Colonial Edition of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Twelve months ago I picked up a Ward, Lock colonial edition of A Study In Scarlet at the Lifeline bookfair for $20.  This time around I picked up a quite battered Longmans colonial edition of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes for the same price.  It has the standard Longmans colonial library boards of that time - quite bland compared to the slightly later pictorial cover Longmans used for its colonial library.

The title page is dated 1894 and the excellent Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia tells me it was published on 30 December 1894.  It's in octavo format, unlike the quarto of the 1893 Newnes first edition.

It has all the classic Sydney Paget illustrations, including this famous one of "The Death of Sherlock Holmes."  Copies of this edition seem to be quite scarce and when they do turn up are rebound or taped up like this one - the backstrip seems to be particularly fragile.

Someone must have donated their Sherlock Holmes collection to Lifeline as there were a number of scarce Sherlock Holmes items on offer - I picked up a couple of Ferret Fantasy pastiches, including An Evening With Sherlock Holmes and At the Mountains of Murkiness, a mint first edition of Michael Dibdin's The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, the Gollancz edition of Ellery Queen's Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper,  and about half a dozen books in the Gaslight Sherlock Holmes monograph series on all sorts of arcane Sherlockian subjects.

My Bones and My Flute - Edgar Mittelholzer

The village of Aldborough, Yorkshire, is on the site of an old Roman town. A century or so ago, old ladies in the local cottages would display carved stones in their gardens and coins in their parlours for the price of a few pence admission, as well as offering teas. There is now a small museum, sadly seldom open, which has a lovely grove of trees and some monuments among them, and a mosaic kept sheltered in a shed. In the very grand parish church, in a niche, is a worn figure of Mercury, minus his wand and wings. He used to be outside and most of the detail of the statue was then weathered away.

The village was one of the Rotten Boroughs whose ancient parliamentary privileges were done away with by the Great Reform Act, but it was not quite as rotten as most of them. Whereas Dunwich, say, or Old Sarum, had only a handful of electors, Aldborough had a decent number. It is now linked to Boroughbridge, also an old town, which has, close to the nearby Great North Road, the Devil’s Arrows, amongst the largest standing stones in Britain. There is also a slightly peculiar tongue of land which is an island between the brown river Ure and the black canal. The settlement itself, though, has a pleasant, easy sort of air, with a number of cafes.

It was here recently that I found in a charity shop a copy of Edgar Mittelholzer’s My Bones and My Flute (1955), which is sub-titled “A Ghost Story in the Old-fashioned Manner”. And that is precisely what it is, but with a distinctive difference. Its setting is not in some old college quadrangle or cathedral cloister, but among the tropical back-country of British Guiana, the author’s home country.

The narrator is a young artist who has been commissioned to paint scenes from the jungle for the new offices of his patron, a timber merchant. They take a journey by steamer to a remote settlement where the company has an outpost. There are residues here of the older Dutch colonists and explorers, and also of the more ancient peoples whose land they, and the British, usurped. Something about the place has been troubling the merchant, and the narrator soon begins to think he has been lured onto the trip for another reason.

I admired the book’s swift, laconic, succinct style and the way in which the fastidious mind and haughtiness of the narrator is conveyed in his writing and in his response to other characters. The haunting element is well-achieved, starting softly and subtly, simply with the sound of a flute heard upon the steamer (but only by some), then, once the distant station is reached, building up a remorseless sense of siege. It’s well-known that good supernatural stories at novel length are hard to achieve, but this is a fine example. There are certainly also echoes here of the work of Conrad and Faulkner.

The publisher Peepal Tree Press has been championing the work of Edgar Mittelholzer for some years and currently has five of his books in print, including My Bones and My Flute, of which they say: “Amongst the barks of baboons, [and] rustles of hidden creatures in the remote Berbice forests, Mittelholzer creates a brilliantly atmospheric setting for his characters and their terrified discovery that this is not a place where they can be at home.”

