Sleep No More: Railway, Canal and Other stories of the Supernatural

by L.T.C. Rolt

Mine shafts, foundries, canals, and railway tunnels are not usually associated with ghosts, but all of these unusual settings are brought into play by L.T.C. Rolt in Sleep No More, his highly effective collection of stories which was first published in 1948.

Tom Rolt was an engineering historian, whose many book credits include biographies of Thomas Telford and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as well as the highly-acclaimed Red for Danger, a history of railway accidents and railway safety.

Rolt's first book, Narrow Boat, a classic in its own right, tells of his love for Britain's canals, a love which led to his involvement with the Inland Waterways Association.

His knowledge of Britain's industrial past and his love for the countryside around him are very evident in this collection, which includes two stories not included in the original edition and also Rolt's essay 'The Passing of the Ghost Story'. Rolt takes us on a haunted tour of the world he knew well—from Cornwall to Wales, and from the hill country of Shropshire to the west coast of Ireland—in tales which are guaranteed to make you Sleep No More.

Jacket and interior illustrations by Paul Lowe.

Contents:
The Mine
The Cat Returns
Bosworth Summit Pound
New Corner
Cwm Garon
A Visitor at Ashcombe
The Garside Fell Disaster
World's End
Hear Not My Steps
Agony of Flame
Hawley Bank Foundry
Music Hath Charms
The Shouting
The House of Vengeance
The Passing of the Ghost Story

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Ghosts, Ghost Stories, Classics, Supernatural

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt (usually abbreviated to Tom Rolt or L.T.C. Rolt) was a prolific English writer and the biographer of major civil engineering figures including Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Thomas Telford. He is also regarded as one of the pioneers of the leisure cruising industry on Britain's inland waterways, and as an enthusiast for both vintage cars and heritage railways.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sleep No More is an important book in the evolution of the British ghost story. While it is clearly in the province of M.R. James (with a few detours into Machen territory), it travels there by way of the machines of the industrial revolution (a method of locomotion new to the genre), piloted by a man who loves and understands those machines.

Engineer and author L.T.C. Rolt--one of whose hobbies was maintaining and racing motorcars--built his reputation with books on technology (railways, canals), including the classic history of railway disasters Red for Danger, and with his biographies of influential civil engineers such as Brunel and Telford. This unusual expertise for a writer of the supernatural provides him with innovative settings (a canal tunnel, a hilly motorcar course, a railway tunnel, an old steel foundry commandeered in wartime), and gives his prose a no-nonsense practical air, which not only makes for a brisk, efficient tale but also convinces us that, if such a prosaic narrator can discern a ghost in such surroundings, then that ghost must indeed be real.

Rolt's style also has its drawbacks: the very best ghost tales--particularly long ones--require a poetic prose that can create a chilling atmosphere, and, in his more extensive pieces (the Machen-influenced "Cwym Garon" is an good example), his language lacks the magic to sustain the desired effects. Nevertheless, in his best stories--such as "The Mine," "The Bosworth Summit Pound," "The Garside Fell Disaster" and "The Hawley Bank Foundry"--his original point of view and unusual subject matter blend harmoniously to create unique and effective tales.

[Berengaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

short review for busy readers: A reissue of a 1948 collection of supernatural tales set in England’s Black Country and in Wales. It’s unique in that the stories have modern, technological settings - mines, factories, canals, railway tunnels, automobile races – or are set in the open countryside, which was unusual for the time. Lush, detailed descriptions of landscapes and machinery abound, but emotions are told instead of being shown, which makes the stories more curious than frightening.

in detail:
LTC Rolt was mainly known as a travel writer, but he did write a fiction trilogy with the wonderful title “Landscape with Machines”. This collection of spooky tales could have that as a subtitle, too, because those are the two main elements: landscapes and technology.

Most of the stories start with highly detailed descriptions of the setting or the technical aspects of relevant technological objects. This is in keeping with the traditional English ghost story of the time, where the details of setting (old libraries, crumbling castles) played an important role.

With Rolt, the spooky elements take a backseat in many of the stories.

For as much as he details nature, Rolt studiously avoids describing emotions or the physical reactions of the characters. He tells mostly, as in “George became scared and fled from the place”. This lack of emotional involvement devalues the frightening aspects of the stories so much, that none of them seem all that creepy.

Still, for the descriptions of industrial England in the early part of the 20th century, it’s worth a read. According to scholars, LTC Rolt is one of those ‘forgotten’ ghost story writers who contributed to the development of the supernatural story genre, but is hardly read today.

Here are a few of my favourites:

Music Hath Charms was Rolt’s own favourite story in the collection and by far the one with the most original spooky detail. The new owner of a secluded coastal house finds a diabolical music box in a locked and walled up closet. The box has the power to call up storms…watch out for the accompanying demon! 😈

Hawley Bank Foundry is set in a reopened Victorian iron foundry during the 2nd World War. Not only is the ghost of the former owner spotted hanging about, but strange, alien creatures reside under the pouring floor. Tosh, just your imagination! There’s a war on, get cracking…wait, what’s that? 😲

The Garside Fell Disaster is the one railway story. A signalman on a stretch of railway near a tunnel notices strange fog and smoke patterns issuing from the tunnel and hears first hand stories of how the tunnel is growing hotter and hotter on the inside. Is something demonic brewing inside the mountain? 🔥

World’s End finds a man sharing a room for the night with an odd stranger in a desolate house. The stranger says he’s been there before. He saw the ghost of his future self and his own death…and now he’s back to meet what the ghost predicted for him. One of those future/past shockers. 👻

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot of authors that write in the vein of M. R. James...

