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A Night on the Moor & Other Tales of Dread
A Night on the Moor & Other Tales of Dread by Robert Murray Gilchrist. Robert Murray Gilchrist (1868-1917) is perhaps best known for his interest in topography, and for his stories set in Derbyshire's Peak District. But he was also a master of mystery and horror, as this richly varied collection shows. If you are looking for a conventional horror story, in which the supernatural element is paramount, try The Crimson Weaver, Dame Inowslad, Witch In-Grain, or A Night on the Moor. If you are more taken with the psychology of the participants, often allied to a fascination with the killing of friends or lovers, then Francis Shackerley, The Noble Courtesan, Althea Swathmore, and My Friend will be right up your street. For humour we are offered the Peakland comedy of The Panicle or A Witch in the Peak. And when it comes to love, there are the tragic and poignant tales we might expect (The Return, The Lost Mistress. The Madness of Betty Hooton), but also the engaging and unusual Bubble Magic - a story of romantic betrayal which hints at a happy ending.
192 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2006
1 person is currently reading
117 people want to read
About the author
R. Murray Gilchrist
45 books8 followersRobert Murray Gilchrist was born in Sheffield, England in 1867. He never married and throughout his life lived mostly in remote places, including the North Derbyshire village of Holmesfield and a remote part of the Peak District.
He began his writing career in 1890 with a novel, Passion the Plaything, and would go on to publish a total of 22 novels, six story collections, four regional interest books, and a play. His stories appeared in many popular periodicals of that era, including The Temple Bar and the decadent journal The Yellow Book. Not much is known about Gilchrist’s personal life, but he is known to have lived for a time with a male companion, and given that Gilchrist never married and sometimes featured homoerotic themes in his work, as in the story ‘My Friend’, it is possible he was homosexual.
Though well known today to connoisseurs of weird and Decadent fiction, Gilchrist’s story collection The Stone Dragon and Other Tragic Romances was generally poorly received by critics on its initial appearance in 1894, and following the book’s failure, Gilchrist chose to write in other genres. It was not until Hugh Lamb began anthologizing some of Gilchrist’s work in the 1970s that he began to be rediscovered. Now he is ranked by many alongside other fin de siècle practitioners of weird fiction, including Vernon Lee, Arthur Machen, and Eric Stenbock and The Stone Dragon is a volume highly sought-after by collectors.
During World War I, Gilchrist was noted for his charitable assistance to Belgian refugees, many of whom attended his funeral after his death in 1917.
-Valancourt Books
He began his writing career in 1890 with a novel, Passion the Plaything, and would go on to publish a total of 22 novels, six story collections, four regional interest books, and a play. His stories appeared in many popular periodicals of that era, including The Temple Bar and the decadent journal The Yellow Book. Not much is known about Gilchrist’s personal life, but he is known to have lived for a time with a male companion, and given that Gilchrist never married and sometimes featured homoerotic themes in his work, as in the story ‘My Friend’, it is possible he was homosexual.
Though well known today to connoisseurs of weird and Decadent fiction, Gilchrist’s story collection The Stone Dragon and Other Tragic Romances was generally poorly received by critics on its initial appearance in 1894, and following the book’s failure, Gilchrist chose to write in other genres. It was not until Hugh Lamb began anthologizing some of Gilchrist’s work in the 1970s that he began to be rediscovered. Now he is ranked by many alongside other fin de siècle practitioners of weird fiction, including Vernon Lee, Arthur Machen, and Eric Stenbock and The Stone Dragon is a volume highly sought-after by collectors.
During World War I, Gilchrist was noted for his charitable assistance to Belgian refugees, many of whom attended his funeral after his death in 1917.
-Valancourt Books
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
October 31, 2014
A NIGHT ON THE MOOR AND OTHER TALES OF DREAD, by R. Murray Gilchrist
One might call them love stories, except that the emotions of the characters — so frequently fierce and unhealthy — provide much of the horror. Often Gilchrist dwells on the psychology of his characters more than on the actual events, which can take place with devastating suddenness once they begin. Here we find love as a type of emotional enslavement, love that brings pain, jealousy that destroys, and a common theme that runs through the majority of the tales: love and death, friendship and death.
