The Travelling Grave and Other Stories

by L.P. Hartley, John Howard (Introduction)

Though best known for his classic novel of Edwardian childhood The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley was also a master of supernatural and macabre fiction, the best of which is collected in The Travelling Grave and Other Stories.

This volume demonstrates Hartley’s versatility, ranging from traditional ghost stories like ‘Feet Foremost’ and ‘The Cotillon’ to the wickedly black humour of the horror masterpieces ‘The Travelling Grave’ and ‘The Killing Bottle’. Originally published in 1948 and long out of print, this collection features twelve of Hartley’s finest tales, presented in this edition with a new introduction by John Howard.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Weird Fiction, Audiobook, Classics, Ghosts

246 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972) was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, and educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. For more than thirty years from 1923 he was an indefatigable fiction reviewer for periodicals including the Spectator and Saturday Review. His first book, Night Fears (1924) was a collection of short stories; but it was not until the publication of Eustace and Hilda (1947), which won the James Tait Black prize, that Hartley gained widespread recognition as an author. His other novels include The Go-Between (1953), which was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, and The Hireling (1957), the film version of which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this collection of Gothic and creepy stories originally released in the 1940's. I generally prefer short tales that pack a punch, and these are definitely not that. However, they often have a good deal of humor and that sense of atmosphere in which I love to wallow.

The standouts to me were:

A VISITOR FROM DOWN UNDER was, for me, a beautifully told ghost story/tale of revenge.

PODOLO A nice little day trip to the island of Podolo takes a nasty turn. This one reminded me that feral cats may not be worth the effort.

THE TRAVELLING GRAVE was quite the funny story involving a misunderstanding involving perambulators. (Is that word even used anymore? It's a shame if it's not because it's a word that rolls nicely off the tongue.) Anyway, the humor of the situation quickly changed to horror at the gruesome ending. Always be careful playing hide & seek!

CONRAD AND THE DRAGON I wasn't sure what to make of this fairy tale like...tale. It didn't have the usual fairy tale ending, but I found it to be totally charming.

THREE OR FOUR, FOR DINNER was another tale involving some humor and a practical joke gone wrong.

This was my first experience with L.P. Hartley and I'm so glad I gave this collection a try! Recommended!

*Thank you to Valancourt Books for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is it.*

[Jack Tripper]

Cover of the 1959 Arthur Barker mass-market paperback (191 pages). Unfortunately it contains three less stories than the original hardcover and other editions, but oh well.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE TRAVELLING GRAVE AND OTHER STORIES, by L.P. Hartley, was originally published by Arkham House in 1948, and is now offered in all formats by Valancourt Books. This volume contains twelve of Hartley's stories of supernatural and macabre fiction.

Despite being a single author collection, I found that Hartley's stories varied from your gothic ghost-revenge tales, some dealing with unknown events, and even a few laced with unexpected comedy and dark humor.

Some of my personal favorites were:

--"Podolo": Where some tourists visit an unpopulated island . . . ". . . She loves it so much . . . that she wants to kill it . . . "

--"The Travelling Grave": A devious host tries to play a dangerous game with an unsuspecting guest. "And his shoes were full of feet . . . "

--A Visitor From Down Under": A man comes back to England from a long stay in Australia.

--"The Cotillon": A vain woman who thinks little of breaking the hearts of men, is about to meet her match at a masked ball. ". . . I should like to see you . . . unmasked, so that for a moment I can compare the reality with the illusion I used to cherish . . ."

--"Three, or Four, For Dinner": Two men visiting a foreign city try to play a macabre joke on a local boy.

A terrific collection of gothic horror stories, now available once again from Valancourt Books!

Recommended!

[Yórgos St. · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great surprise this book was! At first I thought that I was going to have just another take on the old ghost story motif similar to M.R. James. Thankfully I was wrong. Hartley may well be the missing link between M.R. James and Robert Aickman. And yes, Hartley's stories are that good. He belongs amongst the greats of the genre, the ones that I mentioned above. I would not categorise Hartley's stories as purely ghost stories though. They are rather macabre tales with psychological twists and with brave doses of black humor. Those ingredients are what makes these stories so unique and effective. Hartley was, no doubt, a masterful writer. With a small sentence Hartley's can give us a full pscylogical profile of the characters and he allows us to learn things that are not written. As with Aickman the most terrifying things are implied here. Hartley's writing style is also marvelous. He truly possesed a "prose", a rhythm and a certain clarity. He was indeed a writer with great technique. So, this book is highly recommended to all the fans of great ghost or macabre stories or to all those who appreciate good literature. I liked this book so much that I did invest in the Tartarus press edition of L.P. Hartley's collected macabre stories.

[Michael Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of supernatural and quiet horror. Almost every story works perfectly to reach the right pitch and deliver a clever twist or reveal to sum up the whole experience. I think anglophiles and fans of classic ghost stories will enjoy this collection a great deal.

