Classic Ghost Stories

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Episode 7: Man Sized in Marble by Edith Nesbit Oct 04, 2019

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Edith NesbitEdith Nesbit was an English novelist born in 1858 in Kennington, which was then Surrey and is now part of London. She died in 1924 in the next county from where she was born.Nesbit is most famous for her children’s books and her most famous work The Railway Children is well beloved. I loved her Five Children and It stories which I read in a Victorian house all decked out for Christmas one year. That was splendid as the owner of the house had a great sense of interior decoration (though she was also rather too fond of a drink as I found out when I grew up)Like most Victorian novelists she had a dabble in ghost stories. They sold well at the time. This one, Man Sized in Marble appears in a lot of anthologies.It’s a story that is more impressive on the second reading (or hearing). The first time through you don’t pick up on all the little hints and foreshadowings that something dreadful is going to happen. In fact, Laura’s death wasn’t foreseen by me, which is the sign of a good story.There is a lot of nice Gothic description of the woods and the moon and the church as well as the house lit by candles and tallow tapers. I was going to do The Nurse’s Tale this week, but this took precedence. I am going to do The Phantom Coach next week, but I’m itching to do something American again to perfect my accent. I appreciate it may take more than one story to do that.So, I’m thinking Ambrose Bierce. Any suggestions welcome.My new book is out. Hard copies arrived today. Very exciting. I’m still doing voiceover and narration work if you need any of that done. I find most people don’t.As ever, still spending more on the podcast than I earn, so if you fancy helping me out, check outTo show your appreciation, why not subscribe to Substack. Free gets all the free stuff and $5 a month gets you all the exclusive stories and episodes.https://tonywalker.substack.com/ (Subscribe)Support the show

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Episode 6: The Open Door by Charlotte Riddell Sep 26, 2019

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Charlotte Riddell was born in 1832 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. After she married she moved to London where she lived most of her life and died in Ashford in Kent in 1906. Riddell was a very prolific novelist and well known in the Victorian period. She actually owned and ran a Literary Magazine in the second half of the 19th Century. The Open Door is considered a classic Victorian ghost story and it reminds me of some of Wilkie Collin’s stories which are more or less contemporary. The Open Door is both a ghost story and not a ghost story. It has elements in it reminiscent of Scooby Doo and if hadn’t been for the pesky sacked insurance clerk, maybe you know who would have got away with itBut for all that the opening of the door does appear to be supernatural. It simply won’t stay shut and breaks of the handle of the gimlet. We don’t use gimlets much these days, but once I looked up what a gimlet was the phrase ‘gimlet eyed’ became more understandable.And then there is the monstrous figure that appears at the end. This seems to truly be a ghost and the apparition reminds us that the function of ghosts in stories is often a warning and a demand that murder or other outrages be put right and justice be done.Banquo’s Ghost in MacBeth and Hamlet’s father in Hamlet do much the same. It’s all about revenge.The story is a pretty straightforward adventure but there are a couple of nice touches. Phil Edlyd’s uncle seems a nice chap. He uses dialect thee and thou, which is a nice homely touch. Another endearing feature is that Phil longs to be a country boy. He loves horses such as old Toddy and he luxuriates over the descriptions of the beautiful summer countryside outside Ladlow Hall. In the end he gets to be a farmer with his beloved Patty.The Victorian ghost story was an outgrowth of the Gothic novel, a specialist sub-branch if you like. Ladlow Hall functions as the ruined castle/abbey etc of the Gothic novel.All in all a nice piece. Unpretentious but sweet. Not scary.But then ghost stories are really scary. They’re not horror stories you know. And besides after the Human Caterpillar there’s not much can scare we moderns anyway.Support Us!https://tonywalker.substack.com/about (Subscribe For All Episodes!)MusicMusic is by the marvellous https://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute) Support the show

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Episode 5: August Heat by W F Harvey Sep 23, 2019