Many of the stories in this volume qualify as fantasy — tales of ghosts, basilisks, and vampiric women — but the settings, plots, and characters are so fantastic themselves, one almost fails to notice that a supernatural element has crept in.
There is, occasionally, something Lovecraftian about the stories — "The Crimson Weaver" is a good example— with touches of Dunsany and Smith. There are some, like "Witch In-Grain," where the style is even more archaic. But in most of the tales Gilchrist maintains his own style, his own voice, highly ornate by modern standards, yet in the very excess of the language lies one more disturbing element, which highlights the sensual decadence of the stories themselves. Gilchrist was fond of contrasting beauty at its most sublime — beauty in woman, beauty in nature — with elements that were subtlely grotesque. Sometimes it is the passion itself that is grotesque, as love becomes an agony, a madness.
Even friendship between his characters (especially between men and women) can be tremendously intense. Passion may come about through a meeting of the minds, a shared interest in art, philosophy, religion. When this happens loves seems to exist on a higher plane, but only for a time, because always the seductions of the flesh creep in. And Gilchrist's heroes have a tendency to be transported by love simply because the beloved is divinely beautiful, not because she is inherently loveable.
It all sounds frightfully overwrought and sensational, doesn't it? And at times it is. Yet there is a fascination, too, in the elegance and luxuriance of the language, the fervor and the violence.
For those with a taste for decadent Victorian/Edwardian horror, I recommend this book very highly, though with the suggestion that the stories be read one or two at a time, rather than overloading modern sensibilities by reading too many at once. If it were possible, I'd give this book 4.5 stars.
One might call them love stories, except that the emotions of the characters — so frequently fierce and unhealthy — provide much of the horror. Often Gilchrist dwells on the psychology of his characters more than on the actual events, which can take place with devastating suddenness once they begin. Here we find love as a type of emotional enslavement, love that brings pain, jealousy that destroys, and a common theme that runs through the majority of the tales: love and death, friendship and death.
Many of the stories in this volume qualify as fantasy — tales of ghosts, basilisks, and vampiric women — but the settings, plots, and characters are so fantastic themselves, one almost fails to notice that a supernatural element has crept in.
There is, occasionally, something Lovecraftian about the stories — "The Crimson Weaver" is a good example— with touches of Dunsany and Smith. There are some, like "Witch In-Grain," where the style is even more archaic. But in most of the tales Gilchrist maintains his own style, his own voice, highly ornate by modern standards, yet in the very excess of the language lies one more disturbing element, which highlights the sensual decadence of the stories themselves. Gilchrist was fond of contrasting beauty at its most sublime — beauty in woman, beauty in nature — with elements that were subtlely grotesque. Sometimes it is the passion itself that is grotesque, as love becomes an agony, a madness.
Even friendship between his characters (especially between men and women) can be tremendously intense. Passion may come about through a meeting of the minds, a shared interest in art, philosophy, religion. When this happens loves seems to exist on a higher plane, but only for a time, because always the seductions of the flesh creep in. And Gilchrist's heroes have a tendency to be transported by love simply because the beloved is divinely beautiful, not because she is inherently loveable.
It all sounds frightfully overwrought and sensational, doesn't it? And at times it is. Yet there is a fascination, too, in the elegance and luxuriance of the language, the fervor and the violence.
For those with a taste for decadent Victorian/Edwardian horror, I recommend this book very highly, though with the suggestion that the stories be read one or two at a time, rather than overloading modern sensibilities by reading too many at once. If it were possible, I'd give this book 4.5 stars.
