Lost Estates

by Mark Valentine

“I am, and ever have been, a great reader . . . a library cormorant. I am deep in all out of the way books.” – S. T. Coleridge (1796)

The twelve stories in Lost Estates offer antiquarian mysteries, book-collecting adventures, and otherworldly encounters. Mark Valentine’s amiable scholars and wanderers explore lonely and mysterious landscapes, places of legend, and secret history. Though drawing on the traditions of English supernatural fiction, these stories also strike out into unusual terrain.

Mark Valentine’s short stories have been selected for the Ghosts & Scholars books edited by Rosemary Pardoe, Best British Short Stories edited by Nicholas Royle, Best New Horror edited by Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Books of Ghost Stories edited by Richard Dalby, and many other anthologies.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

201 pages, Hardcover

Published May 23, 2024

About the author

Mark Valentine is an English author, biographer and editor.

Valentine’s short stories have been published by a number of small presses and in anthologies since the 1980s, and the exploits of his series character, "The Connoisseur", an occult detective, were published as The Collected Connoisseur in 2010.

As a biographer, Valentine has published a life of Arthur Machen in 1985 (Seren Press), and a study of Sarban, Time, A Falconer (Tartarus Press), is published in 2010. He has also written numerous articles for the Book and Magazine Collector magazine, and introductions for various books, including editions of work by Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saki, J. Meade Falkner and others.

Valentine also edits Wormwood (Tartarus Press), a journal dedicated to fantastic, supernatural and decadent literature, and has also edited anthologies, including The Werewolf Pack (Wordsworth, 2008) and The Black Veil (Wordsworth, 2008).

Reviews

[Forrest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not shy about my opinion of Mark Valentine as one of the best writers of strange tales penning today. Or maybe he's "quilling," yes, that seems more like his protagonists, most of them people who you can't help but like, from the book collector of "Worse Things Than Serpents" to the four quirky mystics of "The Readers of the Sands" to the curious amateur historian of "The Fifth Moon," his protagonists are just so darned likeable. I think this intensifies their rather strange encounters (some of them downright horrific). I'd like to think that they reflect aspects of the author's personality, but you know where that gets us when assessing fiction. And, having never met him, I can't say if these are projections of his inner life or not, but if not, he does have a convincing way or portraying people, like myself, whose curiosity can get them in a bit of trouble, innocent as they may be. And perhaps that's why their various discoveries and predicaments carry such a sense of immediacy. I could easily see myself, or people I know, blissfully blundering into situations with the beyond that they can barely comprehend, let alone deal with in any kind of meaningful way. These are not stories of highly-competent detectives who flippantly "figure it all out". If you want that, I'd point you to Valentine and Howard's excellent The Collected Connoisseur or his Herald of the Hidden . No, these are not the same as the highly-competent Connoisseur or Ralph Tyler, these are rather ordinary people with strange interests thrust into extraordinary circumstances. And I am all for it. My notes for each story (with some post-note-taking embellishment as always) are here presented:

"A Chess Game at Michaelmas" is classic Mark Valentine, but with an air of folk magic, like sage hanging heavy in the air, a consecration to a sort of tale that Valentine has avoided, or at least minimized, in the past. It's a new "look," but with the same rigor and steady hand that Valentine practices so well. The horrific element is quick, a flash in the pan, but it turns the tale completely, capturing the reader.

Valentine is a connoisseur (note the lack of capital leading letter - see above) of rare and strange books, and "Worse Things Than Serpents" has this avocation on clear display. The wandering narrator enters a bookstore called "Brazen Serpent Books" wherein he finds a rare book, not a grimoire or antique tome, but a book that piques his interest. His presence at the bookshop, in turn, piques the interest of something else. Something he doesn't want to take an interest in him. No one would . . .

How to place my finger on "Fortunes Told: Fresh Samphire"? I can't do it. I'm reminded of a recent substack post by Matt Cardin about the need for mystery in writing. I told him he's gonna love this Robert Aickman guy I heard about. This story is much the same. A mystery. But not a mystery to be solved, a mystery to be savored. Let the prose poetry wash over you and wander for awhile. But don't get lost along the way.

As I read "The House of Flame," I kept thinking "this sounds like it was almost lifted directly from Machen's Hill of Dreams," only to find that the story was written for a volume in homage to Arthur Machen. I have to admire that it even matched Machen stylistically; no easy feat. But then I ask, for the first time ever, "did Valentine do anything new here"? Maybe not. But to be blunt, I don't care. This is still a worthy and well-crafted tale, and maybe it will lead others down the Machen road.