The copy I found in Boroughbridge has on the fixed front endpaper a small circular ink stamp, like a postmark, which reads, in pale blue letters: “Sold By/Wm. Fogarty Ltd./British Guiana”. This is evidently a firm of booksellers and stationers, who seem to be still trading there today. I wonder how, when and in whose hands the book got from the coast of South America to the old Yorkshire town?

(c) Mark Valentine 2016

R.A. Brimmell, vintage book catalogues, M.R. James and J.S. le Fanu, etc etc

Browsing old book catalogues is a victimless crime, and while in Melbourne this week I picked up twenty-odd R.A. Brimmell catalogues from the late '50s and early '60s.  Brimmell was an English book dealer whose catalogues invariably had sections on "detective and mystery stories" and nineteenth century books with a nice sprinkling of Gothic novels and Penny Bloods.

In catalogue no. 10, 1957, he has listed a stunning association copy of le Fanu's Ghost Stories and Mysteries:

This copy ended up with US book collector Robert Lee Wolff.  In his Strange Stories: Explorations in Victorian Fiction - the Occult and the Neurotic (1971) he writes in a short section on le Fanu, "Le Fanu's own first collection appeared in 1851, Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery.  It is a very rare book, and I have the copy that belonged to M.R. James himself: almost the copy, perhaps because it links the two masters of the art."

Twelve quid seems a reasonable price, even for 1957 - in another catalogue Brimmell has a copy of R. Murray Gilchrist's The Stone Dragon for 12/6.  By way of comparison, in catalogue 39, Brimmell lists le Fanu's Willing to Die for 28 pounds.

Also for 25 pounds, in catalogue 35, an interesting collection of Gothic chapbooks:

Brimmell also regularly listed rare Penny Bloods.  In catalogue 47 he lists The Work Girls of London, Their Trials and Temptations. A Novel (Newsagent's Pub. Co. 1865) for 15 quid.

In catalogue 56 he has, also for 15 pounds, the unlikely titled The Women of London Disclosing the Trials and Temptations of a Woman's Life in London with occasional glimpses of a fast career.  This one was published by Vickers in the 1850s:

I wonder if the NPC version, like Sweeney Todd, was one of Chas. Fox's rip offs?

Here is a nice list of Penny Bloods from catalogue 54:

The Romance of Shortwave Radio Number Stations

The Romance of Shortwave Radio Number Stations (Persepolis) by R.B. Russell creates an atmosphere of mystery and melancholy using austere piano tones, found sounds and lonely, fragmented voices reciting numbers and place names in several tongues.

The album responds to a genuine enigma. For several decades, radio hams and others have located, on the short-wave dial, broadcasts of strings of numbers and other sounds, which appear seemingly at random from no known station. These have been assumed to be in some form of code, and supposed to be related to espionage or diplomacy, but they remain largely unexplained.

The recording, with its brittle and haunting pieces, captures a Cold War ambience and moves impressionistically in the borderland worlds of Eric Ambler or Graham Greene. We sense the lighter flame blue in the rain, below the street sign not on any map: we are in the world of the stranger without luggage, hat brim low, nothing to lose, silent, and staring about him. The music conveys our yearning after meaning in a domain of shadows.

The Detective Story Club for Connoisseurs

The Detective Story Club was launched in 1929, with the expressed purpose of publishing the best detective and mystery novels as selected by a committee of experts. Each volume was marked with a distinctive "Man with a Gun" stamp on the cover.

In 2015, HarperCollins began reprinting the series, with new introductions.  Some of the books lean over towards the supernatural genre, even if they don't embrace it. Some of the new introductions are by noted genre authorities like Richard Dalby and Hugh Lamb.  Some of the novels are by authors well-known to genre readers, like Robert Louis Stevenson and Bernard Capes.