November 22, 2021
Ghost stories bought in Whitby. It is in the Wordsworth series that is cheap and easy to find, but we’d never seen this volume in London. Mel read it at bedtime and told me I absolutely needed to read it as it was wonderful and exactly the sort of thing I like. Mel was, of course, correct. Gilchrist is one of the best authors I discovered this year (2007).
---
from Witch In-Grain:
"Of late Michal had been much engrossed in the reading of the black-letter books that Philosopher Bale brought from France. As you know I am no Latinist--though once she had been earnest in her desire to instruct me; but the open air had ever greater charms for me than the dry precincts of a library. So I grudged the time she spent apart, and throughout the spring I would have been all day at her side, talking such foolery as lovers use. But ever she must steal away and hide herself amongst dead volumes."
---
from Witch In-Grain:
"Of late Michal had been much engrossed in the reading of the black-letter books that Philosopher Bale brought from France. As you know I am no Latinist--though once she had been earnest in her desire to instruct me; but the open air had ever greater charms for me than the dry precincts of a library. So I grudged the time she spent apart, and throughout the spring I would have been all day at her side, talking such foolery as lovers use. But ever she must steal away and hide herself amongst dead volumes."
November 19, 2022
Збірка вікторіанських жахливчиків від напівзабутого нині автора. Читала і очами душі моєї бачила, як людина хотіла, щоб і друкуватися у пристойних виданнях, і еротики побільше втулити. Вийшло трохи ані туди, ані сюди, але автору співчуваю. І не назвала б ці оповіді жахливчиками, це швидше щось з альтернативної історії Британії, де є і дивні аристократи, і білки з блискучими зубами (це я цитую), і фейрі ще дивніші прориваються, але все воно не дуже виразно і таким витинанковим письмом, що трубадури темного стилю вдавились би від заздрощів. Сподобалась лише "Шарлахова ткаля", абсолютно спокійно-моторошна штука з артуріанськими мотивами.
December 24, 2012
It's not often I find a book unreadable, but this anthology of Victorian/Edwardian-era ghost stories is exactly that. I bought it on good faith as part of Wordsworth's excellent 'Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural', which has previously offered a fantastic collection of long-forgotten works.
From the outset it quickly becomes apparent that there's no 'horror' here. Instead, these are whimsical romances and tragedies, often uninvolving fine, upstanding bachelors falling foul of wicked women, female ghosts and sinister witches. Most of the stories have the same plot and it feels like the author is essentially writing the same story over and again, changing the character names each time.
I like the era these stories were written in, I like the subject matter and I like the localisation (all the stories are set in the Peak District). But the thing that kills the collection is the purple prose. Gilchrist never uses one word where a dozen will do, and each and every story is filled with a superfluity of language that makes even a three-page effort a real chore to read through.
I ploughed on through half the anthology, hoping things would improve, but if anything the stories get worse. Gilchrist waffles on and on and his language is admittedly beauteous in places, but it would better suit poetry than the short story format. And before long you realise he actually has very little to say. A guy falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a ghost, or somebody pines away. There's a great deal of pining, and barely any incident.
A book where the cover is a darn sight better than the contents - and for that reason it will go back on the shelf, never to be picked up again.
From the outset it quickly becomes apparent that there's no 'horror' here. Instead, these are whimsical romances and tragedies, often uninvolving fine, upstanding bachelors falling foul of wicked women, female ghosts and sinister witches. Most of the stories have the same plot and it feels like the author is essentially writing the same story over and again, changing the character names each time.
I like the era these stories were written in, I like the subject matter and I like the localisation (all the stories are set in the Peak District). But the thing that kills the collection is the purple prose. Gilchrist never uses one word where a dozen will do, and each and every story is filled with a superfluity of language that makes even a three-page effort a real chore to read through.
I ploughed on through half the anthology, hoping things would improve, but if anything the stories get worse. Gilchrist waffles on and on and his language is admittedly beauteous in places, but it would better suit poetry than the short story format. And before long you realise he actually has very little to say. A guy falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a ghost, or somebody pines away. There's a great deal of pining, and barely any incident.