R. H. Malden's collection "Nine Ghosts" is a great collection of consistent quality. E. F. Benson wrote more stories than James, and they are consistently impressive, a lot of fun to read even if they can get a bit samey at times. E. G. Swain's "Stoneground Ghost Tales" is also good, but much milder. Andrew Caldecott's stories, often set in British-colonized India are great on occasion, but more often average and forgettable. Walter de la Mare's stories are more atmospheric; great when you're in the proper mood and often more potent than anything James himself wrote, in my opinion. The collection of H. R. Wakefield's stories I've read was OK, but didn't overly impress me. I haven't read enough L. P. Hartley or W. F. Harvey to comment...

This collection is pretty impressive, maybe not as consistently good as Malden's, but it's more varied and inventive than Swain's. Still, if you've read a decent amount of ghost stories you'll be able to see where the plots are headed.

There's plenty of common themes here... Tales narrated by the fireside while a storm blows outside. Nightmares presaging disaster. People dying with expressions on their faces so horrible (!) they haunt the observer for the rest of his days(!!!).

I mostly stopped reading Victorian-era ghost tales a couple years ago because they became too predictable. But these stories are fun if you're in the right mood. "Cwm Garon," "A Visitor at Ashcombe," "Agony of Flame" and "Hawley Bank Foundry" were all excellent. "Bosworth Summit Pound" was almost on the same level, and the rest are worth a read but aren't overly memorable.

These stories are far less "antiquarian" than those of M. R. James (and many other writers) where there's usually plenty of historical research given to the supernatural phenomena which is experienced. Here it just happens, and we're typically given a rather purfunctory explanation for it. Personally I don't think this is always a bad thing. Long drawn out explanations can sometimes suffocate a tale.

The Mine - A pretty good weird story, a bit confusing in the telling at some moments. Still, it's a very brief story with a decent pay-off in the end. An old retired miner tells the story of an abandoned mine with a dark past.

The Cat Returns - One of those fairly standard English ghost stories with the Victorian flavor, rather predictable. A couple stranded on their honeymoon night seek refuge in the house of a nervous man, made even more so by a strange telephone call he receives.

Bosworth Summit Pound - This is an excellent ghost tale, perhaps with a bit too much explanation at the end, but it doesn't take away from it. Rolt did very well at painting a picture of a neglected, solitary place. A canal-travelers journal tells of a terrifying shock he experienced while spending a few days on the river, docked between a lock and a tunnel.

New Corner - This is an interesting play on a fairly common, "Jamesian" theme. The horror feels a bit "distant" in this story, but it's still a clever idea. A man constructing a race track disturbs something that was best left alone.

Cwm Garon - This is perhaps the best story here, and the longest. The style and setting reminded me of the supernatural stories of John Buchan more than M. R. James. A man vacations at an inn in a strange valley and is told by a folklorist that he can understand his fascinated first impression of the place, but warns him of something darker underneath it all. He soon starts to notice this, in the mood of the place and something far more dangerous.

A Visitor at Ashcombe - Another of the better stories, it's got a clever idea and one perfectly eerie moment in particular. The end doesn't exactly "wrap things up" but it's OK. The long-forgotten history of an old manor house is explored, along with one room that remains closed after what the previous owners saw there.

The Garside Fell Disaster - I couldn't help but think of Dicken's "The Signalman," and Robert Eustace's "The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel" about lonely railroad signalmen. I thought this one was below average for the collection as a whole. A signalman is unnerved working in a lonely spot beside a tunnel that seems to smoke unnaturally.

World’s End - A very brief, weird little story, nice atmosphere, clever idea. A man stays the night at an inn, sharing a room with a very strange man.

Hear Not My Steps - Another very short one, a neat idea here as well and quite spooky. A paranormal investigator spends the night in a haunted room.

Agony of Flame - This was one of my favorites. It's memorable because Rolt establishes an evocative, vivid sense of place here. Two men explore the isolated coast of west Ireland, and come across a long-abandoned castle, with a strange phenomena inside of it at night.

Hawley Bank Foundry - This is another of the longer tales, a ghost story set in a foundry during wartime. It has lingering hints of horror for much of it's length, and a couple skin-crawly effective moments of payoff. After a foundry is bombed during the Blitz, a new one is re-opened in a rural location, in an abandoned factory with a mysterious past.

Music Hath Charms - This one starts out in a more antiquarian flavor that reminded me of James. I thought it was quite great overall and the end leaves you with just enough to wonder about. A man accompanies his friend to explore a house he's just inherited, but he is increasingly uncomfortable by the home's past, and things they find there.

The Shouting - A brief tale, this time about a man who acquired a fright of woods after his encounter with some strange children.