Here I'd like to call attention to four of the titles published so far that might be of interest to readers of Wormwoodiana.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, contains more than just the classic story.  Introduced by Richard Dalby, there are two additional stories by Stevenson ("The Body Snatcher" and "Markheim") and two additional stories by other hands (the anonymous 1890 "Untold Sequel of the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", later attributed to one Francis H. Little, and a pastiche "Dr. Jekyl" [sic] by Robert J. McLaughlin).

Called Back, by Hugh Conway, with an introduction by Martin Edwards

The Mystery of the Skeleton Key, by Bernard Capes, with an introduction by Hugh Lamb

The Noose, by Philip Macdonald, son of Ronald Macdonald and the grandson of George Macdonald.  Introduction by H.R.F. Keating

The whole series is well worth looking into.

The Allison & Busby Fantasic Fiction Library

In October 1986, three books appeared in trade paperback in the UK, inaugurating the "Allison & Busby Fantastic Fiction Library." Each gives unadorned texts, without any extra matter such as informed introductions or interior illustrations.  Each of the three books uses a piece of art (or a portion thereof) from the previous century as cover art.  The art is not especially compatible with the book on which it appears, but it isn't horrendously incompatible either.  The books are:


Lilith, by George Macdonald, with the cover art from "Pandora" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 
The Purple Cloud, by M.P. Shiel, with cover art from"The Scapegoat" by William Holman Hunt


A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay, with cover art "The Glacier of Rosenlaui" by John Brett.  Sadly the text of the novel, though re-set, follows that of the corrupt 1963 Macmillan edition, which was line-edited by the publisher, resulting in literally thousands of changes—some merely punctuational but a large number are word changes and rephrasings that alter Lindsay's text.


And with these initial releases, the series died. Alas. Allison & Busby had been founded in 1967 by Clive Allison and Margaret Busby.  In 1987 the firm was acquired by W.H. Allen, Ltd. According to Margaret Busby this represented "finally succumbing to the exigencies of being penniless."  Whether the fantasy series died before or after the acquisition is not known. 

Indian Talking Machine

Robert Millis describes his book Indian Talking Machine as "photographs and notes" about ""78 rpm record and gramophone collecting on the sub-continent". It's a chronicle, mostly visual, of a journey in search of the relics of early Indian records, and comes complete with two CDs of the music he discovered. The photographs are fascinating and beautiful, capturing texture and colour and detail with a sympathetic gaze. They depict the records in all sorts of conditions, from those with still vivid labels and sleeves to those that have become simply circles of dust, corrosion or decay. He captures images of the records still stacked in the forgotten corners of curio shops and the few remaining vintage record emporia.

In his text, Millis provides a brief history of how the recording industry came to India,and the companies, shops and often long-lost artists involved. Most interesting of all, though, are his brief accounts of meetings with obsessive collectors, who make even the most ardent bibliophiles seem amateurs. These gentle, courteous,enthusiasts share their delight with him. "I hope you do not frighten easily," says the veteran collector VAK Ranga Rao as he welcomes Millis to his home in Chennai, a sanctuary for some 45,000 78rpm discs. It includes, Millis notes, "an entire room of records which are unsorted and will likely remain that way". Elegiac in tone, the book is also a celebration of these learned collectors, who are "archives of knowledge and experience," and "a living way of experiencing and organising" a small, selected, personal part of the world, "chaotically human".

R.W. Coulter, The Haunting Book

A short story set in a secondhand bookshop by Reginald Walter Coulter, a New Zealand-born, Sydney-based cartoonist, illustrator and author, from Australia's premier literary magazine, The Bulletin.

The Haunting Book

R.W. Coulter (The Bulletin, 22 January 1936)

I had never before seen this bookshop.  It stood in one of that maze of little streets about the Haymarket, that part of Old Sydney which seems to have been subdivided by a small boy with a playing card and a pair of shears.  The shop was extremely old-fashioned, with a narrow front pierced by a small six-panel window and a low door over which a small conservative sign said ‘Pedersen – Second-hand Books.”  The usual emblematic shelf and box of “Thruppennies” stood under the dirty window, and the shop door was two steps down from the doorsill.  It was too inviting.  I went in.