A book where the cover is a darn sight better than the contents - and for that reason it will go back on the shelf, never to be picked up again.
September 21, 2008
This would be a welcome book if it did not duplicate the exact contents of Ash-Tree Press's collection of Gilchrist's work, and it is extremely unlikely that this could have been a coincidence since 1) some of these stories had to be located by poring over rare periodicals from which they had not hitherto been reprinted, and b) the contents page follows the exact order of the Ash-Tree Press edition, including an appendix containing the exact excerpt from Gilchrist's work in dialect.
December 19, 2020
R. Murray Gilchrist's florid decadent prose style can be overstuffed in that way emblematic of the excesses of the 1890s, but the scintillating decadent elements contrast profoundly with the brooding ragged scenery, creating an impression of the fleeting twinkle of ephemera being smothered by the infinitely unknowable moors. Many of the stories do not feature overt supernatural horror, but they all have the atmosphere of otherworldy dread, and the repetitive narratives of doomed lovers murdering one another give the semblance of a repeated ritual ringing throughout the landscape. Lovely book. Worth it for fans of Machen, Shiel and Stenbock's contemporaneous works as an artefact of 1890s wyrd writing.
October 24, 2020
As always, the Wordsworth library has done the world of horror a great service by collecting rare masterpieces into an affordable package. While fewer than half the tales collected here are especially good, but the best are as darkly strange as anything in the Weird canon: an essential collection of an obscure figure.
October 30, 2023
This was a collection of 'classic' horror which I didn't find particularly engaging - I have a low tolerance for antique horror - I think M.R. James is wonderful - most others like, Aickman, leave me cold. Those who like this stuff will enjoy it for the rest of you I would suggest giving it a wide berth.
October 29, 2020
When I started reading this short story collection I knew I was going to sit down and write a review on it. I went to Gooodreads to check out some reviews, I noticed that some people didn’t like this collection at all. They said that the stories are alike and despite being part of the Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery and Supernatural collection, it didn’t hold up to the chilling aspect of the other books in this specific collection, such as Le Fanu’s Madam Crowl’s Ghost & Other Stories or A.R & R.H Benson’s The Temple of Death and other Ghost Stories, which truly have frightening elements in them. But in my review, I will give my honest opinion on Gilchrist’s short story collection and why I gave it a 5 stars rating.
.
.
Let’s start briefly with the author himself. Robert Murray Gilchrist (1867 - 1917) was an English novelist who published some 100 short stories, 22 novels, 6 story collections, and 4 non-fiction books.
But (and this is what matters in this review) he is best known for his decadent and Gothic short fiction. And this aspect of his writing is the reason why I am giving you this review.
.
.
To start with, the name of the collection doesn’t imply any sense of horror or supernatural activities (mainly ghostly). Instead, it’s pretty much rooted in feelings such as melancholy, dread, sorrow, mourning, anguish…etc. which is, in turn, a bit reminiscent of the decadent movement mentioned above. I am planning on linking this latter to Gilchrist’s style of writing and stories and write something on that in the future.
.
.
Now let’s get the stories’ structure out of the way. When you read all of them in one sitting, you will definitely notice that they have pretty much the same premise. The majority of which feature a couple and their romantic tantrums, the setting is pretty much the same (an eerie room or woods or what have you), and the ‘frightening’ elements are pretty subtle. Most reviewers didn’t like the repetitiveness of Gilchrist’s stories but let me tell you something; I am in the middle of my project of finishing all of Poe’s works. I am done with his poems and I am trying to finish reading his short stories and I noticed that some of them are also quite repetitive (at least plot-wise), especially those deemed ‘romantic’. So, that’s kinda why I didn’t mind the repetitive nature of Gilchrist’s stories. Besides, as I am in love with the Romantic movement and anything remotely romantic, his stories provided me with enough material to be used (or at least to be inspired by) in my own writing. That’s all I have to say about the stories’ structure apart from one thing that is closely tied to the decadent writing style; and that is the fever dream-like atmosphere the readers are thrown in.
