came out in 2006, collecting nineteen stories from three of Gordon's earlier collections, plus ten hitherto uncollected stories and one story newly written for this volume.

Last year Medusa Press released a new edition of a 1920s novel of legendary rarity, Oliver Sherry's Mandrake (Jarrolds, 1929), with a new introduction by Richard Dalby.  Dalby tells us that "Oliver Sherry" was the pseudonym of an Irishman, George Edmund Lobo (1894-1971), a minor figure remembered primarily for his poetry.  Though published last fall, I learned of this reissue only recently, and now having a copy I observe that Medusa Press has made an especially elegant reissue, with a distinctive dust-wrapper design as well as a really cool binding underneath.  Good work like this should be noticed, so I copy the wrapper and binding below.  Order via the publisher's website. 

new issue of Fastitocalon

I'm somewhat late on reporting this, but the second issue (concluding the"Immortals and the Undead" theme of volume one) of Fastitocalon appeared around the end of last year.  I'll copy the table of contents below.  I contributed a couple of "Notes on Neglected Fantasists", and an article on M.R. James and Dracula, which identifies for the first time in English the author of the pre-Dracula vampire story "The Mysterious Stranger", revived by Montague Summers in the 1930s from an old translation from the German, published without attribution.  The story is by the completely forgotten C. von Wachsmann (1787-1862); it appeared under the title "Der Fremde" in the 1844 volume of his Erzählungen und Novellen. 

Another article in the new issue of Fastitocalon worth noting here is Robert Eighteen-Bisang's "Arthur Conan Doyle's Dracula" which presents a fascinating thesis about Doyle's "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client". Order via the publisher's website, or for more information see the journal's website.

Fastitocalon: Studies in Fantasticism Ancient to Modern [v 1 #2, 2010] (Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, ISBN 978-86821-274-7 ISSN 1869-960X, Euros 15.00, tp) "Immortals and the Undead"
91 · Introduction · Fanfan Chen & Thomas Honegger · in
93 · Consuming Life: Narcissism, Liminality, and the Posthuman Condition in Bulwer-Lytton's "A Strange Story"· Bruce Wyse · ar 
113 · The Evolution of the Quest for Immortality in Science Fiction and the Fantastic: Spirituality, Corporeality, Virtuality · Roger Bozzetto and Fanfan Chen · ar
127 · Some Notes on the Depictions of Immortals in Medieval Oriental Manuscripts · Anna Caiozzo· ar
141 · The Making of a Hilarious Undead: Bisociation in teh Novels of Terry Pratchett · Thomas Scholz · ar  153 · Reporting the Stubborn Undead: Revenants and Vampires in Twelfth Century English Literature (II) · Eugenio M. Olivares Merino · ar
179 · Arthur Conan Doyle's "Dracula" · Robert Eighteen-Bisang · ar
189 · A Note on M.R. James and Dracula · Douglas A. Anderson · ar
195 · Notes on Neglected Fantasists · Douglas A. Anderson · ar; James Dickie (1934- ), C. Bryson Taylor (1880-?).
199 · About the Authors · [Misc.] · bg

 

Emily Plenderleath Harrison (1843-1933)

In issue no. 15 (May 2009) of The Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter, Richard Dalby announced his discovery of a children’s book with a previously-unknown short introduction by M.R. James, the noted ghost story writer. The book is The Lion’s Birthday (Eton, London, and Colchester: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co., [1920]), by Emily Plenderleath Harrison, with illustrations by Dora Barks. Dalby was not at that time able to trace any information about the author.

Emily Plenderleath Harrison was born in late 1843 in Hart, County Durham, the fourth of eleven daughters of William Gorst Harrison (1803-1891), the oldest of five sons of shipbroker William Harrison of Thornhill, Sunderland. In a brief forward to The Lion’s Birthday, Harrison notes that the book was written by her sister and herself more than sixty years ago (i.e., before 1860), and though she  admitted to collaboration, she did not name any one of her ten sisters on the title page as co-author.  Dora Barks, who illustrated a few other books in the nineteen-twenties, was not her sister.  Emily Plenderleath Harrison worked at Eton from around 1890, and from that work came her association with M.R. James.  She died in in late 1933, aged 89.

The Lion’s Birthday is a story told in forty verses, each containing four lines.  The story tells of the Lion, who in order to celebrate the ten years he has been monarch of the wood and plain, sends out invitations to the various animals to join him for a party. Not all the animals are eager:

The Elephant, in private, thought / That it would be an awful bore; / But yet he thought he ought to go / As he had never been before.

The Tigers, Wolves and Panthers said / “Pray tell the Lion we’ll be charmed.” / The Stags (poor things!) replied the same, / But inwardly they felt alarmed.

The monkeys are excited, the sheep are shy (fearing that the Wolves surely would be there), the Bears and Leopards were delighted.  Alas, the party does not work out so well, for the Tiger is tempted by the Deer and kills her, breaking everything up, and some animals giving chase to the murderer.

James ironically calls the story a “pleasant ballad” in his short “Foreword”.

John Guinan (1874-1945)

Irish playwright and civil servant, who wrote four plays for the Abbey Theatre, “The Cuckoo's Nest” (1913), “The Plough Lifters” (1916), “Black Oliver” (1927), and “The Rune of Healing” (1931). Guinan wrote short stories for Irish newspapers, but these were never collected.  His story "The Watcher o' the Dead" (Cornhill Magazine, June 1929), concerning a curious custom associated with the cemetery Gort na Marbh, was reprinted by Montague Summers in The Supernatural Omnibus (1931), and thus Guinan rates mention here.  It is his only known weird fiction.  

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”.