The House of Vengeance - One of the more conventional, predictable stories in the book. It's a simple story yet it does have some beautiful scenic description and imaginatively eerie moments. A man hiking through the mountains is overtaken by a storm and stays in a house full of strange phenomena.

[Warren Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite reading some pretty gnarly examples of horror, even what some call "extreme," nothing still frightens me more than a good old fashioned ghost story. And "Sleep No More" has collected some gems.

With few exceptions, these aren't your typical haunted house stories. Most are a reflection of the past onto the landscape of modernity, exemplified by their settings which blend the traditional with technology, like steel mills in the middle of a dense forest or lonely signal stations at the mouth of a train tunnel in the mountains.

The running theme is the clash of modern man and nature's mysteries. For example, a new race track for a Grand Prix motor club event seems to be rejected by the surrounding countryside, particularly a nasty corner that keeps subsiding while something is causing contestants to slip off the road. A retired sailor moors his houseboat at the end of a canal tunnel and witnesses the grisly past tragedy of a witch and her lover. Disconnected phones ring with warnings from the grave. Miners are attacked by an unknown entity that lives deep in the bowels of the earth.

Rarely is anything explained, making the book a fine omnibus of weird fiction. The overall sense you get is that the encroachment of civilization has disturbed ancient unknown forces, and that there are places where modern man will never belong. The book reminds me of the work of Adam Neville, like "The Ritual" and "The Reddening" in this respect. One glaring example is "Cym Garon," where a traveler from the big city hikes to a remote Welsh valley, and finds that the local inhabitants still practice the dark pagan arts, and strangers are not welcome.

The big question is, of course, whether these stories are scary. And I say they are. I remember when I first heard the story of "The Railroad Signal Man" while beside a campfire in the woods as a kid, and that story terrifies me to this day. Now, "The Railroad Signal Man" was immortalized by Charles Dickens and does not appear in these original creations by L.T.C. Rolt, but if you are familiar with that tale, then you have a good idea of what the stories in this book are like. They are that special blend of industry and the uncanny that are told at the fireside or at the pub, the kind of yarns that are spun about that old abandoned factory or mill just outside of town.

Rolt's writing is quite good, and heavily atmospheric. You can imagine yourself on the moors on a bright day in early autumn, smelling pine smoke and the stale wafts of engine oil from a previous century as you approach an old steam train tunnel cut into the stone of a hill. You can hear the ghostly wind moaning through telegraph wires and across buoys in a foggy harbor, like a lost soul passing over your roof to peek in your bedroom window.

The only thing that makes the book a little difficult to read at times is when Rolt uses a lot of technical jargon. I'm not a sailor, engineer, or a mechanic, so I am not familiar with all the functional nomenclature of automobiles and boats and locks and mills and trains and mines. Even if I worked in those fields, I'm sure much of the terminology is outdated. But this can often add to the reader's enjoyment as well, since, with a little help from Google, we get a first-hand glimpse of what working in these industries was like prior to the atomic age.

Speaking of the bomb, no doubt some of the entries had been penned during or shortly after World War II. So this adds an extra emotional layer to the content, as memories of the Luftwaffe during the Blitz were still fresh in the minds of the people of Great Britain.

So if you like ghost stories like I do, then read this collection. It was never released as an e-book, but did get multiple printings since it originally appeared in 1948. In fact, my copy was off the press for less than a month before I purchased it. Check it out, and you can even blame me if you have trouble sleeping for a few nights afterwards.

SCORE: 4 smokeless factory chimneys out of 5

WORD OF THE DAY: Sneck

SUGGESTED MUSICAL PAIRING: Anything by Vivenza

[Jim Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid book of traditional supernatural stories written by a compatriot of Robert Aickman, the tale Cwm Garon being a particularly good one and evocative of the spirit of Arthur Machen.

[Myan]

Favourites:
- The Cat Returns
- Bosworth Summit Pound
- New Corner
- Cwm Garon [reread]
- The Garside Fell Disaster
- Hear Not My Steps
- Hawley Bank Foundry
- Music Hath Charms

[andrej_reads7878 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not exactly a seasonally appropriate read, but I didn't have access to it at Halloween, so it had to go now.

Strong stories from this collection:

The Cat Returns
Bosworth Summit Pound
Cwm Garon
A Visitor at Ashcombe
The Garside Fell Disaster
World's End
Agony of Flame
Hawley Bank Foundry
Music Hath Charms
The House of Vengeance

I read a lot of horror anthologies, but this remains by far the best one I have read. Rolt is an extremely compelling narrator, he has a frank, no-nonsense method of storytelling which works really well for ghost stories, because, one thinks, if this practical, down to earth narrator believes these things happened, then there must be something to it! It also helps that the stories are not overly long and indulgent, as I found quite a few from M. R. James to be - World's End is one of the most effective stories in the entire collection, and it's only three pages long! A great shame Rolt never took another stab at writing fiction, he was highly gifted.

[Adam Nevill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reread but I enjoyed it even more second time around. As good as M. R. James? There or thereabouts for me.

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to Rolt as Mark Valentine recommended him, and really enjoyed this collection.

