While this might seem to indicate a certain perverse obsession with self-destruction on my part, I refer you to our the Dreadful Thoughts record book. Therein we find that out of sixteen, horror-fixated, authors we have but three suicides: the pair listed above, and poor old John Polidori (who, fed up to the gills with show-off Byron getting all the credit, tore into the prussic acid). That's only 18.75%…proving that, by and large, our chosen folk are mostly jovial types who cartwheel merrily through sylvan glades (chuckling as they go).

So…um…where was I? Oh, yes. Robert E. Howard. "Pigeons From Hell". The bed-wettingly, scarifying thing we're actually here to talk about and all that.

Well, off you go. I've uncorked the cyanide-tinged Chardonnay. Be with you in a minute.

Right. Littlest one curled up in bed with much-loved teddy and Minnie Mouse blanket? Check. Tasty mid-range Merlot decanting on the worktop? Check. Curry bubbling away satisfactorily? Check. Tube of Pringles on standby (in case of vino-induced munchies)? Check. The spectre of that indefatigable feminist, lecturer, and occasional writer of fiction Charlotte Perkins Gilman standing behind me and watching (with a fierce and critical gaze) each and every word I type? Er…check.

All things are present and correct. Including, hopefully, some lovely punters out there: huddled o'er their keyboards, minds ripe and ready for juicy chatter and natter about one of the creepiest (and most political) short stories of the late 19th Century.

Lash down a nerve-stiffening draught of whatever you're having yourself. Smooch your loved ones goodbye (just in case). And let's boogie – like it's 1892.

Begin.¹

1. And don't stop till this day week. [back]

Snuffling and shuffling figures pick their ways gingerly o'er awesomely white icescapes. The fallen lie wailing in slush-choked gutters – hips and hopes shattered. Frozen water everywhere, but not a drop to drink (or flush the foetid loo with). Doomed cars spinning hideously into gaping chasms.

January, 2010. A non-stop horror show of chilblains, slight inconvenience, and unwashed stinkiness. God help us all…

But wait. All has not yet turned to hypothermic and frigid despair. There is still warmth (sort of) and joy (er…) left in the online world. For the next 7 days, Dreadful Thoughts will be keeping a Lovecraftian (hell)fire burning. So gather ye round this gnarled, gargantuan and ancient fireplace and let some H. P. sauce warm your brittle bones.

"The Outsider" (html) & "The Rats in the Walls" (html), (html), (pdf).

Thoughts? Reactions? Wild fancies?

Suffragette. Modernist innovator. Paddler in the turbulent "stream of consciousness" (a phrase she allegedly coined). May Sinclair was once "one of the most successful and widely known of British women novelists". And then? Disappearance down that well-trodden path into obscurity. And then? Semi-revival by crusading Feminist scholars. And then? A starring role in this, the thirteenth (shriek!) meeting of our Dreadful Thoughts Story Club.

A 7 day discussion of her steamy & pulsating supernatural bonkbuster¹ – "The Nature of the Evidence" – starts here and starts now.

Well? Off ye go.

1. Warning: Description may not be remotely accurate. [back]

Though he was (in his day) prolific,¹ popular, and commercially successful – F. Marion Crawford's posthumous "literary star" appears to have faded quite quickly.² For the next seven days, however, Dreadful Thoughts will be waving a ragged Crawford-ian flag and trying to give his largely-forgotten name a very modest boost (either by praising him or slagging him off). An apt moment for such an exercise given that the one hundredth anniversary of his death has just passed.³

Though "weird tales" were but a small part of his overall output, it is to one such weird tale that we now turn – the damp, dark, seawater-drenched "The Upper Berth" (1886). So come ye salty dogs. Come ye land lubbers. Come ye Easter bunnies. Put down the washing. Pull closed the curtains. Tell us what ye think and thought.

1. Writing over forty books. [back]
2. David Stuart Davies, in his introduction to The Witch of Prague & Other Stories (Wordsworth Editions, 2008) ISBN: 9781840220902. [back]
3. April 9th, 1909. [back]

Welsh Anglo-Catholic occultist. Member (briefly) of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Avowed anti-materialist. Inspirer of everyone's favourite pathologically racist horror grandmaster: H.P. Lovecraft. Sometime scandaliser of (an easily scandalised) Victorian society. Fearer/Lover of fauns who gambolled oftentimes in the dingly dell. These are but a few pieces of the puzzle that is/was Arthur Llewelyn Jones – a.k.a Arthur Machen (1863-1947).