The ‘eerie’ aspect makes you feel like you’ve entered a fantastical world that strangely sounds like reality but seen from the lens of authors such as Wilde or Poe. Based on that, I see Gilchrist’s style of writing as being a mix of both Poe and Wilde which in turn makes it feel like a fever dream. Strangely enough, when I was reading the stories I was reminded of 60s/70s indie movies; you know the ones whose clips are used as music videos for indie songs on YouTube. The overall strangeness and sometimes absurd scenes added here and there make it feel like such, at least in my eyes.
Now let me give some examples that, hopefully, illustrate what I talked about above.
First, we have some beautifully written descriptions that are reminiscent of eeriness and ‘decadence’:
.
“The world was glad, but drowsy withal; the songs of the birds were deadened, the chirpings of the grasshoppers less shrill, and even the shallow canal in the pleasaunce [...] exhaled a sleepy odor.”
.
“A copy of Denis Diderot’s Religieuse lay on the little table. A light came glimmering at the end of the vista before me: it grew and grew, and the moon uplifted herself waist-high above the trees. And when I watched her thus far, I returned to my nun and reached page twenty-two of the second volume, where I read the following sentence: “After a few flourishes she played some things, foolish, wild, and incoherent as her own ideas, but through all the defects of her execution I saw she had a touch infinitely superior to mine.” then in the shaded window-seat I fell asleep…”
.
“Outside the horses plunged and snorted: a shrunken postilion swaying at the neck of the off-leader. In the hollows of the road lay sheets of mist, and the moonlight turned them into floods. A long train of startled owls left the hollow sycamores and passed hooting… hooting… down the glade.”
.
“There is nothing in the world more sad than a Lover that’s dying. Profoundest melancholy comes when the gaudily-hued leaves drop from the parent boughs in Autumn, and leave the trunk gaunt, bare, and unlovely. Those trees are beautifullest whose fruit hangs bright and cheering through the Winter. but alack! they are rare indeed.
How the groaning branches weep when they see their offspring, yellow, crimson, and death-colour, lying beneath them, or carried off, dancing blithely, by every little breeze, to shrivel and decay as Nature demands, on some alien soil!”
.
Now that’s done with the descriptions, I wanted to include some sentences which, in my eyes, show how the author knows how to use words in such a beautiful way. Sentences such as: “Even when absent you magnetize me.” or “through him she had tasted of intellectual pleasures unknown before their meeting.” And as for the last example, I wanted to add a short passage which sounds very romantic to me, here it is: “She raised the lid of her cedar desk and took his letters from their nest amid dried rose-leaves. Then she sank back to her favourite chair, leaning almost in the same posture as in the miniature. The collection was unfastened and placed in her lap, and soon, with a few more sighs, she raised the sheets for a last reading.” I was going to add more sentences but they’d sound off outside of the plot.
.
.
Fear not because we are nearing the end of this review, my friends. As you may have noticed above, the reasons why I gave this collection a 5 stars rating is pretty obvious. If it weren’t for the beautiful and poetical writing, I’d have given it 3 stars. All and all, I’d recommend reading this collection if you love beautiful and sometimes “weird” and “confusing” prose as much as I do. Hope this review wasn’t very long or tiresome to get through; I am not used to writing book reviews but I'll try to do it more often because I had a lot of fun wording my thoughts and opinions on this particular piece.
.
.
Let’s start briefly with the author himself. Robert Murray Gilchrist (1867 - 1917) was an English novelist who published some 100 short stories, 22 novels, 6 story collections, and 4 non-fiction books.
But (and this is what matters in this review) he is best known for his decadent and Gothic short fiction. And this aspect of his writing is the reason why I am giving you this review.
.
.
To start with, the name of the collection doesn’t imply any sense of horror or supernatural activities (mainly ghostly). Instead, it’s pretty much rooted in feelings such as melancholy, dread, sorrow, mourning, anguish…etc. which is, in turn, a bit reminiscent of the decadent movement mentioned above. I am planning on linking this latter to Gilchrist’s style of writing and stories and write something on that in the future.