Rolt only wrote a few supernatural stories, his preference was non-fiction, and the book he is best known for is Narrow Boat. His writing is similar to M R James, but with industrial settings, and rural in character, located at some distance from human habitation. That sense of isolation is apparent in them all. Its subtitle is ‘Railways, Canals and Other Stories of the Supernatural.

My personal favourite is The Garside Fell Disaster, which is set close to where I call home, and on fells I know well. Perhaps his best known supernatural tale, this takes place on the Carlisle Settle railway line, and in a tunnel. It bears comparison to one of my all time favourite ghost stories, Dickens’s The Signalman, which has a similar setting.

It’s hard to find a weak story here, and I’d have to agree with Mark Valentine, that Rolt is something of an unsung master of British Ghost Stories.

[Dnln · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favourite stories: Music Hath Charms, Cwm Garon, Hawley Bank Foundry, Bosworth Summit Pound, The Cat Returns

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

M. R. James meets H. G. Wells by the canal under the railway bridge and the results are delightfully eerie. The perfect anthology to read whilst tucked up in bed during a power cut at the Crossroads Motel in the dead of winter in the 1970s.

[Carole Tyrrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of 14 spooky tales by L T C Rolt or Lionel Thomas Caswell Rolt to give him his full name. Some of the stories are very short indeed. The cover says that it contains ‘railway, canal and other stories of the supernatural’ and it’s a very accurate description.
Susan Hill, author of ‘the Woman in Black’, has written the introduction. As she says, ‘We always know what we are in for when we enter this world of melancholy valleys, lonely moors, isolated farms and inns, on lowering winter afternoons and pitch black nights, and we let ourselves in for it most willingly, so as to be frightened most delightfully…Rolt’s method is to allow us to look on helplessly as the narrator, or subject, of the story approaches and encounters the worst, and is either overcome by it, literally into death, or is driven insane, or at the very least, is left haunted for life by the terrible memory.’
These are dark tales with no happy endings and in which the sense of evil, dread and doom is brilliantly evinced and powerfully gripping.
My favourites included the first one, ‘Long Barrow Mine’ in which a miner who is trying to find his friend underground is ‘scared of the dark and the hush there.’ Odd and unnerving events begin to happen and the place is rechristened ‘Hell’s Mouth.’ In ‘The Cat Returns’, Steven and Myrtle are on honeymoon when their car breaks down and they take shelter in a stranger’s house. The old man living there lets them stay. Steven picks up the house phone and hears a strange message. It becomes even more strange when the operator tells him that the phone had been disconnected six months ago.
The stories feature elements of Britian’s industrial past and a canal tunnel is a creepy location in ‘Bosworth Summit Pond’. This was my absolute favourite. Henry Fawcett loves ’messing around in boats’ and has sold his yacht to buy a canal boat. But as he ties up near Bosworth Tunnel he senses an unpleasant atmosphere, strange noises and sees a mist. Once he is alone of the boat after Charles, his companion, goes home, it becomes worse with horrible dreams and a floating object in the water that keeps nudging the hull. The location is well evoked and there was real atmosphere.
‘Cwm Garon’ had significant folk horror elements as John Carfax goes hiking in the Welsh mountains and aims to reach his destination before nightfall. But as a mist descends, he sees a figure leading him onwards. Eventually he arrives at the ruined Abbey of Llangron and its inn. He is warned by a fellow visitor that there is ‘an evil in the valley.’ But Carfax returns…. Descriptions of landscape is a recurring theme and in this one is it is so brilliantly captured that I could clearly visualise the spectacular location while I was reading. A possibly haunted tunnel appears in ‘The Garside Fell Disaster’ in which a lone signalman in an isolated signal box sees mist by the tunnel and smoke coming from it. Then a fire comes….
A haunted iron foundry is the location in ‘Hawley Bank Foundry.’ It was abandoned after the site manager Druce, changed his name to Darley and inherited the foundry and the fortune of Josiah Darley, the foundry’s owner. Josiah disappeared and no trace of him was found. Druce was heartily disliked and ended up committing suicide in the foundry. So, would this be a good place to requisition and open up again? Unfortunately, a fellow foundry owner is looking for new premises, sets it all up again and lives to regret it… ‘Music Hath Charms’ features an unusual and unpleasant music box found in a cupboard at a house that Thornton’s friend, James Heneage has inherited. The atmosphere is such that Thornton sends himself a telegram and leaves..
These were the stories that I enjoyed the most although the others were also good. This was the only collection that Rolt published and it was published in 1948. Well worth reading.