This week we focus our dreadful magnifying glasses on his 1894 tale, "The Inmost Light". A story of (among other things) urban & sub-urban London – a city that became for Machen (one source suggest) "as numinous…as the Gwent of his boyhood". Oh and then there are the small matters of (what may or may not be) a human soul, its absence, and (shriek!) what rushes in to fill the void.

So pop open the nearest rotund bottle of Benedictine, repeat (endlessly) the jingle "Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice around the maple-tree", and get typing some lovely and interesting words.

Misanthrope? Misogynist? Satirist? Supernaturalist?

Tonight, on Dreadful Thoughts, we're not only getting out the club magnifying glass to squint at the werewolf myth (through the prism of "Gabriel Ernest"), but also asking (in strong, but non-judgmental, terms) what Hector Hugh Munro (a.k.a Saki) was ultimately all about.¹

Pop the kids under the stairs, lock your aged relations in the attic, crack open a bottle of whatever you're having yourself, and let's boogie.

Begin.

1. Not that such a reductive question can actually be answered of course. [back]

Poor Polidori. That's the title of D. L. MacDonald's (critical) biography of the sometime author and physician we turn our attentions to on this damp, grey and windy night. And a fitting title it seems to have been when one considers a few of his woes.

For not only did the text of "The Vampyre" (which he appears to have left behind him in Switzerland in the autumn of 1816) get submitted to the New Monthly in London without his knowledge or consent, but, when it was eventually published it was described (by the magazine's proprietor, Henry Colburn) as "A Tale by Lord Byron". Ouch.

Add in Polidori's subsequent career failures, his dismissal (from his physician duties) by nasty Byron, and it's not entirely surprising that he opted for a romantic exit from this cruel world – taking his own life at the tender age of 26.

Yet the last laugh (or morbid chuckle) remains his. While many of Byron's other hangers-on are remembered only for their (sometimes literal…ooer) connections to his Lordship, Polidori's contribution to the genesis and development of the modern vampire mythos has ensured him a modest literary immortality.

Prior to Lord Ruthven's appearance, traditional (Serbian/Hungarian) vampires tended to be "bloated, shaggy, foul-smelling corpses who preyed on their immediate neighbours and relatives".¹ Not only that, but these grotesque revenants "were composed entirely of peasants".² Quick! Pass me my lavender-soaked handkerchief!

Polidori's transformation of the vampire from "bestial ghoul to glamorous aristocrat"³ established a template which blew away all competitors. Bram Stoker, Universal Pictures and Hammer (et al) would later finesse this model, thus helping to ensure its almost complete dominance, but Polidori's misattributed tale was (pretty much) where it all started.

With that I invite you to grab your flagons of blood-red wine and get chatting. My own contributions may be less fast and frequent than usual, owing to the fact that I'm currently laid up in bed with a bastardly cold. Offers of sympathy and understanding are encouraged. Sniff.

1. Polidori, John The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre (OUP, 2008), p. xii. [back]
2. Ibid. [back]
3. Ibid. xix. [back]

"Oh that Aleister Crowley", my (fictional) grand-aunt usedn't to say, "He was an awful man entirely!"

"Wicked, he was", she usedn't go on, "Pure wicked. The baldy head on him and the bulging eyes. He'd give you a bad dose of the heebie-jeebies. Desperate!"

Have a squint at this if you don't believe her…

Thrill with the lissome lust of the light,
O man! My man!
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady!
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and satyrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white ass, come over the sea
To me, to me!¹

Fortunately for us (and our discussion of, among other things, the great god Pan) this is to be the seventh meeting of our Dreadful Thoughts Story Club. Good old lucky/mystical number seven. It shall, surely, cast its magical net about us and keep us safe from the frolicking and trampling hooves without.

Within this charmed circle we shall be chewing over E. F. Benson's "The Man Who Went Too Far" (1912) – a story that seems (at first glance) to do exactly what it says on the tin.