"The Seventh Card," like its protagonist, ambles along at a slow pace, languidly moving, then melding with a soft sense of the strange, not sudden or harsh, but gently enveloping him (and us) into a softly spoken, but inevitably odd new reality.

I'm not fond of the title "And Maybe the Parakeet Was Correct," but I am quite fond of the story. A side-passage into sports journalism leads to a side-passage into a sport that has no heroes, only villains. The stakes here might be much higher than your standard football match and there is no willing audience and no cheering. On the contrary, no one wants to be a part of this match, though some must. If you've ever walked down the wrong alley in the wrong neighborhood - and I have done this many times in my travels - you'll relate to the awkwardness and dull sense of background dread in this story.

"Laughter Ever After" strikes a hopeful tone for a book collector's story. And it's set in Biggleswade, not far from where I lived in England. It's on the dull side, but that's kind of the whole point of the story.

"The Readers of the Sands" is a strange, yet subtle tale, the sort of story that balances in a razor, but never falls one way or another. It is a quiet tale of four individuals, each with an affinity for sand, each with their own insights and talents, all of them distantly cognizant of something Other in the shifting patterns, something sentient and, perhaps, inimical to them, individually and collectively. I think this story, surprisingly, has stuck in my head the most out of all of the stories in this volume. It was one of the least horrific of the stories, or perhaps one of the more "triumphant" stories, but this contrasts rather sharply with the strange ouvre of the tale, a sort of, well, shifting, slithering something that underlies . . . well, everything. Maybe it's the ontological questions that arise long after the story is read that have captured my lingering attention. I shall have to go read it again and again, as there's something expansive beyond just the events portrayed here. Something . . . I don't know . . . just . . . more.

What starts as a dry, treatise on pub signs and their origins slips from the academic to the folksy to the downright hallucinatory. This is a path that Valentine sometimes embarks on, but doesn't always finish the journey. Here, I am glad to say, we are plunged into phantasmagoric visions that might drive the bookish seeker after fact and data completely over the edge of madness. I was happy to dive off that cliff and swim in strange waters.

I suppose every short fiction collection has one - that previously-unpublished piece with an amazing title and mysterious premise that just doesn't quite connect with the reader. "Lost Estates" was that for me. A "minor piece" as the literati say. It just didn't jive with the rest of the collection, which is strange, given the story is about the creation of music, at it's heart, maybe even ironic, if unintended.

The next tale, "The End of Alpha Street," has the signature marks of Valentines work that I so love: a warmth of character, a hint of witty humor, a fascination with the outre and the neglected sides of life, and a mystery left mysterious. The story is eerie and yet so human; the juxtaposition pulling the reader in, even while alarms are going off in your head. But is there really need to be alarmed? Maybe.

Take "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and add ten layers of sinister intent. James was just scratching the surface, but Valentine goes all in, even if his protagonist is incredulous. If you think King John wasn't evil, your naivete won't save you. This is folk horror taken to the next level by Valentine's deft hand. A nod to James, but a story that is completely Valentine; well, outside of a sprinkling of The Bard's work. Five stars for "The Fifth Moon"!

I can't end without mentioning the absolutely beautiful presentation here. The dust jacket is, obviously, striking, but strip that thing off for a minute and just admire the even-more-striking hardcover. The aesthetic of this book is complex in its simplicity. Swan River keeps producing elegant hardcovers in limited editions that one must keep one's eye on, lest they sell out and you are left with a gaping hole on your bookshelf that could have been filled with a true gem. I've regretted missing more than one Swan River title, and I plan on snatching them up more often. If you're on the fence, splurge!

[John Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Valentine’s third book with Swan River Press takes a different tack to the previous two collections, Selected Stories and Seventeen Stories, which focused on middle Europe between the wars. Lost Estates gathers stories by Valentine that share in common various aspects of folk horror, a genre that has a long and honourable tradition in England, and he manages very successfully to bring fresh perspectives to that tradition.

Perhaps the best pieces in this collection are also the longest, A Chess Game at Michaelmas and The Fifth Moon, by virtue of the fact that there is more room for setting the scene and building tension, something Valentine excels at.

In A Chess Game at Michaelmas, a researcher into local variations of the custom of the peppercorn rent visits a crumbling Georgian manor in the English countryside to interview the current owner about the so-called rent on the property that was set by the King in the distant past. A peppercorn rent is a nominal annual fee or obligation that essentially hands the property over to the occupant for almost nothing. Of course, in this instance the fee or obligation, which comes due while the researcher is visiting the manor, turns out to be far more than almost nothing.