Inside was dark and musty, and no one was there.  It was dead.  No one came to ask my “requirements.”  I thought of The Magic Shop, that this had had been specially created to-day for my benefit and would disappear by tomorrow.  Every eight feet or so shelves jutted out at right angles to those lining the walls, forming little alcoves.  They disappeared away in darkness, the shop was so deep.  In each alcove was a table, and on each table stood a disturbing anachronism: an electric reading lamp flanked by a notice, “Please switch off when finished using.”  In such a place one looked for verdigrised brass candle-sticks and yellow candles.

Some yards down the shop I switched on a lamp and looked over the shelves.  They were a mixed bag. Ben Jonson rubbed cheeks with Swedenborg and Sidonius Apollinarius with Thomas àKempis, whilst uncut Brontes and Eliots jutted out everywhere.  I pulled out a book I had heard of but never seen.  It was Holberg’s Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm, and I sat down to browse.

“Ah, sir, you are fond of the classics?” a thin, piping voice gently broke through the phantasm.  It was a little white-haired man, standing gnome-like and smiling behind the lamp.  He was perfect.  The second-hand bookseller one reads about but never meets.

“Ah, sir, there’s not much call for them these days.”  He wagged his head sadly.  “The public wants rubbish, sir, rubbish.  I had thirty-four sales yesterday, and thirty-two averaged under two shillings.  I can tell you, sir, it’s a pleasure to see anyone dipping into these classics – a pleasure even if they don’t buy.”

Here was a bookseller who loved books for their own sake. I had read of them, but – unreal, unreal!  I waited for him and the shop to vanish and find myself in Paddy’s Market.  “Even then I don’t like selling them,” he added.

Was he pulling my leg?  It sounded too much like the books.  But his enthusiasm and his innocent baby-old face impressed me.

“Even the books don’t like being away from their home shelves.  They’re old stick-in-the-muds, like us bookish people.”  He chuckled delightedly and leaned and peered over at Holberg.  “Well, I declare, that’s the very one.”

I let him take it up.  It was a thick, leather-bound quarto volume.  “The Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm,” he murmured to himself, stroking the worn leather.  He looked steadily at me and appeared to make up his mind. 

“This book’s haunted,” he said.

“Oh?” I jerked.

“Yes, a spook.  It knocks, knocks to get in.”  He looked hard at me again.  “You like books?  Not afraid of books?”  He wagged a thin white hand deprecatingly.  “But who could be afraid of books?  Come, let me show you something wonderful.”

He darted out of the alcove and down the shop.  I followed, and found him halfway up a library ladder, expectantly waiting for me like an excited puppy on for a game.  High up in the wall was a small, dirty window, one of the up-and-down counterweight type.

The old bookseller went to the top of the ladder, opened the bottom of the window, put the hook on what appeared to be a long ledge outside, shut down the window with a bang, and dashed down again to my side.

“Listen,” he said, holding up a silencing finger.  For a moment nothing happened.  Then the two frames of the window hit together with two sharp double knocks, like hiccups.  Another moment and they started to tremble together as though shaken by a wind.  But there was no wind.  An auctioneer’s flag in the bright light of the street across the rode hung stiffly inert.  By comparison, the musty catacomb of books, with its ghostly percussions, was weird and uncanny.

The little man gave a nervous chuckle.  “Listen, he’s trying to get in!”  I listened.  The rattling became erratic.  Heavy and soft concussions succeeded each other irregularly.  There was something familiar about the variations.  What was it?  My brain chased the rats and mice around and around the cage of my memory till I thought my skull would split.  Suddenly I sensed something behind me, and, with animal fear, wheeled.  A dark and sullen-looking young man was padding slowly down the shop, eyeing us sidelong like a suspicious but watchful dog.

The old man whispered confidentially.  “My nephew.  A clever young electrical engineer.  Quite a genius, but can’t get work.  Like the classics, underappreciated by the mob.”