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August HeatW F Harvey was a Yorkshireman, born in 1885 and died in 1937. He was a Quaker and suffered from ill health all his life. He joined an ambulance unit in the First World War but then went to work as a surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He actually won a medal for saving lives but suffered from lung trouble the rest of his life from that rescue, though that didn’t stop him smoking a pipe.He published his first collection of short stories called The Midnight House in 1910 and his second in 1928 called The Beast with Five Fingers.The Beast With Five Fingers is a splendid story was was made into a film in 1946 starring Peter Lorre. I remember watching it at home with my parents and being really creeped out. The next time I watched it as an adult, I realised it was a comedy.This is a short piece of fiction. We’d almost call it Flash Fiction these days. August Heat is strong in its depiction of atmosphere of the hot August weather. The weird coincidence of the two men encapsulating each other in their own particular forms of art is strange. These days, it isn’t really unnerving. And the long established trope of leaving the reader to wonder whether he will actually die that night before midnight - and he’s got less than an hour left, is fun, but wouldn’t satisfy the modern reader.I’ve tried it and you get one starred into oblivion if you try that kind of trick on Amazon.I would be most grateful for any shares, ratings or reviews on the Podcast Channels and if you would like to, there are links to support the show through a small donationhttps://www.patreon.com/barcud (Support the show) (https://www.patreon.com/barcud)Support the show

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Episode 4: Bewitched by Edith Wharton Sep 22, 2019

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Edith Wharton, nee Jones, (born New York 1862, died aged 75 in France) was a famous American novelist. Her nickname interestingly was Pussy Jones. She was very high society and was a debutante and socialite. She was also a very good writer.Wharton wrote best-sellers such as The Age of Innocence, which won the 1921 Pulitzer prize, and Ethan Frome. She also wrote short stories, and among those short stories were several ghost stories.I think the first scene shows Wharton's mastery of her art. She introduces the three ordinary, taciturn men who are summoned without knowing why to the house of stern mrs Rutledge. She sets the scene: it's an isolated, rural area with primitive customs. Even more isolated at this time of the year because of the snow. Then she introduces the issue of her husband dilly-dallying with a revenant to much consternation and anger. The first scene ends with the dramatic entry of Mr Rutledge, who has precious little to say for himself. The characters are so well drawn and we end with a promise.The themes of rural isolation and old customs held by primitive folk is echoed throughout the later weird literature with Lovecraft making judicious use of it in the same New England, and then the Folk Horror films of the 1970s do the same in rural Old England (and Scotland for The Wicker Man). We see the same theme of rurality and superstitious ancient customs in this year's folk horror movie Midsommar, set in Sweden.And then the party breaks up. By chance they go to the scene of the haunting earlier than planned. There, Brand shoots someone in the ruined house (another trope). They've seen footprints on the snow both too light to be human and the snow too cold to be borne by a living person, so that seems to set up the ghost as real. But who does Brand shoot?Then the ghost's sister dies. Did Brand shoot his own daughter? If he did, then this is no ghost story, but presumably the Rutledge's knew the difference between the dead and living daughter? Unless old Saul Rutledge is just an old dog and knows fine well that the flesh he's enjoying is warm and alive but it suits him to portray it as a haunting...I don't know. After the funeral, Mrs Rutledge's plain ordinary words seal the community as a coming back to their plan old ordinary ways, the "forbidden things" as the Deacon repeats, put away (but not forgotten)Next week, I think I'm going to do Lovecraft's Dagon, though I am being pulled towards Le Fanu's Carmilla, which is quite long and would need a couple of episodes.We shall see.https://tonywalker.substack.com/about (Subscribe For All Episodes!)Support the show

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Episode 3: Whistle and I'll Come to You by M R James Sep 16, 2019