.
.
Now let’s get the stories’ structure out of the way. When you read all of them in one sitting, you will definitely notice that they have pretty much the same premise. The majority of which feature a couple and their romantic tantrums, the setting is pretty much the same (an eerie room or woods or what have you), and the ‘frightening’ elements are pretty subtle. Most reviewers didn’t like the repetitiveness of Gilchrist’s stories but let me tell you something; I am in the middle of my project of finishing all of Poe’s works. I am done with his poems and I am trying to finish reading his short stories and I noticed that some of them are also quite repetitive (at least plot-wise), especially those deemed ‘romantic’. So, that’s kinda why I didn’t mind the repetitive nature of Gilchrist’s stories. Besides, as I am in love with the Romantic movement and anything remotely romantic, his stories provided me with enough material to be used (or at least to be inspired by) in my own writing. That’s all I have to say about the stories’ structure apart from one thing that is closely tied to the decadent writing style; and that is the fever dream-like atmosphere the readers are thrown in.
The ‘eerie’ aspect makes you feel like you’ve entered a fantastical world that strangely sounds like reality but seen from the lens of authors such as Wilde or Poe. Based on that, I see Gilchrist’s style of writing as being a mix of both Poe and Wilde which in turn makes it feel like a fever dream. Strangely enough, when I was reading the stories I was reminded of 60s/70s indie movies; you know the ones whose clips are used as music videos for indie songs on YouTube. The overall strangeness and sometimes absurd scenes added here and there make it feel like such, at least in my eyes.
Now let me give some examples that, hopefully, illustrate what I talked about above.
First, we have some beautifully written descriptions that are reminiscent of eeriness and ‘decadence’:
.
“The world was glad, but drowsy withal; the songs of the birds were deadened, the chirpings of the grasshoppers less shrill, and even the shallow canal in the pleasaunce [...] exhaled a sleepy odor.”
.
“A copy of Denis Diderot’s Religieuse lay on the little table. A light came glimmering at the end of the vista before me: it grew and grew, and the moon uplifted herself waist-high above the trees. And when I watched her thus far, I returned to my nun and reached page twenty-two of the second volume, where I read the following sentence: “After a few flourishes she played some things, foolish, wild, and incoherent as her own ideas, but through all the defects of her execution I saw she had a touch infinitely superior to mine.” then in the shaded window-seat I fell asleep…”
.
“Outside the horses plunged and snorted: a shrunken postilion swaying at the neck of the off-leader. In the hollows of the road lay sheets of mist, and the moonlight turned them into floods. A long train of startled owls left the hollow sycamores and passed hooting… hooting… down the glade.”
.
“There is nothing in the world more sad than a Lover that’s dying. Profoundest melancholy comes when the gaudily-hued leaves drop from the parent boughs in Autumn, and leave the trunk gaunt, bare, and unlovely. Those trees are beautifullest whose fruit hangs bright and cheering through the Winter. but alack! they are rare indeed.
How the groaning branches weep when they see their offspring, yellow, crimson, and death-colour, lying beneath them, or carried off, dancing blithely, by every little breeze, to shrivel and decay as Nature demands, on some alien soil!”
.
Now that’s done with the descriptions, I wanted to include some sentences which, in my eyes, show how the author knows how to use words in such a beautiful way. Sentences such as: “Even when absent you magnetize me.” or “through him she had tasted of intellectual pleasures unknown before their meeting.” And as for the last example, I wanted to add a short passage which sounds very romantic to me, here it is: “She raised the lid of her cedar desk and took his letters from their nest amid dried rose-leaves. Then she sank back to her favourite chair, leaning almost in the same posture as in the miniature. The collection was unfastened and placed in her lap, and soon, with a few more sighs, she raised the sheets for a last reading.” I was going to add more sentences but they’d sound off outside of the plot.
