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Wolverden Tower
From the recesses of the temple -- if temple it were -- from the inmost shrines of the shrouded cavern, unearthly music began to sound of itself; with wild modulation, on strange reeds and tabors. It swept through the aisles like a rushing wind on an Folian harp; at times it wailed with a voice like a woman's; at times it rose loud in an organ-note of triumph; at times it sank low into a pensive and melancholy flute-like symphony. It waxed and waned; it swelled and died away again; but no man saw how or whence it proceeded.'
- GenresShort StoriesClassics
48 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1896
3 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Grant Allen
1,187 books32 followersCharles Grant Blairfindie Allen (February 24, 1848 – October 25, 1899) was a science writer and novelist, and a successful upholder of the theory of evolution.
He was born near Kingston, Canada West (now incorporated into Ontario), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister from Dublin, Ireland. His mother was a daughter of the fifth Baron of Longueuil. He was educated at home until, at age 13, he and his parents moved to the United States, then France and finally the United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and Merton College in Oxford, both in the United Kingdom. After graduation, Allen studied in France, taught at Brighton College in 1870–71 and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College, a black college in Jamaica.
Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic and a socialist. After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. One of his early articles, 'Note-Deafness' (a description of what is now called amusia, published in 1878 in the learned journal Mind) is cited with approval in a recent book by Oliver Sacks.
His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886). He was first influenced by associationist psychology as it was expounded by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, the latter often considered the most important individual in the transition from associationist psychology to Darwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms. On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica, also grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer was dead.
After assisting Sir W. W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India in the early 1880s, Allen turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels. In 1895, his scandalous book titled The Woman Who Did, promulgating certain startling views on marriage and kindred questions, became a bestseller. The book told the story of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock.
In his career, Allen wrote two novels under female pseudonyms. One of these was the short novel The Type-writer Girl, which he wrote under the name Olive Pratt Rayner.
Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavoring to explain everything by one theory. This "ghost theory" was often seen as a derivative of Herbert Spencer's theory. However, it was well known and brief references to it can be found in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud.
He was also a pioneer in science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, which includes a mention of Allen, also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption.
Many histories of detective fiction also mention Allen as an innovator. His gentleman rogue, the illustrious Colonel Clay, is seen as a forerunner to later characters. In fact, Allen's character bears strong resemblance to Maurice Leblanc's French works about Arsène Lupin, published many years later; and both Miss Cayley's Adventures and Hilda Wade feature early female detectives.
Allen was married twi
He was born near Kingston, Canada West (now incorporated into Ontario), the second son of Catharine Ann Grant and the Rev. Joseph Antisell Allen, a Protestant minister from Dublin, Ireland. His mother was a daughter of the fifth Baron of Longueuil. He was educated at home until, at age 13, he and his parents moved to the United States, then France and finally the United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edward's School in Birmingham and Merton College in Oxford, both in the United Kingdom. After graduation, Allen studied in France, taught at Brighton College in 1870–71 and in his mid-twenties became a professor at Queen's College, a black college in Jamaica.
Despite his religious father, Allen became an agnostic and a socialist. After leaving his professorship, in 1876 he returned to England, where he turned his talents to writing, gaining a reputation for his essays on science and for literary works. One of his early articles, 'Note-Deafness' (a description of what is now called amusia, published in 1878 in the learned journal Mind) is cited with approval in a recent book by Oliver Sacks.
His first books were on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877) and Flowers and Their Pedigrees (1886). He was first influenced by associationist psychology as it was expounded by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, the latter often considered the most important individual in the transition from associationist psychology to Darwinian functionalism. In Allen's many articles on flowers and perception in insects, Darwinian arguments replaced the old Spencerian terms. On a personal level, a long friendship that started when Allen met Spencer on his return from Jamaica, also grew uneasy over the years. Allen wrote a critical and revealing biographical article on Spencer that was published after Spencer was dead.
After assisting Sir W. W. Hunter in his Gazeteer of India in the early 1880s, Allen turned his attention to fiction, and between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels. In 1895, his scandalous book titled The Woman Who Did, promulgating certain startling views on marriage and kindred questions, became a bestseller. The book told the story of an independent woman who has a child out of wedlock.