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M R James is known as the father of the English ghost story. He wasn’t the first to write ghost stories, but he was the finest of his generation whose work continues to be published and re-presented as TV shows and radio plays.He was born in 1862 at Goodnestone in Kent. His father was a clergyman and was rector of Livermere in Suffolk. East Anglia features as the setting of many of M R James’s stories. James’s ‘proper job’ was as an academic and he had a distinguished academic career at King’s College in Cambridge where he became dead in 1889 and finally provost in 1905. He was awarded a doctorate in literature by Cambridge in 1895 and honorary doctorates by Trinity College Dublin and St. Andrews University in Scotland.He moved to become provost of the famous Eton College, supplier of many prime ministers of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in 1918. He was a trustee of the British Museum from 1925.In 1893, James began his tradition of reading ghost stories at Christmas by candlelight to a hushed circle of his colleagues and friends. His geographical background in East Anglia is evident in many of his stories, as well as his bicycling trips to Europe. Many of his heroes are fumbling academics and Latin and old manuscripts and church architecture also features strongly.He clearly had a knowledge of the occult and demonology, though he was not known to be a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as were other writers of ghost stories such as Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen. Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You, My Lad! Is the title of a poem by the Scottish poet Robbie Burns, and James borrowed this title though Burn’s story concerns a jilted lover. Perhaps he borrowed it because the central item in the story is the ancient whistle found in the sand covered ruins of the old abbey, which when blown, seems to summon the spirit that haunts the narrator.The Latin inscription: Quis est qui venit? Means ‘Who is this who comes?’ The other inscription around the plus sign, or cross, is a puzzle of a Latin proverb: Fur Flabis Flebis which means, ‘Thief, if you blow; you will weep.” And in one sense, though a finder, our man is a thief, and when he blows, he certainly does weep.It is the sheer weirdness of the ghost that is unnerving, and James is the master of this disturbing oddness which is not quite the same as Lovecraft’s Cosmic Horror in his weird tales or later Robert Aickman’s unnerving unnaturalness in his ghost stories.The closest parallel I find to James’s inexplicable and disturbing weirdness is in David Lynch’s movies, particularly Inland Empire and the Third Season of Twin Peaks.Support Us!https://tonywalker.substack.com/about (Subscribe For All Episodes!)MusicMusic is by the marvellous https://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute) Support the show

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Episode 2: The Room in The Tower by E F Benson Sep 16, 2019

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Edward Frederic Benson was born in 1867 at Wellington College in Berkshire, England and died in 1940 in London of throat cancer aged 73. Benson’s father was E W Benson who was Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest office in the Anglican Church and the Anglican version of the Pope! His father had been bishop of Truro in Cornwall and Benson sets some of his horror stories in Cornwall.Benson’s elder brother wrote the words for that famous English patriotic song: Land of Hope and Glory. He went to the private Marlborough School and then studied at King’s College in Cambridge. After he graduated in 1892, he went to Athens where he worked for the British School of Archaeology and then in Egypt also engaged in the promotion of archaeology. His elder sister Maggie was an Egyptologist.He was also a good figure skater, and represented England.In 1883, he published his first novel which was very successful. He was most famous for his Mapp and Lucia satirical novels. As well as his Mapp and Lucia novels and his ghost stories, Benson wrote biographies, including of Charlotte Bronte.Benson was upper class and wealthy and also a confirmed bachelor, meaning he was gay, though not publicly in those days. In his diary he noted he fell in love with Vincent Yorke, a famous cricketer, who apparently did not return his affections. He shared a villa in Capri, Italy for while with another John Ellingham Brooks a pianist who moved to Capri apparently fearing prosecution for being gay.His lifestyle of leisure; of country house parties and taking shooting lodges in the Scottish Highlands forms the background for many of his stories.Benson is a good writer of ghost stories and this one, The Room in the Tower, is particularly unnerving. The scene is set by the story of a recurring nightmare, followed by an apparently innocuous invitation to a weekend at a country house, where element after element matches his nightmare, down to repeated phrases. The tower, where he is set to sleep, is apparently haunted by a vampire; Mrs Stone.The story has an air of real experience about it and I wonder whether Benson himself had a recurring nightmare, or poached the idea from the real experience of a friend. I was told a similar story by a young woman I met and this dream, and Benson’s story The Room in The Tower were the inspiration for my own story: He WaitsMusic is by the marvellous https://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute) Download Charles Dickens The Signalman Free Mp3 https://bit.ly/dickenssignalman (Subscribe to our list and keep in touch with the podcast. Learn of new episodes and bonus Content. )Support our work PLUS you get a free story right now!(The Story Link is in the Thank You Email)Show Your Support With A Coffee!https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Buy the thirsty podcaster a coffee...)Final Request: The SurveyI want to know what you want. If you have three minutes, I'd be grateful to know what you think of The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast.https://my.captivate.fm/Click%20here%20to%20go%20to%20the%20Survey (Click here to go to the Survey)Support the show