[J. Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been down a rabbit hole of Victorian/Edwardian ghost story authors, and I scratch my head wondering why Rolt is not better known. This little volume was, for me, that rare find that lures you in immediately and, as you approach the end, makes you sad that there is no more to look forward to. A railway engineer and foremost engineer on canals, and an antique car enthusiast, one would think Rolt was science-oriented and might dismiss the uncanny. As Susan Hill points out in the introduction, these stories quickly move from normal circumstances to the creepy with little humor and grim results. He has a talent for brevity without skimping on detail. His stories are very visual; I'm surprised there aren't oodles of film adaptations of these tales.
Last comment: There is a passage in the story "Agony of Flame" that sounds too heartfelt to be just the voice of the character. I suspect this is Rolt himself, "We Saxons don't understand the Irish, you know, and I don't suppose we ever shall. We label their mysticism "Celtic Twilight" and dismiss it jokingly as a sort of childish whimsy. But if you were to find yourself alone in the west of Ireland in circumstances such as I'm describing, maybe the joke would begin to lose its point. Brought up in a more bracing climate we don't give ourselves time to stop and think, but burn out our lives in an elaborate world of our own artifice. But out there, in the loneliness and the soft, relaxing, misty air, self-importance quickly dissolves, life seems ephemeral, and you begin to understand the Celt a little better; his sense of the past; his lack of ambition which we call shiftlessness; the melancholy that never leaves him, even in his joy."
Several of the stories take place in desolate landscape where the land itself is steeped with sinister history and energy. According to Susan Hill, Rolt was a fan of M. R. James and that is apparent. "Cwm Garon" could easily blur into "A View from a Hill".
One does not need to be a railway enthusiast to enjoy these stories. While trains are omnipresent and it is clear that Rolt was intimately familiar with railway operations, the stories are readily accessible to the reader. "The Garside Fell Disaster" might make one more apprehensive about train tunnels, though.
I've got two bookshelves of stories by M. R. James, Bierce, Blackwood, Nesbit, Wharton, etc. I am thrilled that there is a renewed interest in Rolt, that this tidy collection is available; it will sit proudly in my collection. Only wish there was another volume of Rolt spookers to look forward to.

[Paul Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Constable] (1948). HB/DJ. 1/1. 162 Pages. Purchased from Alan Frank Austin.

A beautifully written, innovative and memorable collection.

“The Mine” [18/20]
“The Cat Returns”* [15/20]
“Bosworth Summit Pound” [15/20]
“New Corner”* [12/20]
“Cwm Garon” [19/20]
“A Visitor at Ashcombe” [16/20]
“The Garside Fell Disaster” [14/20]
“World's End” [14/20]
“Hear Not My Steps” [12/20]
“Agony of Flame” [15/20]
“Hawley Bank Foundry” [10/20]
“Music Hath Charms” [13/20]

(* Reprints from “Mystery Stories”.)

The Ash-Tree Press** published a 400 copy Limited Edition variant on this title in 1996. That contains two additional stories:

“The Shouting" [18/20]
“The House of Vengeance” [15/20]

Plus:

“The Passing of the Ghost Story” (an essay from 1956)

Christopher Roden penned the Introduction; Hugh Lamb the Afterword.

This long out-of-print title costs ~£190.

(** BC Enterprises (a predecessor) released “Two Ghost Stories”, which somewhat ‘bridged the gap’, in 1994. I could only locate a single copy online, at ~£250. “All Hallows 8” (February 1995) contains an excellent article on the development of this material.)

Wanting inexpensive access to all 14 tales, I looked further.

The latter pair were written for “The Thrill of Horror” (1975) and “The Taste of Fear” (1976) respectively. ~£220 needed there. Sadly, in my view, the author had abandoned the genre ‘til that point, citing “poor sales”.

A more affordable option proved to be a June 2010, 2013 Reprint from The History Press: £8.99 (new) from Amazon.co.uk.

It has its faults:

Tiny typeface - 32 pages shorter than the original; far more text.

Truncation of the Author’s Note.

A short, banal and - in places - silly Introduction by Susan Hill (1942-).
“Derivative imitations…” - are there other kinds?
“No one has better described…” - what a sweeping statement.
“Not for happy days and sunny company…” - what?!
Hugh Lamb (1946-2019) would have done the job properly.

“First published in 1948” - actually: 1948 (12), 1996 (2)… why not highlight the additions?

“Twelve Stories of the Supernatural” >> “Railway, Canal & Other Stories of the Supernatural” (not ‘Fourteen Stories of the Supernatural’?)

Besides the fictional element, there’s a dearth of supplementary material. Roll was a fascinating character and this is a landmark collection - opportunity missed.

It would be good to see what the Tartarus Press or Zagava could do with such a fine work.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have really mixed feelings about this collection. When they are good, these stories are fantastic. There are so many stand-out moments in this that make the read really worthwhile. But it comes with a giant caveat. You really have to dig through some antiquated language and rather bloated writing to find the gems. What's worse is that many of these stories have those truly great moments in them, but you have to trudge through tangental descriptions of landscapes and machinery to get there and frequently once you get to the really good stuff, the stories will end without a lot of resolution.

First, you have to be into reading stories with a rustic antiquated charm. Thankfully I do, but it is so heavy into owning a classical style that it feels more like an intentional pastiche. Other than a couple references to its contemporary technology (atomic bombs & race cars) you'd think that the author lived in turn of the century rather than this being published in '49. Most of the stories have some tie to the technological changes from in the industrial Midlands in Great Britain, where he focuses on one piece of tech and how it can be spooky. It's a cool concept, but you definitely feel like oh, this is the one with phones, this is the one with mines, this is the one with iron smelting, etc.

To offset his fascination with new tech, he also brings a kind of Tolkienesque obsession with wandering about pastoral scenes where these industrial "upgrades" are metaphorically (or literally) the hauntings that disrupt a bucolic life. At a certain point it felt like the author was as interested in rambling about the pastoral countryside that the stories were set in as much or more than the stories themselves.

I will say that I loved CWM GARON, AGONY OF FLAME, HAWLEY BANK FOUNDRY, and BOSWITCH SUMMIT POUND. They felt uniquely Rolt and I think the best of his form. THE CAT RETURNS was a solid little story. And stories like A VISITOR AT ASHCOMBE & MUSIC HATH CHARMS had incredible moments in them with frustrating payoffs.

I should also point out that the History Press edition is a brutal read. It has what looks like 8 point font and tight leading. I'm glad that this was in print for me to get to read it, but the difficulty of the format made it eye watering.

[Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd only read (and enjoyed) one of the stories collected here before, THE SHOUTING, a nice little slice of folk horror, so I was looking forward very much to getting stuck in. As I should have been: SLEEP NO MORE is an excellent collection of Jamesian ghost stories in which the protagonists are invariably menaced by demons or evil forces rather than traditional spooks. The influence of the likes of Arthur Machen is clear, but Rolt's originality lies in setting his stories in bleak industrial surrounds. Forget churchyards and museums: the horrors collected here inhabit mines, canals, iron foundries and more besides.

A couple of the tales are merely “good” and tend to be on the shorter side. THE NEW CORNER looks at a cursed race circuit quite effectively, and WORLD'S END deals with a violent hotel room premonition. But the quality increases with the likes of THE CAT RETURNS, a good spin on the revenge-from-the-grave set up, and A VISITOR AT ASHCOMBE, a quite chilly stab at a haunted house yarn. HEAR NOT MY STEPS is another haunting in a hotel room while THE GARSIDE FELL DISASTER manages to capture a Turner painting in short story format, and is quite hellish with it.

AGONY OF FLAME is less industrialised, dealing as it does with a spooky ruined castle in Ireland, while MUSIC HATH CHARMS is an atmospheric story of possession and THE HOUSE OF VENGEANCE sees its protagonist undergoing a time slip just as unnerving as the one in PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. Then we have the real stand-out classics: THE MINE, in which a cursed shaft is haunted by something best left unmentioned; BOSWITCH SUMMIT POUND, a tale of murder and haunting on an old section of canal; and CWM GARON, a forbidding story of the Black Mountains and their hold on unwary visiting hikers. My personal favourite of them all is HAWLEY BANK FOUNDRY, a delicious slow-burner of a ghost story which leads to an incredibly ghastly climax. Wonderful stuff!

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never has the word 'timeless' been so aptly applied to a set of stories than these, which is interesting because Rolt places the stories very much in the place and time he lived in, with industrialism in the UK in the form of mines and a lot of railways on the verge of disappearing. But for some reason it feels as though these stories could have been written recently, or even during the Victorian era where these industrial pursuits were just beginning to take off. Rolt is clearly influenced by gothic Victorian writers and styles his stories after them, which perhaps lends the timelessness to these tales.

He manages to trickle in the dread and supernatural elements, creating an atmosphere that is genuinely tense as each story progresses. Notable tales include one where a man is going for a walk in the valleys, only to be caught in a storm and having to shelter in a house where he falls asleep and has the worst nightmare of his life. Upon waking, he realises he is outside and when he returns to civilisation learns the house was destroyed several years prior. Another that sticks in my mind is one where a man checks into a hostel and meets another man in the same room, who says that several years before he stayed in this same hostel, met someone and they immediately killed themselves, which this man promptly does, suggesting an endless cycle which will also see off the main man. But these two are actually exceptions to the main theme of the book, with stories rooted in industry and the work of man prevalent, with a particular focus on how these man made elements have upset ancient and elemental forces. I really enjoyed it.

[Jeff McIntosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

L.T.C. Rolt's "Sleep No More, originally published in 1948, is a collection of 14 stories of the supernatural, some with ghosts. All ghost stories pale in comparison to those of M.R. James, whose ghosts were frequently malevolent.

This collection is no exception. I didn't find this collection frightening, although one or two of the stories did impress me. Rolt seems to overuse the concept of haunted landscapes or locales (see "The Cat Returns", "CWM Garon", or "Agony of Flame"). And all too common in these stories is the literary device of having someone chance upon a habitation well off the beaten track, often lodging therein, only to have some unpleasant event occur during the nighttime hours, only to awaken in the ruins the next morning.

The best story in this collection was "Music Hath Charms", which reminded me of James' "Count Magus".

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well-crafted volume of short stories of the supernatural. L. T. C. Rolt was a celebrated engineer and enthusiast for the canals of Britain. Many of his stories occur in a remote, often industrial landscape, which make them refreshingly different from the country house or ecclesiastical backdrops of M. R. James, the Bensons and other twentieth century British writers. Like the best ghost story writers, Rolt's hauntings are often not straightforward, and he is skilled at investing his settings, such as remote valleys and mountains, with a sense of terror.