In his career, Allen wrote two novels under female pseudonyms. One of these was the short novel The Type-writer Girl, which he wrote under the name Olive Pratt Rayner.
Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God (1897), propounding a theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of endeavoring to explain everything by one theory. This "ghost theory" was often seen as a derivative of Herbert Spencer's theory. However, it was well known and brief references to it can be found in a review by Marcel Mauss, Durkheim's nephew, in the articles of William James and in the works of Sigmund Freud.
He was also a pioneer in science fiction, with the 1895 novel The British Barbarians. This book, published about the same time as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, which includes a mention of Allen, also described time travel, although the plot is quite different. His short story The Thames Valley Catastrophe (published 1901 in The Strand Magazine) describes the destruction of London by a sudden and massive volcanic eruption.
Many histories of detective fiction also mention Allen as an innovator. His gentleman rogue, the illustrious Colonel Clay, is seen as a forerunner to later characters. In fact, Allen's character bears strong resemblance to Maurice Leblanc's French works about Arsène Lupin, published many years later; and both Miss Cayley's Adventures and Hilda Wade feature early female detectives.
Allen was married twi
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 29, 2023
When Maisie Llewelyn visits the Wests as a guest to Wolverden Hall for Christmas. The tower of Wolverden Church has just been rebuilt. This restoration was not very successful but was absolutely necessary. According to Bessie an old, palsied woman, the tower must be "fasted" thrice to be secure. For that's what the rhyme says:
"Fasted thrice with souls of men.
Stands the tower of Wolverden;
Fasted thrice with maidens' blood.
A thousand years of fire and flood
Shall see it stand as erst it stood."
Later that evening, at the hall dance, Maisie becomes acquainted with two young women Yolande and Hedda, but strangely, none of the other guests seems to know or see the two. They induce her to enter the vault beneath the church. They are the ancient dead, the previous human sacrifices, and also present is the entire local realm of the dead. After Christmas, the three girls want to visit the church again and climb the steeple, because Maisie is of royal blood a descendant of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth and the tower needs a third protective spirit. They persuade Maisie to become the third human sacrifice necessary to protect the tower.
"Fasted thrice with souls of men.
Stands the tower of Wolverden;
Fasted thrice with maidens' blood.
A thousand years of fire and flood
Shall see it stand as erst it stood."
Later that evening, at the hall dance, Maisie becomes acquainted with two young women Yolande and Hedda, but strangely, none of the other guests seems to know or see the two. They induce her to enter the vault beneath the church. They are the ancient dead, the previous human sacrifices, and also present is the entire local realm of the dead. After Christmas, the three girls want to visit the church again and climb the steeple, because Maisie is of royal blood a descendant of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth and the tower needs a third protective spirit. They persuade Maisie to become the third human sacrifice necessary to protect the tower.
June 28, 2012
Weihnachtliche Gruselgeschichte
"Fasted thrice with souls of men.
Stands the tower of Wolverden;
Fasted thrice with maidens' blood.
A thousand years of fire and flood
Shall see it stand as erst it stood."
Maisie Llewelyn ist zur Weihnachten als Gast nach Wolverden Hall, einem wunderbaren, alten Elisabethanischen Landsitz in Kent eingeladen. Auf dem Grundstück des Anwesens steht auch eine alte Kirche, deren Kirchturm vor kurzem neu aufgebaut wurde. Diese Restauration ist nach der allgemeinen Meinung nicht sonderlich gut gelungen, war jedoch zwingend notwendig.
Auf der Weihnachtsfeierlichkeit lernt Maisie zwei junge Mädchen namens Yolande und Hedda kennen, mit denen sie gleich innige Freundschaft schließt. Seltsamerweise scheint keiner der anderen Gäste die beiden Mädchen zu kennen. Nach dem Fest wollen die drei Mädchen noch einmal die Kirche besuchen und den Kirchturm besteigen, denn Maisi ist von königlichem Blut und der Turm braucht einen neuen Schutzgeist.