The Fifth Moon is an absolutely fascinating look at the loss of the amassed treasure of King John, an event that took place on October 12th, 1216, when a train of wagons containing a vast array of jewels and cash and other valuables was taken by a sudden flood in a marshy estuary called The Wash as it attempted to make a crossing from King’s Lynn to Sutton.

A writer and photographer visit the area in order to gather material and photos for a book to be published as part of a series called “Mysteries of History”. As they investigate the circumstances leading up the event and try to determine the exact location of the wagon train when it was swept away, a difficult task given that much of the land in the area has been reclaimed from the estuary in the last hundred years or so, they interview local self-proclaimed experts on what they think happened and where and we begin to suspect that what has been traditionally regarded as treasure may have been something of a more sinister nature.

Other standout stories in this collection include Worse Things Than Serpents, where a man picks up an unpriced book in an abandoned ramshackle bookshop in the wilds of Norfolk and leaves a promissory note to the effect that he will pay whatever price is due, Fortunes Told: Fresh Samphire, a by turns surreally-written piece wherein a man ponders the disappearance of an acquaintance from his cottage by the sea and its possible or quasi-sequel The Readers of the Sands, and The Seventh Card, about a man trying to determine the identity of someone who keeps sending him strange and mysterious Christmas Cards.

At all instances, Valentine paints a picture of a landscape redolent of mystery and linked via a thin veil to a heritage of ancient wisdom and arcane lore, even when the story takes place in a city, as in And maybe the parakeet was correct and The End of Alpha Street. His sense of place is astonishingly well realised and many of the stories have at their heart a nugget of real history, which sent me off on my own personal quests for more information, as in, for example, The House of Flame, about public reaction to the death of Charles George Gordon in Khartoum in 1885.

Highly recommended.

[Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Valentine's collection of short stories, Lost Estates (2024) is bookended by two long tales that begin with journeys through an England abundant in history and arcana and ultimately end in the supernatural. A Chess Game at Michaelmas, is a strong opener, and invites us to a dilapidated mansion as its narrator explores local variants on historical peppercorn rents, with the unusual ancient arrangement on this mansion, collected during the visit.

The niche interest here is exemplary of Valentine’s narrators. They are antiquarian in their motivations, and the stories see them single-mindedly in pursuit of lost works, personal superstitions, or picking at the history of English inn signs. Indeed, in the latter (The Understanding of the Signs) what begins as an exploration of said signs soon slips beyond the veneer of reality to find a deeper resonance, where both ‘understanding’ and ‘signs’ find new light.

The borders of reality, as per the influence of Arthur Machen, are where Valentine pitches his tales. The House of Flame, is a title not unlike Machen’s more famous works, and indeed it’s a biographical take on the Welsh mystic, imagining, by way of the death of General Gordon (a somewhat forgotten example of British derring-do), how the young writer finds inspiration that drives his burgeoning development as a writer. Another writer, in The End of Alpha Street, seeks to collect personal folklores, those unusual superstitions that people make for themselves.

There are other interesting tales, such as The Seventh Card, where a man attempts to identify the mysterious sender of Christmas cards and a personal favourite in And maybe the parakeet was correct, where a journalist contrives to deliver copy on human interest stories with tangential nods to football and, along the way, experiences an uncanny encounter in the streets of Paris. Laughter Ever After may help certain bookish collectors feel seen with its lighthearted trip to a village in search of an obscure ghost story that may not exist.

While time feels suggested in these stories, rather than observed, place is very much to the fore. A couple of stories take place in urban areas, but the book’s comfort zone is clearly rural, among villages and the lonelier spots at the corner of civilisation’s eye. Fortunes Told: Fresh Samphire, is Valentine’s prose at its most ethereal as one man investigates the disappearance of a man called Crabbe, who may - or may not - be the Philip Crabbe that appears in the later story, The Readers of the Sands, where a trio of experts are invited to his house to determine whether there are hidden messages in the sand on the nearby beach. Closer, The Fifth Moon, also takes us to sandy spaces in search of King John’s lost treasure, and discusses theories and posits its own.

Though the stories never reveal their full hand, they do satisfy and offer much to mull over and reward rereading, thanks to how lightly they wear their erudition. Certainly there is much allusion that, having chosen to explore these threads, the stories gain depth. That the supernatural elements and new worlds barely glimpsed offer little clue as to whether their spectral nature is benign or has hostile intent. But even when things seem more explicit, such as in Worse Things Than Serpents, we are never truly sure. There, the narrator finds, off the beaten track, a mysterious untended bookshop that offers only books about serpents, one of which, ignorant of the price he deems to purchase.