[Haywan Al-Hashishi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Aickmanesque" is one of those loaded and abused terms, and one could write a lot about sins of "Aickmanesque" fiction. Hartley, though, is one of that small handful of writer where that term can be, in case of some of his stories, safely applied. "Podolo" could pass for a lost Aickman tale, and is a small gem in itself. Not all of his tales are in this vein, but they are nonetheless all great. We have more conventional tales of ghostly and the macabre, we have blackly hilarious yarns like the titular story (if HBO ever reboots Tales from the Crypt, this would make for a fantastic episode) etc. Here's hoping that Hartley will receive some much deserved attention soon, given that Valancourt is apparently planning a reprint of this collection.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike many other Arkham House collections, these tales are not reproduced from the Pulp magazines, but were concieved to appear in book form, with this Arkham House edition being their debut in America. As such, there is a noticeable coherence to the book. These are really first class stories, and they emante a culmalitive atmosphere of clautrophobia and dread that entangles the reader from the start. Hartley has a great talent for suggesting the grotesque without explicitly spelling it out, something he puts to great effect in most of these tales, especially the excellent 'Podolo',' A change of ownership' and the title story. Overall, a brilliant book with a chilling atmosphere, as well as a suitably black humour throughout.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Contains the stories:

A Visitor from Down Under - 3/5 - a man recently returned from Australia has a visitor
Podolo -
Three, or Four, for Dinner -
The Travelling Grave -
Feet Foremost -
The Cotillon -
A Change of Ownership -
The Thought -
Conrad and the Dragon -
The Island -
Night Fears -
The Killing Bottle -

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection, but Hartley slightly overuses the scenario of the British club/country house/estate/castle etc.

The title story is interesting but not the best in the collection, I consider A Visitor from Down Under and The Killing Bottle to be amongst the best, despite the latter being a bit obvious as to where it's going and could benefit from having the chase extended a bit.

Conrad and the Dragon was a rather whimsical surprise, given the fantasy/fairyland setting.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The house-warming at Low Threshold Hall was not an event that affected many people.

Lady Elinor can only come in if she is helped over the threshold.

[Jed Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hartley is a strange and elusive short story writer, and this collection includes some of his best work in the weird category. Like a somewhat more direct Walter de la Mare, Hartley is a very compelling tour guide to strange mental and physical landscapes.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of Hartley’s best weird stories ought be placed within that same vague tradition exemplified by Henry James, Walter de la Mare, John Metcalfe, and ultimately crystallized in nowadays endlessly name-dropped Robert Aickman. This is best seen in stories like „Podolo“, this little masterpiece of oneiric that manages to create this eerie, off-kilter feeling without employing anything overtly supernatural. What exactly happens in this story is really anyone‘s guess – this is really one of those stories where any second hand summary or proffered interpretation must be lacking - but even those who are allergic to such ambiguity won’t be able to deny just how inexplicably disquieting the whole thing is. That is not to say that all of Hartley‘s stories were written in this vein. This collection is astonishingly varied and unpredictable, displaying his broad range. You’ll encounter more run-of-the-mill ghost stories (but ones that are still really well executed and offer their own curious twists, such as the opening story with its psychological depth and its truly terrifying ghost), stories that manage to be be both hilarious and scary (such as the titular tale, one that also displays Hartley‘s cleverness and his mastery of characterization), humorous ersatz fairy tales, and so on. There are some minor pieces here, but ultimately most of these stories are excellent in their way and their variety is impressive by itself.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Munt is a collector and has invited three guests to his isolated country estate for the weekend. What is discovered is that he is a collector of coffins and that he has brought back from foreign parts one that can pursue its victims and bury them without any external assistance. It becomes apparent that he intends to sic this coffin after one of his unsuspecting guests to test its ability. Although the plot of The Travelling Grave is far-fetched it is made palatable with the author's sprinkling of dry humor throughout. Also, the author gives us a satisfying metaphysical conceit in the symbolism of the man-eating coffin that eventually kills its devious owner exemplifying that even evil karma needs its balance with Munt meeting his own deserved death.

[Canavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

✭✭✭½

“A Visitor from Down Under” (1926) ✭✭✭✭½
“Podolo” (1948) ✭✭✭✭½
“Three, or Four, for Dinner” (1932) ✭✭✭✭
“The Travelling Grave” (1929) ✭✭✭✭½
“Feet Foremost” (1932) ✭✭✭
“The Cotillion” (1931) ✭✭✭½
“A Change of Ownership” (1929) ✭✭½
“The Thought” (1948) ✭✭✭
“Conrad and the Dragon” (1932) ✭✭½
“The Island” (1924) ✭½
“Night Fears” (1924) ✭✭✭½
“The Killing Bottle” (1927) ✭✭✭½

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

An accomplished writer, to be sure, but I realize now that I can no longer tolerate stories of the idle rich, regardless of the era. This was an interminable slog of privileged fops with the occasional whiff of the supernatural .