Electrical!  That was the clue.  The rattling was Morse.  I listened.

“Let me come in,” rapped the window.  “Let me come in. Let me come in,” reiterated over and over again in nervous excitement.  The tone grew into the hysterical pleadings of a frightened child.  “Please, please do let me come in!”

“It’s asking to come in.” Without thinking I also whispered.  “It’s talking in Morse code.  It wants to come in.”

We stared at each other, now marvelling.  The little bookseller’s facial expression changed to pathetic compassion.  He put his head on one side and said, “Now isn’t that sad!”  Let’s let him come in.”  I nodded sympathetically.  He ran up the ladder, and as he opened the window the timorous chattering ceased.

The old book seemed to cuddle into the old man’s breast as he descended.  “Poor old Holberg,” he stroked it soothingly.  “We’ll put you back in your bedroom.”  We returned to the lighted alcove and he laid the book on the table.  I sat under the light feeling rather bewildered and looking up at the thin, eager face swimming between the murk of old bindings and the lamp.

“A customer found a silverfish in him one day, and as I’m very careful about such beasties I sprayed him thoroughly – in case of eggs, you see.  Then I put him out on that ledge to dry and rid him of the smell.  I forgot him when I shut up shop and went upstairs.  But in the night he woke me with that rattling, and, as I’m a light sleeper, I had to come down.  There was no wind, and the window was shut.  I had shut it down on him because of the draught, but now there was no wind.  I took him in and went back to bed.  Soon after a storm burst and the wind blew like fury; but the window did not rattle – it’s too protected by the buildings all round.  See?  It was only him, all right?”

The gnome hugged his logic.

“Next day it was fine and calm, and I lifted him out again.  In five minutes he was rattling away at the window just like he did now.  Wasn’t that prodigious?  I’ve tried him over and over again.  Cruel, cruel, yes; but I wanted to be sure.  And each time the period before he started signalling got shorter and shorter.  And now he rattles Morse, you say?  Fancy an old feller like him knowing Morse.  I know! He must have learned it from a Morse code-book somewhere in the shop.  By Odin and Thor, the books must chat together at night.  It’s extraordinary, don’t you think?”

But I was incapable of thinking.

“You like him, eh?  You’ve got a sympathetic nature and can give him a good home among classics?  Dear, dear, how it must hurt him to be an unread, underappreciated classic – like my nephew,” he whispered as the dark youth passed back along the shop.  “It must be awful not to have work to do or to be unread.” 

I thought so too.

Now I had a window which was loose.  It would be rather intriguing to puzzle the fellows – that gross materialist Smith, for instance.  “How much do you want for it?” I asked.

He glowed.  “Ah, sir, from a man who will read him and give him a good home I only want two pounds ten.”

I looked the book over.  It wasn’t so very old – 1830 – but well bound and in good condition, and I had never seen another copy.  Also there was that supernatural business.  A haunted book!  I pulled out ten schillings.

“I’ll buy it,” I said, “if you’ll take this deposit till I come back later.”

“Certainly, sir, I’ll get you a receipt,” he pattered pleasedly off.

It was almost dark as I came back along that little street.  At the far end a big illuminated sign was saying in words appearing separately, one after another, “Funnell’s for Funerals,” in constant repetition.

“Clever how they do that,” I said to myself – “sort of player-piano cylinder – certain groups of holes make certain words.” I started to laugh; by Odin and Thor, a thought had struck me.

“Here’s the two quid.” I handed over notes to the little innocent old bookseller.

“I’m sure you’ll appreciate him,” he said as he wrapped the book.

“Sure,” I agreed, “and also the genius.  I wonder if he’d come out to my place and do a little electrical job for me?”

“Sure,” replied the gnome, with a bright smile.  “I’m sure he’d do it for a coupla quid.”

How did he know?  His quote was quite pat.

I am told that that gross materialist Smith has a haunted Petronius for which he paid ten guineas.  I can’t say for certain, because he and I don’t speak now.