Title story, Lost Estates, with its intimation of ungraspable worlds beyond our own feels a fitting choice for the collection’s title as the stories’ numinous qualities hint at, while never truly revealing, alternative planes. Each story feels rich in historical detail and suggestions of the supernatural and, within their ambiguity, there is much to enchant and contemplate.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's no secret that Mark Valentine is one of my favorite writers and now, with Swan River's publication of his Lost Estates, I've added another gem of a book to my collection of his works. If you haven't yet bought a copy, go get one now. Seriously.

In an insightful and informative conversation between this author and writer John Kenny, Valentine pleads "not guilty" to labeling the stories in this collection as "folk horror." He would rather use the term "borderland" or "otherworld" stories, which he

"came upon in contemporary 1923 reviews of Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair and Visible and Invisible by E.F. Benson,"

saying that these were "terms then in use and understood for occult and supernatural fiction." In Valentine's opinion, "they do convey better the sense that can sometimes be felt in certain places of being close to a different realm." I like it. It fits.

It's not long into the first story before this notion of "being close to a different realm" makes itself known. "A Chess Game at Michaelmas" finds our narrator leaving the train at Abbotsbury, where he has come at the invitation of a Mr. Winterbourne, with whom he had been corresponding about Winterbourne's "house and its particular custom" as part of his research. The train was only the first part of the journey; he still has a five-mile walk to make, which he doesn't mind. It is as "the grey chalk of dust" was being drawn across the day" that he felt not only a "change come over the country" through which he was traveling, but also a gradual sense of passing "into a different sort of space, a pause in the usual order of things." The feeling lasts for only a moment, but "the impression lingered..." He eventually makes his way via the hand-drawn map he was given to an old and somewhat shabby Georgian house where he and the owner discuss the unusual "rent" on the place. It seems that that his family holds this place "from the King in return for a service or duty." The narrator offers his opinions about the history of this particular sort of "custom," but what he doesn't realize is that before his visit ends, the rent is about to come due. This story is absolutely fascinating, not just for the weird elements and the lore, but for me it's much more about the historical components and especially (with a nod to Jamie Walsh) the yews.

The blurb for Lost Estates notes that these tales offer "antiquarian mysteries, book-collecting adventures, and otherworldly encounters," as well as "mysterious landscapes, places of legend, and secret history." Valentine has an incredible abundance of knowledge about ancient customs, history and lore that inform his stories; the joy is in seeing the connections he forges between that knowledge and the characters who interact with the landscapes which he so expertly renders here, either rural or city. The stories themselves have a truly special quality that I appreciate, meaning that once I start one, I'm deep into it and the outside world just vanishes. He makes me feel like I am right there with the characters as they approach that (as the dustjacket blurb states) "unusual terrain," making it beyond difficult to put this book down at any time during the reading. And if you get a Machen vibe, well ...

Very highly recommended -- Lost Estates is one of the best collections by this author I've read.

[Vultural · Rating 4 out of 5]

Valentine, Mark - Lost Estates

A new collection by Mr. Valentine is always a welcome addition to any library.

In “A Chess Game At Michaelmas”, our narrator is a scholar of sorts, seeking old customs, old folklore. The home he seeks out belongs to the king, tenant rent is free, for an unnamed service.

Mr. Warringer is fussy about Christmas cards. They should not arrive too early, nor should they hail from strangers. His organization is shaken when “The Seventh Card” arrives from the Post, sender unknown.

Collectors will relate. Cogenhoe is after a legendary pamphlet, referenced as lost. He has his methods, and here the author shares tips and suggestions for newcomers to the passion. “Laughter Ever After” suggest that it is not always fellow collectors one should beware of.

The tides may be predictable, yet the sands are not. Three “Readers Of The Sands” are invited to investigate a mystery at Driftwood End. A professionally appointed guide, a fortune teller, and an artist who works in sand. The sands seem to form shapes, hide shapes, and guard.

Lost treasure. The Dutchman’s mine, the Valley of Kings, Hitler’s gold, Montezuma’s treasure.
Two friends, writer and photographer, undertake a new book regarding the missing loot of King John, vanished during a tidal surge. In “The Fifth Moon” they question local experts, who share plausible if conflicting theories. They consult maps, attempt to chat up taciturn denizens of the pub. As with friends, dwellings, jobs, some things do vanish, and vanish for a reason. Seek at your peril applies.

A generous Swan River collection, with considerate production touches, and an ideal size for holding.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent collection of short fiction from Mark Valentine.

[Sam Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some beauties herein.