„Der Turm von Wolverden“ erschien 1896 als eine von zwölf Kurzgeschichten in „Twelve Tales: With a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo –„ (Enthalten sind -I. The Reverend John Creedy.--II. Frasine's first communion.--III. The child of the phalanstery.--IV. The abbé's repentance.--V. Wolverden tower.--VI. Janets Nemesis.--Intermezzo: Langalula.--VII. The curate of Churnside.--VIII. Cecca's lover.--IX. The backslider.--X. John Cann's treasure.--XI. Ivan Greet's masterpiece.--XII. The churchwarden's brother). Mir ist schleierhaft, warum diese Kurzgeschichte als einzelnes Buch angeboten wird, möglicherweise, weil sie die beste oder bekannteste der zwölf Geschichten ist. Es handelt sich um eine klassische Gruselgeschichte mit den bekannten Zutaten wie königliches Blut, Geister, Menschenopfer, Mystik, gruselige alte Frauen und natürlich auch ein wenig Romantik in Form eines schönen Studenten. Nettes kleines weihnachtliches Gruselgeschichtchen mit dichter Atmosphäre.
Diese mittlerweile gemeinfreie Geschichte kann auf diversen gemeinnützigen Seiten, wie dem australischen Gutenbergprojekt, kostenlos heruntergeladen werden.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0602...
"Fasted thrice with souls of men.
Stands the tower of Wolverden;
Fasted thrice with maidens' blood.
A thousand years of fire and flood
Shall see it stand as erst it stood."
Maisie Llewelyn ist zur Weihnachten als Gast nach Wolverden Hall, einem wunderbaren, alten Elisabethanischen Landsitz in Kent eingeladen. Auf dem Grundstück des Anwesens steht auch eine alte Kirche, deren Kirchturm vor kurzem neu aufgebaut wurde. Diese Restauration ist nach der allgemeinen Meinung nicht sonderlich gut gelungen, war jedoch zwingend notwendig.
Auf der Weihnachtsfeierlichkeit lernt Maisie zwei junge Mädchen namens Yolande und Hedda kennen, mit denen sie gleich innige Freundschaft schließt. Seltsamerweise scheint keiner der anderen Gäste die beiden Mädchen zu kennen. Nach dem Fest wollen die drei Mädchen noch einmal die Kirche besuchen und den Kirchturm besteigen, denn Maisi ist von königlichem Blut und der Turm braucht einen neuen Schutzgeist.
„Der Turm von Wolverden“ erschien 1896 als eine von zwölf Kurzgeschichten in „Twelve Tales: With a Headpiece, a Tailpiece, and an Intermezzo –„ (Enthalten sind -I. The Reverend John Creedy.--II. Frasine's first communion.--III. The child of the phalanstery.--IV. The abbé's repentance.--V. Wolverden tower.--VI. Janets Nemesis.--Intermezzo: Langalula.--VII. The curate of Churnside.--VIII. Cecca's lover.--IX. The backslider.--X. John Cann's treasure.--XI. Ivan Greet's masterpiece.--XII. The churchwarden's brother). Mir ist schleierhaft, warum diese Kurzgeschichte als einzelnes Buch angeboten wird, möglicherweise, weil sie die beste oder bekannteste der zwölf Geschichten ist. Es handelt sich um eine klassische Gruselgeschichte mit den bekannten Zutaten wie königliches Blut, Geister, Menschenopfer, Mystik, gruselige alte Frauen und natürlich auch ein wenig Romantik in Form eines schönen Studenten. Nettes kleines weihnachtliches Gruselgeschichtchen mit dichter Atmosphäre.
Diese mittlerweile gemeinfreie Geschichte kann auf diversen gemeinnützigen Seiten, wie dem australischen Gutenbergprojekt, kostenlos heruntergeladen werden.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0602...
April 10, 2024
“The tower demands a willing victim.”
A gothic story that I feel would have faired better with a more macabre ending. Being led to fling yourself from a tower by two beautiful apparitions only to be stopped at the penultimate moment by some nerd? Boo.
A gothic story that I feel would have faired better with a more macabre ending. Being led to fling yourself from a tower by two beautiful apparitions only to be stopped at the penultimate moment by some nerd? Boo.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews