Category Archives: ghost stories

“The Roll-Call of the Reef”

3 Replies

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

Today, November 21, is the birthday of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944). Quiller-Couch wrote ghost stories. The last time a collection of his was in print was when Ash-Tree Press published The Horror on the Stair and Other Weird Tales. That was back in 2000. I’m somewhat surprised that some other publisher hasn’t come out with a collection since. “The Roll-Call of the Reef” is currently available in The Third Ghost Story Megapack.

Tonight’s selection is a nice little tale about a friendship between the trumpeter of a cavalry unit and the drummer boy from the British marines. They were the only survivors of their respective ships, both wrecked on the same night. The trumpeter is unable to return to his duties because of his injuries. The drummer boy recovers and goes back to the service. But not before they become the best of friends who play their instruments together whenever they can.

The drummer boy isn’t heard from for a few years. When he does return, he’s now a young man. He and the trumpeter have one final duty to perform.

I’ll not say anymore about the ending except to say I rather liked it. The roll-call aspect was a nice way to handle things, I thought.

Ghost stories at Christmas aren’t really an American tradition (yes, I know it’s not Thanksgiving yet), but I’m going to try to read more through the rest of the year. I have a collection that has an E. F. Benson story in it that hadn’t been reprinted since its original publication.

R. H. Malden’s “The Dining-Room Fireplace”

Leave a reply

Today, October 19, marks the birth of R. H. Malden (1879-1951). Malden was a friend of M. R. James. He only published one collection of stories, Nine Ghosts, in 1943, but it was a popular seller, even with World War II raging.

Tonight’s story is a little chiller about a group who rent an old Irish house. The owner is an officer in the army who is single.

The sitting room, dining room, and billiard room compose the rooms on the south side of the house. Portraits of family members going back a couple of centuries line the walls. In the dining room there is one picture over the fireplace that isn’t of a family member.  It’s a menacing picture showing a man astride a chair with his back to the viewer and facing the fireplace. He’s turning to look over his shoulder, but it looks like his neck is twisted more that is should be.  The man’s neck doesn’t appear to be broken because in the painting, he’s very much alive.

There are dark family secrets, strange winds coming from and blowing into the fireplace, a mysterious figure in a dream, and a secret society that came to a bad end in some way.

If that sounds like a lot, it is, although when I read the story, it didn’t seem that way. Malden did an excellent job with his tale, and I found reading it to be an entirely satisfying experience. I’ll be reading the rest of this book.

In the Room with A. M. Burrage

Leave a reply

A. M. Burrage (1889-1956) was born on this date, July 1. Burrage was a prolific author of ghost stories, including tales of the occult detective Francis Chard.

Ash-Tree Press published Burrage’s complete (I think) ghost stories in the late 1990’s. Getting  your hands on any of them today will cost you a pretty farthing. Much of Ash-Tree’s catalogue was reissued in electronic format. Sadly the Burrage volumes weren’t.  Or rather they were, but Ash-Tree appears to have lost the rights. Burrage’s work is available in electronic, print, and audio editions from another publisher, but I not sure all of his stories are. One of the ones I read for this post, “The Oak Saplings”, doesn’t appear to be, although there are some listed in the ISFDB but the contents are listed. A tale of two murdered lovers, it’s a chilling story. I read it and “Someone in the Room” in the Ash-Tree ebook Someone in the Room and Other Stories.

“Someone in the Room” is in print and is the story of a professional poor relation, meaning the central character is a woman who takes advantage of wealthier relatives and makes the most of their hospitality. Where I come from we call these people bums.  Continue reading →

Blackwood’s “The Wendigo”

2 Replies

British author Algernon Blackwood was born on this date, March 14, in 1869. Blackwood was a major influence on many writers of the weird tale in the early years of the 20th Century, including H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.

Along with “The Willows”, “The Wendigo” is one of Blackwood’s best known tales.

It concerns a group on a moose hunting expedition in the Canadian wilderness.  A psychiatrist, his nephew, two guides, and a cook are having no luck on their hunt, so they decide to split up.  The uncle and his guide go west, the nephew and his guide canoe across the lake they are camped by and hike some distance to another lake, and the cook stays in the base camp await their return. Continue reading →

Christmas Ghosts: “Four Ghosts in Hamlet” by Fritz Leiber

4 Replies

“Four Ghosts in Hamlet”
Fritz Leiber
available in Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories
paperback $14.99
ebook $9.99

This post is another that is serving double-duty. Not only is it a Christmas ghost post, but today, December 24, is the birthday of Fritz Leiber (1910-1992).

This novelette draws upon Leiber’s experience as a Shakespearean actor. It’s the story of a troupe of Shakespeareans who have hired a down and out actor who used to be well known before he crawled into a bottle. Continue reading →

Christmas Ghosts: “The Wish” by Ray Bradbury

2 Replies

This Christmas ghosts post is going to be a little different. I’ve been traveling most of the day and don’t feel like writing much.  Fortunately, I don’t have to.

Sue Granquist, AKA Goth Chick at Black Gate, has done the heavy lifting for me.  You need to read her post. It contains a link to a PDF of this story. Ms. Granquist has written a powerful and moving account of what this story means to her. I can’t top it. I read this story back  in high school when I read Bradbury’s collection Long After Midnight. In the years since, I had forgotten the story entirely. It simply didn’t have a huge impact on me when I was fourteen (give or take a year). Now that my impending geezerdom is on the horizon, I can relate to it much better. Fortunately not yet as much as I probably will some day.

Go read it.  You can thank me later.

Christmas Ghosts: “The Ghost Child” by Bernard Capes

Leave a reply

“The Ghost Child”
Bernard Capes
Available in Spectres in the Snow
ebook $0.99

Christmas is a time for children. Christmas is a time for love. Christmas is a time for ghost stories.  “The Ghost Child” combines all three in a chilling way.

There will be spoilers with this post. You have been warned.

This story has an odd structure. It’s narrated in the first person, but the narrator isn’t one of the principle characters. In fact the only purpose the narrator seems to serve is, well, I need to introduce the main characters first. Continue reading →

Christmas Ghosts: “Bone to His Bone” by E. G. Swain

Leave a reply

“Bone to His Bone”
E. G. Swain
available in Winter Ghosts: Classic Ghost Stories for Christmas
ebook only $0.99

E. G. Swain was a friend of M. R. James and wrote a series of ghost stories starring the Reverend Roland Bachtel, the Rector of Stoneground,  This is one of them.

The story takes place on Christmas Eve, and the Reverend Bachtel can’t sleep. So he gets up and goes into his library to read. The matches aren’t where he left them. As he’s fumbling for them in the dark, someone puts the matches into his hand.

The good reverend lights a match only to discover that there’s no one there. What is there is a book on the desk. Bachtel never leaves books out. The book is one on gardening; it was part of a library left by a long-dead rector in a previous century.

The book is initially closed, but when Bachtel turns away, he hears the book open and pages turning. His eye is drawn to a line that seems to be telling him to enter the garden. The page turning happens twice more, and Bachtel believes he is being told to go to a particular place in the garden and dig.

When he goes to the directed location, he finds a shovel…

Swain’s ghost stories are similar in style and tone to those of James, but without the menace.  This was the first of the Stoneground ghost stories I’ve read.  I’ll be reading some of the others.

Christmas Ghosts: “The Green Parrot” by Joseph Payne Brennan

5 Replies

“The Green Parrot”
Joseph Payne Brennan
available in Nine Horrors and a Dream
paperback $9.95
ebook $7.96

Today’s post serves two purposes. Not only is it a ghost story, but today, December 20, is the birthday of Joseph Payne Brennan (1918-1990).

“The Green Parrot” is a brief little tale. The unnamed narrator, whom the reader will probably assume to be an alter ego of Brennan since the story is in first person, is a writer who has moved to a small inn in the hills of Connecticut to finish a book. In late November he decides to take an afternoon off since he is on schedule and drive about the countryside.

And on the way back he takes a shortcut…

These types of things are never a good idea. Continue reading →

Christmas Ghosts: “A Mysterious Visitor” by Ellen Wood

Leave a reply

“A Mysterious Visitor”
Ellen Wood
can be found in The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories
hardcover $23.07
paperback $16.99
ebook $7.99

Today’s ghost story, like yesterday’s, is concerned with the Indian Mutiny of 1857. This one is more concerned with the mutiny itself than a ghost, although there is definitely a ghost.

Ellen Wood wrote sensation novels in the 1800s. This story certainly is in that vein. Continue reading →