.
.
Fear not because we are nearing the end of this review, my friends. As you may have noticed above, the reasons why I gave this collection a 5 stars rating is pretty obvious. If it weren’t for the beautiful and poetical writing, I’d have given it 3 stars. All and all, I’d recommend reading this collection if you love beautiful and sometimes “weird” and “confusing” prose as much as I do. Hope this review wasn’t very long or tiresome to get through; I am not used to writing book reviews but I'll try to do it more often because I had a lot of fun wording my thoughts and opinions on this particular piece.
April 29, 2024
The Crimson Weaver • (1895)
The Stone Dragon • (1894) *
The Lover's Ordeal • (1905)
The Manuscript of Francis Shackerley • (1894) *
Midsummer Madness • (1894) *
The Return • (1892) *
Dame Inowslad • (1893) *
The Lost Mistress • (1894) *
Witch In-Grain • (1893) *
The Basilisk • (1892) *
The Noble Courtesan • (1894) *
Roxana Runs Lunatick • (1894) *
The Grotto at Ravensdale • (1903)
Excerpts from Witherton's Journal: Also a Letter of Crystalla's • (1894) *
My Friend • (1894) *
The Madness of Betty Hooton • (1903)
Bubble Magic • (1893)
Dryas and Lady Greenleaf • (1903)
The Priest's Pavan • (1903)
A Night on the Moor • (1900)
The Pageant of Ghosts • (1893) *
The Panicle • (1895)
A Witch in the Peak • (1926)
*read previously in 'The Stone Dragon' collection.
The Stone Dragon • (1894) *
The Lover's Ordeal • (1905)
The Manuscript of Francis Shackerley • (1894) *
Midsummer Madness • (1894) *
The Return • (1892) *
Dame Inowslad • (1893) *
The Lost Mistress • (1894) *
Witch In-Grain • (1893) *
The Basilisk • (1892) *
The Noble Courtesan • (1894) *
Roxana Runs Lunatick • (1894) *
The Grotto at Ravensdale • (1903)
Excerpts from Witherton's Journal: Also a Letter of Crystalla's • (1894) *
My Friend • (1894) *
The Madness of Betty Hooton • (1903)
Bubble Magic • (1893)
Dryas and Lady Greenleaf • (1903)
The Priest's Pavan • (1903)
A Night on the Moor • (1900)
The Pageant of Ghosts • (1893) *
The Panicle • (1895)
A Witch in the Peak • (1926)
*read previously in 'The Stone Dragon' collection.
September 21, 2018
Gilchrist's stories are a unique fusion of Decadent aestheticism with the classic late Victorian/Edwardian supernatural short story.
The majority of this Wordsworth edition is culled from Gilchrist's first short story collection "The Stone Dragon and Other Tragic Romances" from 1894. Admittedly, similar themes and ideas are repeated. But I found myself still interested and enjoying each of Gilchrist's new 'takes' on femmes fatales or doomed love affairs. "The Lover's Ordeal" is a very cool and haunting variation on the traditional vampire tale, and "The Return" is poignant and deliciously dark despite its simplicity.
As readers make their way deeper into this particular edition, the latter third is comprised of stories from another of Gilchrist's collections called "Lords and Ladies" (1903). These tales feature a more disciplined style, and are therefore a bit more in keeping with traditional supernatural fiction from the turn of the last century. For example, "The Grotto at Ravensdale" and "A Night on the Moor" are excellent and memorable stories steeped in atmosphere and (as the title suggests) dread.
The majority of this Wordsworth edition is culled from Gilchrist's first short story collection "The Stone Dragon and Other Tragic Romances" from 1894. Admittedly, similar themes and ideas are repeated. But I found myself still interested and enjoying each of Gilchrist's new 'takes' on femmes fatales or doomed love affairs. "The Lover's Ordeal" is a very cool and haunting variation on the traditional vampire tale, and "The Return" is poignant and deliciously dark despite its simplicity.