The stories are short and the reader is placed very quickly in the atmosphere and mystery that unfolds. I recommend this volume very strongly for the quality of the plotting and the descriptions of the environments in which the tales take place.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of mostly very short stories. Many of the tales concern vengeful supernatural entities, the warnings about, and the manifestations of which are not taken seriously by the victims, despite a more attuned and imaginative companion urging caution. The settings and characters are very well evoked, and there is some fine natural description and frequent humour. My favourite piece was Hawley Bank Foundry, which, in its description of an abandoned industrial site in a rural setting, exhales a deliciously sinister atmosphere. Compare and contrast with the horror writing of the author's friend and co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association, Robert Aickman.

[Chuck McKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a friend who shares my love of Classic ghost stories, and I absolutely loved it. The stories included have a very Victorian/Edwardian feel to them, despite being written around the 1940s, and involve not just ghosts but far less pleasant entities (the first story, 'The Mine', involved a being that Robert E. Howard might have dreamed up). The feel of these tales reminded me of the best of M. R. James - creepy as heck, with often chilling payoffs - but they're written in a deceptively low-key style that is entirely the author's own. I'd recommend this collection to anyone who loves classic weird fiction.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read these a couple of times now, discovered during Lockdown and now a firm favourite. Some great descriptive writing. A particular favourite of mine is "Cwm Garon" which conjures up the brooding atmosphere of the Black Mountains, but all the stories are well worth a read.

[Kurt Weber · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book of ghost stories, far and away

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the writting here but in about half of these stories Rolt's shorthand solution of not explaining whatever just happened and simply ending got on my nerves. Sometimes he simply ends the story like that, and we never get any hint as to why what was happening happned. This is the case with "The New Corne"r and "The Garside Fell Disaster" for example. What is the point behind the man who keeps waving people away from the new corner on the race track and what exactly IS behind the fence ? "Something". Why is the inside of the Garside Fell railway tunnel super hot and what exactly is it there that "shouldn't be disturbed" ? "Something". What is the tree-beard like thing the narrator in "The Shouting" comes across and runs off from ? No idea, no one has any idea who the kids are who yelled at it and there is no superstition or legend to account for it either.

Then you have those instances where Rolt starts explaining before he stops. "Cwm Garon" begins to tell us that the reason for the oppressive atmosphere and secrecy is some sort of local dark cult, but the narrator insists the actual influence is something separate from that, and then runs off and apparently gets killed by what are implied to be fay. The most tragic victim of Rolt's terseness is Music Hath Charms. There we suddenly start seeing how the narrator's friend is apparently being possessed by the spirit of his vile ancestor, gets himself a mysterious, very disqueting and creepy mistress whom he calls the same name as said ancestor's mistress, and then we see, amid hints of intentional shipwreck and plunder, hint of some strange, inhuman creature and possibly familiar to the dead, nefarious count being glimpsed by the narrator obeying the summons of his friend and the damn story just ends then and there. What could have been the brilliant beginning of a horrid, gruesome little tale, something between Poe and John Metcalfe, is brutally cut off and left tragically, criminally unfinished. I would assume this is why Bleiler was not very happy with this collection.

Don't get me wrong, Rolt does have some genuine gems here like "The Mine" or "Hawley Bank Foundry", but his terseness is what makes many of the very promising stories here be somewhat disappointing. It's different from what M. R. James does, as he usually sketches enough of an outline to at least get an idea what happened, even if you don't always get exactly why. But the what is very often missing from Rolt's stories as well.

I should preffer to give it 3 and a 1/2 stars as I don't think it's average on one hand, but am rather disappointed on the other to be able to provide a full 4 star rating.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a classic, and we, the readers remain indebted to the History Press, for coming out with this new edition of a classic. The book, as well as its author, hardly require any description, for the lover of supernatural fiction. It has ghost stories (Mr. Rolt would be cringing in his afterlife if he comes across so cheap a term being used to describe his revenants), of a Jamesian variety (i.e. written in the compact, almost-gentle, and yet very effective style used by M.R. James in his ghost stories). The major difference between the works of M.R. James and L.T.C Rolt lies with their settings. While the provost of Eton kept his characters firmly contained within antiquarian & apocryphal settings, the engineer and pioneer of the Inland Waterways preservation campaign placed his stories in the not-so-distant industrial past of Great Britain. It also deals with horrors, lurking in Welsh highlands and Irish lakes, in a manner that would have made Machen proud. It also deals with psychological horrors in the form of inner demons that can cause the protagonist's demise with great efficiency. But above all, it tells stories in a very simple narrative style that, nevertheless, packs a punch which has few peers now-a-days. The list of the stories are as under:
1. The Mine
2. The Cat Returns
3. Bosworth Summit Pound
4. New Corner
5. Cwm Garon
6. A Visitor at Ashcombe
7. The Garside Fell Disaster
8. World's End
9. Hear Not My Steps
10. Agony of Flame
11. Hawley Bank Foundry
12. Music Hath Charms
13. The Shouting in The Thrill of Horror
14. The House of Vengeance
The contents are similar to the Ash Tree Press edition, off course devoid of the superb editorial comments. But overall, it was a five-star book, and highly recommended to all lovers of supernatural fiction.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag of weirdness from Rolt. Two of the stories are outstanding. Both are set in the region of Llanthony Priory on the Powys-Monmouthshire border. 'Cwm Garon' really is exceptional. Rolt conjures up the beauty, mystery and ultimately the horror of this isolated valley, imbuing his tale with the feel of both Machen and Lovecraft. It's a satisfying whole, unlike the majority of his tales which may have some good ideas but are poorly developed and rather 'throwaway'. This is to an extent true of one of the strongest stories, 'The Mine'. Set in another area I know well, the former lead mining district of Shropshire, 'The Mine' has an original and truly sinister theme of shadowy and malevolent beings preying on the miners in the dark depths below ground. Yet it somehow falls short.