[Jay Maxfield · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was throughly disappointed with this collection of short stories. As I had read The Go-Betweens many years ago and considered it a very readable and an enjoyable novel - so that my expectations for these stories were high. Instead Hartley doesn't seem to be able to construct a ghost/supernatural/weird story. He uses conversation between characters to take up most of each story that I read (5 out of 12). The conversation he writes is very dull or silly and has little relevance and certainly detracts from the story - it's not even amusing and totally forgettable milliseconds after reading it. He writes in similar campy style as E.F.Benson (Mapp & Lucia).
Hartley also uses the following strategies in his stories:
Most of the heart of the story takes place off-stage and he only brings this to the readers attention in drips and drabs so that the reader only gets an incoherent picture of why things are happening.
At the denouement/crux of the story Hartley clouds whats happening in a veil of mystery or just doesn't explain - so that it is left to the reader to decide or imagine what is happening/happened.
Both strategies are OK to use but he seems to use them in all the stories I read - which irritated me so much that I stop reading the stories because along with the endless mindless chatter of the characters I could not discern what any of the stories were really about which made for a very boring read as nothing was ever explained. The worst instance of this authors blunders was when he was trying to explain what the Travelling Grave/Coffin was - I am an imaginative person but I could not even conjure up an image in my mind - as his description was extremely poor & totally baffling. I doubt if he knew what he was talking about and almost certainly didn't have a picture of the device in his own mind.
I would give this book 1 out of 10 and won't recommend reading it as the stories are by an author who simply couldn't get his writing in tune with the ghost story genre. I would recommend however to read Robert Westall's - Antique Dust which I read recently.

[Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hit or miss. Some of the stories ran on too long and felt watery. Dense but watery, somehow. Standouts: A Visitor from Down Under and Podolo. I don’t think I’ll bother ever re-reading many others. They were often slow, predictable, and stilted. I wish I could say I was more fond of Hartley’s style but it’s effective in the right dose.

The Thought and A Change of Ownership stand out, off the top of my head, as two stories where the sexuality of the main characters is evident. (The author was gay.) There aren’t too many classic ghost stories that I can think of that feature gay men and it’s much appreciated.

Here be spoilers:

I don’t know what to make of the ending of The Killing Bottle. Rollo initially wanted Jimmy in the Onyx room so he could kill him and frame Randolph, I assume, to inherit the castle. But Randolph ended up saving Jimmy by killing Rollo (presumably by pushing him off the roof as the police don’t seem to suggest it was murder.) The wife’s reaction suggests she expected to be told Jimmy died (she had warned him however obliquely), so her confusion reads that she believed Randolph was the murderous brother and not her husband.

But the police have never heard of Jimmy at all. Did Randolph send Jimmy away or did he kill him and cover it up? Did Randolph kill the other men and animals or was Rollo responsible for that? What was with the Jimmy/James remark by Rollo? Was the butler in on it?

This just seemed very ambiguous to me, but a few of the other stories ended similarly. I’m not sure if they were meant to be ambiguous and Hartley succeeded or if he failed at making them surprising.

[Mark Ludmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best known for The Go-Between, LP Hartley also wrote short stories of the supernatural as well as fantasy and horror, written in the 20s, 30s and 40s. This collection, published when he was alive, is a mixed but mostly enjoyable bag. Highlights are “Podolo”, “Three, or Four, for Dinner”, “The Travelling Grave”, “Feet Foremost”, “The Cotillon” and “The Killing Bottle” range from classic ghost stories to twisted horror, sometimes reminiscent of Henry James’s ghost stories, and some looking ahead to more contemporary horror. Others, namely “A Change of Ownership” and “The Island”, are more experimental and not necessarily successful. For those interested, there is also a recurring queerness that can be found in several of the stories, in the modern sense as well as the more traditional meaning.

[Libuska Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

(This review is only for the short story ‘The Travelling Grave’. I haven’t read any of Hartley’s other stories and read this one in an anthology that is not on Goodreads.)

This story was pretty well-written for the most part. It kept me engaged the whole way through, and the concept was interesting. It could’ve had a better ending though: this felt very abrupt.

[Sadhbh · Rating 4 out of 5]

40/40 reading challenge mm hrmm. This was fun I enjoyed the tone very gay in a 1930s way. And it made it not too #scary. A bunch of the stories didn't go anywhere for me really but the reading experience was positive.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 5 out of 5]

My notes on the stories:
http://jayrothermel.blogspot.com/2017...

[Molly Cawthorn-Matre · Rating 3 out of 5]

A visitor from down under, the first scene was my favourite!

[Signor Mambrino · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, bit of a chore to get through. Very dry. Nothing scary. Some turds.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing like The Go Between, except for being set in an era when people still dressed for dinner. Sits uncomfortably between traditional ghost stories and weird fiction, not weird enough to be unsettling, not spooky enough to be scary.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

A visitor from down under--1
*Podolo--
Three, or four, for dinner--2
*The travelling grave--
*Feet foremost--
*The cotillon--
A change of ownership--
The thought--
Conrad and the dragon--
The island--2
Night fears--3
*The killing bottle--
***
The crossways--
Fall in at the double--
The high dive--2
Monkshood Manor--
The shadow on the wall--
Someone in the lift --
The two Vaynes--2
The waits--
W. S.--3