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Episode 1: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Sep 14, 2019

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https://tonywalker.substack.com/about (Subscribe For All Episodes!)Charlotte Perkins Gilman, nee Charlotte Perkins, was born in 1860 in Hartford, Conneticut. Sadly, she committed suicide in 1935 in Pasadena California. Her father’s family was relatively well connected, but her father left the family when she was young, leaving her mother to bring up the two children. Her mother was forced to move around a lot to find work and Charlotte’s education suffered because of that. Perhaps because of her challenging childhood, Charlotte became a social reformer and feminist and was interested in furthering the political interests of women. She founded a feminist journal The Forerunner from 1909.The Yellow Wallpaper is her best known story and was published in 1892. She also wrote non-fiction most notably, Women and Economics which was published in 1898. The Yellow Wallpaper was actually Episode 1 of the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast.Her first marriage was to an artist called Charles Stetson in 1884 at the age of 24. The marriage was not happy and she suffered from depression. It is said that this illness provided much of the material for The Yellow Wallpaper, and if she was suffering from depression with psychotic features, this would tie in very well with the bizzarre delusions about the wallpaper and the things in it. This is reminiscent of The Horla by the French writer Guy de Maupassant, which is Episode 35 of the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast. The Horla was published in 1887, but there is no evidence that Charlotte was familiar with The Horla, and the earliest translation into English that I can find is 1903.She married her cousin George Gilman in 1900 and stayed with him until 1934. In that year she discovered she had terminal breast cancer. She committed suicide after that.The story is a double play: is it the story of a woman going mad, or a woman possessed by something evil? We begin to suspect that the narrator’s apparently caring husband John, may not be as caring as she thinks. Is he trying to control her? We know that Charlotte was much concerned with the emancipation of women and them achieving financial independence, so is the character of John an echo of this?The horror in the story revolves around the Yellow Wallpaper and like many of us, she sees to have seen patterns in the abstract wallpaper that eventually evolve into characters. She ultimately can enter the wallpaper and more disturbingly, the woman from the wallpaper can come out into her room. The bizarreness of the crouching, creeping figures serves to unnerve the reader.MusicMusic is by the marvellous https://theheartwoodinstitute.bandcamp.com/album/witch-phase-four (Heartwood Institute)Download Charles Dickens The Signalman Free Mp3 https://bit.ly/dickenssignalman (Subscribe to our list and keep in touch with the podcast. Learn of new episodes and bonus Content. )Support our work PLUS you get a free story right now!(The Story Link is in the Thank You Email)Show Your Support With A Coffee!https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Buy the thirsty podcaster a coffee...)Final Request: The SurveyI want to know what you want. If you have three minutes, I'd be grateful to know what you think of The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast.https://my.captivate.fm/Click%20here%20to%20go%20to%20the%20Survey (Click here to go to the Survey)Support the show

Visit us here: www.ghostpod.org

Buy me a coffee if you're glad I do this: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker

If you really want to help me, become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barcud

Music by The Heartwood Institute: https://bit.ly/somecomeback

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Classic Ghost Stories Podcast Trailer Jun 01, 2019

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Download Charles Dickens The Signalman Free Mp3 https://bit.ly/dickenssignalman (Subscribe to our list and keep in touch with the podcast. Learn of new episodes and bonus Content. )Support our work PLUS you get a free story right now!(The Story Link is in the Thank You Email)Show Your Support With A Coffee!https://ko-fi.com/tonywalker (Buy the thirsty podcaster a coffee...)Final Request: The SurveyI want to know what you want. If you have three minutes, I'd be grateful to know what you think of The Classic Ghost Stories Podcast.https://my.captivate.fm/Click%20here%20to%20go%20to%20the%20Survey (Click here to go to the Survey)Support the show

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