It's certainly ironic that in his essay on 'The Passing of the Ghost Story', which closes the book, he is highly critical of weird fiction that is 'too short'. He writes: 'If it is to convince the reader, the process whereby the absnormal gradually intrudes and imposes itself upon the normal cannot be hurried, and hence an attempt to supply the fashionable technique of streamlining is disastrous.' And yet this is a fault he regularly falls into himself.

'Cwm Garon' is the notable exception and it is almost worth buying 'Sleep No More' for this story alone. But there are others - the 'Cwm Garon' follow-up 'The House of Vengeance', 'The Mine' and 'The Garside Fell Disaster' in particular - which also have their rewards. 'Sleep No More' is a rare book and it is particularly pleasing that the Ash Tree Press edition, which includes two stories and the abovementioned essay that were not present in the 1940s edition, should be available now on Kindle for less than a fiver.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rolt took the English ghost story away from the tweedy academics and dusty libraries of M.R. James, recognising the potential of the country's industrial past. 'Sleep No More' looks backwards to Arthur Machen at times (I especially like the curious gypsy children of 'The Shouting') but also looks ahead to writers such as Ramsey Campbell. Canals, disused iron foundries, railways, and telephones all provide opportunities for unsettling encounters with the inexplicable, and there is a sense in most of Rolt's tales that there are forces beneath the surface of the countryside which are best left undisturbed. I like the atmosphere of many of these stories and there are a number of evocative descriptions. Sometimes there's a little more background and/or exposition than I'd wish for, but considering that the ghost story wasn't the most important arrow in Rolt's quiver, his essays in the form are quite impressive. He's very different from his fellow canal enthusiasts Robert Aickman and Elizabeth Jane Howard though, not least because his stories tend to eschew allegory and surrealism. They are, as a consequence, much easier to understand, but they don't stand up to repeated reading in the way that 'Three Miles Up' or 'Ringing the Changes' do.

[Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended if reading a cross between Robert Aickman and M. R. James sounds like a nice way to while away your time. These tales are definitely not as brisk and spooky as James’, and they lack his wit, but often ancient forces are driving them, they feature similar quiet, brainy men on some kind of outing, and they’re narrated as ghost stories. But the slower pace reminds me of Aickman, and although Rolt’s best don’t unsettle like his best do, he too has a way with words.

The quality of the stories varies, inevitably of course. Some read almost as if the writer tried too hard to ground the story in reality. To the point you almost feel like you’re reading a technical manual. But overall this is a great collection and there are definitely a few strange stories I’ll be revisiting every once in a while on a dark and stormy night.

Favorites: The Cat Returns, Cwm Garon, A Visitor at Ashcombe, World’s End, Hear Not My Steps

[Canavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

✭✭✭½

“The Mine” (1942) ✭✭✭✭
“The Cat Returns” (1948) ✭✭✭✭
“Bosworth Summit Pound” (1948) ✭✭✭✭✭
“New Corner” (1939) ✭✭✭✭½
“Cwm Garon” (1948) ✭✭✭½
“A Visitor at Ashcombe” (1948) ✭✭✭½
“The Garside Fell Disaster” (1948) ✭✭✭✭
“World’s End” (1948) ✭✭✭
“Hear Not My Steps” (1948) ✭✭✭
"Agony of Flame" (1948) ✭✭✭½
“Hawley Bank Foundry” (1948) ✭✭✭✭
“Music Hath Charms” (1948) ✭✭✭½
“The Shouting” (1975) ✭✭✭
“The House of Vengeance” (1976) ✭✭✭
“The Passing of the Ghost Story” (1956) ✭✭✭½
“L. T. C. Rolt and Two Ghost Stories”, Hugh Lamb (1995) ✭✭✭½

All entries by L. T. C. Rolt except as noted.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a real find; an author I hadn't previously heard of, but recommended by Goodreads. It's a refreshing blend of creepy stories mixed with industrial-age technology; as the subtitle suggests, there are plenty of references to the canals and railways of Britain.

I particularly liked the use of working class protagonists, a real change from the priviledged characters inhabiting MR James' world. Combined with the industrial backdrop, it adds an interesting, almost unique characteristic to LTC Rolt's writing.

A slight let down was the quality of the print; mine had a lot of faded pages with lines running down the paragraphs (clearly a print error). The History Press might want to consider a different printer, but like others I'm indebted to them for bringing these stories back into the public eye.