Reunion at Dawn: And Other Uncollected Ghost Stories

by H.R. Wakefield, H. Russell Wakefield (AKA), Barbara Roden (Editor)

When H. R. Wakefield's STRAYERS FROM SHEOL was published by Arkham House in 1961, it was fully intended that a further collection of the author's supernatural tales would follow within a few years; subsequent appearances of Wakefield's stories in Arkham House anthologies referred to this final volume. Unfortunately, no further Wakefield titles were issued by Arkham House, and it was widely assumed that any unpublished stories by the author had been destroyed by him prior to his death in 1964. Recently, however, Arkham House Editor Peter Ruber uncovered a cache of previously unknown Wakefield stories, most of them in the long neglected files of August Derleth. These seventeen tales by one of the twentieth century's masters of the supernatural are now being published for the first time, bringing to an exciting conclusion Ash-Tree Press's series reprinting Wakefield's supernatural stories. The supernatural tales in REUNION AT DAWN range from the gentle ('The Assignation', 'The Fall of the House of Gilpin') to the horrific ('Final Variation', 'A Man's Best Friend', 'The Bodyguard'). We meet - for the final time - the recurring characters of Dr Landon and Anstruther Sawbridge, Bart. ('That Sleep of Death'); encounter two variations on the same theme ('The Latch-Key' and '"The Night Can Sweat With Terror"'); and, unusually for Wakefield, venture into the past for a historical ghost story ('Familiar Spirit'). In these seventeen stories, H. R. Wakefield once more triumphantly proves himself to be a master of the weird tale.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 24, 2000

About the author

Herbert Russell Wakefield was an English short story writer, novelist, publisher, and civil servant. Wakefield is best known for his ghost stories, but he produced work outside the field. He was greatly interested in the criminal mind and wrote two non-fiction criminology studies

Used These Alternate Names: H.R. Wakefield, H. Russell Wakefield, Рассел Уэйкфилд?, Herbert Russell Wakefield, Herbert R. Wakefield, Henry Russell Wakefield, Henry R. Wakefield, Sir H. Russell Wakefield, Horace Russell Wakefield

Reviews

[Canavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

✭✭½

“Reunion at Dawn” ✭✭
“The Fire-Watcher’s Story” ✭✭✭✭½
“Parrot Cry” ✭✭½
“Surprise for Papa” ✭✭½
“Final Variation” ✭✭
“The Sandwich” ✭✭✭
“The Fall of the House of Gilpin” ✭✭✭
“Vengeance Is Ours!” ✭½
“The Assignation” ✭✭✭
“The Latch-Key” ✭✭
“ ‘The Night Can Sweat with Terror’ ” ✭✭
“At World’s End” ✭✭
“An Air of Berlioz” ✭✭✭
“The Bodyguard” ✭✭✭
“ ‘That Sleep of Death’ ” ✭✭✭
“Familiar Spirit” ✭✭✭
“A Man’s Best Friend” ✭✭✭

All stories published 2000.

[robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving this one four stars for the sake of one story.

If I were reading this as an anthology, I'd be happy with just one or two good stories, since most entries in a collection are mediocre at best; from a single author of proven ability, I'd expect more. But in this case it doesn't matter, since that one story - "Frontier Guards" - is well worth the price of the book. I understand it's been anthologized several times, but I've never come across it before.

Ghost stories have a strange attraction for me. I scare myself with them, and I don't enjoy being scared, so this perverse desire is puzzling. But I want specifically to read ghost stories, not horror, and most ghost stories are as overdone as the early Gothics, with entrails and demons and insanity everywhere you look.

I prefer stories in the mannered school of M.R. James, which limits the field severely. In fact, I've searched for an inheritor in vain, certainly among modern writers. I think that Sarah Monette's recent collection of ghost stories comes very close, primarily due to her choice of a similar sort of colorless, learned protagonist in a setting of museums and manuscripts. Wakefield's choice of character and venue is precisely the opposite, and yet the overall effect of helpless, dismayed horror is the same.

Wakefield has a nasty mind, quite honestly, and a very nasty mouth sometimes, but he's endlessly inventive and his implacable, personal hauntings are as powerful as James' impersonally murderous spirits. Maybe moreso. Maybe the fact that usually Wakefield's protagonists are being haunted by a sin of commission is what makes his stories so powerful. James' antiquaries have so often committed no crime save that of curiosity; it's some comfort to know that Wakefield's victims usually did this to themselves.

Of course, in cases where their only sin was to walk into a strange house, as in 'Frontier Guards,' one can only prickle with a delightful little scary thrill, and close the book, and try to think about other things til one falls asleep.

Because anyone could be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Even you.

And that's what makes a really good ghost story.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of late career stories. My recommendations, in order:

1. Familiar Spirit
2. The Assignation
3. The Bodyguard
4. Vengeance Is Ours!
5. The Fire-Watcher's Story

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were gems amidst the dusty heaps of misogyny & acidity, but it was really tough to extract those gems.