Stories in the Dark

by Barry Pain

First published in 1901, Barry Pain's collection of short stories plays deftly with an array of supernatural and macabre ideas - the Roman soldier who encounters a nameless horror when he falls through a crack in the earth; ordinary people driven mad by their obsession with other people's crimes; the wife who haunts her husband via a ghostly telephone line. Perhaps most memorable of all, however, is the unsettling tale of 'The Undying Thing', which has all the hallmarks of a classic werewolf story. This vintage collection is sure to delight all fans of classic horror.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy

98 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1901

About the author

Born in Cambridge, Barry Eric Odell Pain was educated at Sedbergh School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He became a prominent contributor to The Granta. He was known as a writer of parody and lightly humorous stories.

Reviews

[Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat interesting collection of horror short stories. Although none stod out of the bunch for me.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This rather obscure collection of stories has a couple gems in it, a few decent stories and some clunkers. Published in 1901, this is right at the tail-end of the Victorian era.

The best tale by far is "The Undying Thing" which was praised by Lovecraft himself. It's got a bit of a M. R. Jamesian flavor to it. It's about a man haunted by a horrible "thing" which his ancestor's wife gave birth to and has haunted the place of it's burial ever since.

"The Gray Cat" is another decent story, a solid story in the "voodoo horror" genre. The story follows an African explorer who returns to England with a strange gray cat which hates him, and a stone idol of the beast, much sought by natives.

"The Magnet" is a brief, weird story of a priests obsession with train crashes. Original.

"The Green Light" generates a neat, individual sense of dread, about a man who murders a woman and is haunted by the green light which fell on her dead face. Recalled Poe's "The Black Cat" or "The Tell-Tale Heart" a bit.

The rest of the stories were a let down mostly. "The Bottom of the Gulf" and "The End of a Show" both feel a bit like conte cruels. "The Diary of a God" is an interesting story about social isolation, but didn't ultimately go anywhere I thought. "The Moon-Slave" has potential, feels like a fairy tale about a princess who sells her soul to the moon, or something far worse.

[Murat Dural · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gotik, karanlık, 1800’lerin puslu havasını yansıtan güzel öykülerden oluşan bir kitap. Bizlere kazandırdığı için Everest Yayınları ve emektarlarına teşekkür ederim. Karanlık seri iyi kitaplar çıkarmaya devam ediyor. Kısa kısa, hafif hafif yükselen korku dozuyla gayet hoşuma gitti.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barry Pain was a fin de siècle British writer of supernatural and early weird fiction. His short story "The Undying Thing" was praised by H.P. Lovecraft and his novel An Exchange of Souls is widely recognized as a major influence on Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep." This Pain collection consists of:

"The Diary of a God"
"This is All"
"The Moon-Slave"
"The Green Light"
"The Magnet"
"The Case of Vincent Pyewhit"
"The Bottom of the Gulf"
"The End of a Show"
"The Undying Thing"
"The Gray Cat"

The stories were entertaining and fun to listen to (this was the LibriVox audiobook) but nothing particularly memorable. Pain felt very "stodgy English gentleman" and ultimately lacks the subtlety, artistry of prose, and psychological depth of his contemporaries Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. "The Diary of a God" in particular felt like a superficial remake of Machen's "The White People." Another reviewer aptly compares "The Bottom of the Gulf" to a Monty Python sketch, which is unfortunate because there was a real source of cosmic and existential horror there that you just can't pull off when your entity acts like Q from Star Trek. The best story in my opinion was actually "The End of a Show," which had nothing supernatural whatsoever and was disturbing in its mundane implications. I also liked "The Moon-Slave," which left just enough unsaid to let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks.

Good for some light reading if you're into Lovecraft et al.

[Sem · Rating 2 out of 5]

'The Undying Thing' and 'The Gray Cat' were decent enough but Pain didn't have the skill or subtlety to make them work. The remaining stories belong to the attenuated, trailing edge of the fin de siècle and are instantly forgettable.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Diary of a God was genius. Kept me with high expectations, but I was mostly disappointed with the other stories. The Bottom of The Gulf was reminiscent of a Monty Python skit.

[Berrak Hotan · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5 aslında ama neyse.

[Jeff Hobbs · Rating 2 out of 5]

The diary of a god --2
This is all --2
The moon-slave --2
The green light --3
The magnet --1
The case of Vincent Pyrwhit --2
The bottom of the gulf --1
The end of a show --1
The undying thing --2
The gray cat --2 (racist by today's standards)
***
The doll --2
Port mortem --3
Rose, Rose --3
A considerable murder --2
Not on the passenger list --3
On green paper --2
The face of the corpse --2
In the marmalade --3

[Bill Borre]

This is All is also printed in the Big Book of the Masters of Horror

[witchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bazı öykülere gerçekten bayıldım, bazılarını da sırf okumak için okudum ama yine de ilgi çekici gotik yanını sevdim. Ay kölesi ve Ölmeyen Şey hikayelerini sevdim.

[Forked Radish]

“The Diary of a God”: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: From agoraphobia to claustrophobia with concomitant misanthropia, an urban drone moves to the country and goes stark raving sane… Nearly all “gods” are solipsistic delusionals. Except the one true review God, Forked Radish! 🙏

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

short weird stories

[Dreadlara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Derinliği olmayan, vasatın altında kalan öyküleriyle hayal kırıklığı yaratıyor. Ürpertici ya da gizemli olmaktan uzak.