As readers make their way deeper into this particular edition, the latter third is comprised of stories from another of Gilchrist's collections called "Lords and Ladies" (1903). These tales feature a more disciplined style, and are therefore a bit more in keeping with traditional supernatural fiction from the turn of the last century. For example, "The Grotto at Ravensdale" and "A Night on the Moor" are excellent and memorable stories steeped in atmosphere and (as the title suggests) dread.
April 30, 2023
This was not what i expected.
I got this book because I was impressed by the stories "The Return" and "The Basilisk." They were not your typical Victorian horror stories.
Neither was the rest of this book. Gilchrist might have lived in the Victorian Era, but his stories mostly seemed to be set in the early 1700s. They weren't all ghost or horror stories either. Some of them might be classified as "cruel stories," and most of them are fueled by what happens when relations between men and women go wrong. Still, they were very interesting and thought-provoking. I'm definitely glad I read this one.
Besides the two stories I already mentioned, I liked "The Writings of Althea Swarthmoor," which isn't horror but has an Ambrose Bierce-like sensibility. "The Grotto at Ravensdale" was a good ghost story. Two more good ones were "The Madness of Betty Hooton," was not a horror story but a cruel story with a real punch, and "The Priest's Pavan," which made me think of "Masque of Red Death."
I got this book because I was impressed by the stories "The Return" and "The Basilisk." They were not your typical Victorian horror stories.
Neither was the rest of this book. Gilchrist might have lived in the Victorian Era, but his stories mostly seemed to be set in the early 1700s. They weren't all ghost or horror stories either. Some of them might be classified as "cruel stories," and most of them are fueled by what happens when relations between men and women go wrong. Still, they were very interesting and thought-provoking. I'm definitely glad I read this one.
Besides the two stories I already mentioned, I liked "The Writings of Althea Swarthmoor," which isn't horror but has an Ambrose Bierce-like sensibility. "The Grotto at Ravensdale" was a good ghost story. Two more good ones were "The Madness of Betty Hooton," was not a horror story but a cruel story with a real punch, and "The Priest's Pavan," which made me think of "Masque of Red Death."
June 1, 2022
One and a half stars: To be fair, I only managed to slog my way through the first of the 22 stories, but decided enough was enough. The language is antiquated and although you can infer their meaning from the text, many words were unfamiliar to me and stopped the narrative (i.e.: lambent, adminglings, riband, and some others possibly familiar to readers around 1900). I was reminded a bit of Lovecraft, so devotees of his work might enjoy this.
June 18, 2019
An under rated master of weird tale where the supernatural and the psychological are equally at play. I would definitely recommend this to fans of writers such as Robert Aickmen, Arthur Machen and Lord Dunsany
August 27, 2023
Some of the stories in it was good however not my sort of stories has a lot of old type words in it would probably be a really good read for someone who prefers tbis type of book it just wasn't for me it didn't keep me overly intrigued.
December 31, 2018
I only read this part
"A Witch in the Peak"
"A Witch in the Peak"
July 20, 2022
Gothic and florid language but not too purple-prose.
Haunting and atmospheric tales of dread, despair and lost love.
A classic Gothic gem.
Haunting and atmospheric tales of dread, despair and lost love.
A classic Gothic gem.
November 22, 2012
I found this lovely collection of short stories in a cheap wordsworth edition while we were at Whitby. I have to say it was probably the best collection of short stories I've read since Dunsany. While a collection of ghost and supernatural tales I wouldn't really call them horror stories, though they did have some horrific elements. There was lots of romance and tragedy. They reminded me a little of adult fairy tales except that they were written in the Late Victorian/Edwardian era. But I would definitly recommend them. Except for the last two stories that were added as an "appendix" and had the characters all talking a phonetic dialect which was rather annoying, but the main collection of stories were all wonderful.
May 26, 2012
I took this book with me to Dartmoor when I went there a few years ago and read it in my hotel at bedtime
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