Terror, joy, suffering, bliss – these meaty ingredients are all here (plus some freaky "bleating" laughter). Time to uncork the nearest bottle o' plonk, light a contemplative pipe, listen to the latest DT mixtape (courtesy of the lovely Niall), and revel in the oneness of all things.

Begin.

1. Aleister Crowley, 1929 – "Hymn to Pan" (excerpt). [back]

I believe that everyone who sets about writing in earnest does his work, as a friend of mine phrased it, on something – tea, or coffee, or tobacco.¹

The weary words of the unfortunate Rev. Mr Jennings – a character doomed by the tragic flaw of loving tea much too "extravagantly". For my own purposes tonight I turn (as always) to reliable ol' red wine – a substance not generally noted for whipping one's nerves up into states of high agitation. I urge club members to follow this lead.

Those who persist in slurping down mugs of hot 'tay' (God help them) do so at their own risk.

Should you require an alternative stimulant (to get the synapses fizzing) then please feel free to sample some of the delights contained on either of the Dreadful Thoughts mix/muxtapes:

1) "O, Whistle and I'll Come to You – Eerie Musicks for Dreadful Thoughts"

2) "Dreadful Thoughts Two …Dread by Dawn"

Scrub the face, mutter a prayer or two, tuck the children in and let's get cracking.

1. "Green Tea" in The Wordsworth Collection of Irish Ghost Stories (Wordsworth, 2005), pg. 24. [back]

From god-like ferrets, to ghostly doggies, and on (this evening) to a "cursed" & withered simian extremity – our mammalian carnival of horrors just keeps on truckin'.

More than any of the five authors we've discussed thus far, W. W. Jacobs' popular reputation rests heavily (if not exclusively) on but one tale (and what an influential and oft-parodied tale it is) – "The Monkey's Paw" (1902).

The popularity of the story has not only guaranteed it the status of evergreen "horror anthology" staple, but also allowed/encouraged it to cross over into the realms of children's literature.¹ Thus it was, in a mediocre children's miscellany, that I first came across a (no doubt abridged) version of it. The mixture of sadness, profound loss and (off-screen) horror stayed with me for years. In this, I very much doubt I'm alone.

So here I am (and we are) many years on – ready, willing and eager to discuss it (while getting mildly pissed, or caffeinated). To keep us company we have the second volume in the "club's" ongoing mixtape/muxtape series – "Dreadful Thoughts Two: Dread by Dawn". Listen to it, wallow in it, and thank our resident DJ Niall Munnelly for putting it all together.

I'm a terrible man for "further ado" – so (without any more of it) let's get comfortable, and begin…

1. And wider pop-consciousness. [back]

Welcome ye night wanderers, ye fumblers in the deep & fear-filled dark. Welcome to the fourth instalment of the interweb's dreadfulest story club.

On the menu (Mmm…) tonight – Edith Wharton's shaggy ghost-dog story "Kerfol".

Though, like many of her contemporaries, Wharton was of the opinion that certain aspects of modernity have proven disagreeable to ghosts (and "the ghostly"), she doesn't wholeheartedly embrace the commonly articulated view (attributed by her to Osbert Sitwell) that "ghosts went out when electricity came in":

"What drives ghosts away is not the aspidistra or the electric cooker; I can imagine them more wistfully haunting a mean house in a dull street than the battlemented castle with its boring stage properties."¹

What the ghost really needs, she tells us, is "not echoing passages and hidden doors behind tapestry, but only continuity and silence". For "where a ghost has once appeared it seems to hanker to appear again; and it obviously prefers the silent hours, when at last the wireless has ceased its jazz".²

This may indeed be true. If it is then it begs questions of our (finished & sequenced) Dreadful Thoughts muxtape. Will the "tape", as I had hoped, add to the spooky atmosphere of our meetings or will it, instead, serve only to deafen the encroaching spirits – driving them scuttling toward the door? Time well tell I suppose – and the latter (potential) result may actually be a bonus depending on the state of your nerves.

But enough. Those of you with club badges – wear 'em. Their mystical properties will either keep you safe from the perils of the otherworld, or damn you for all eternity (I haven't worked out which yet).

Booze (or herbal teas) at the ready? Good…let us begin.

P.S: Club member "Wunderkammer" has created his own dreadful companion to our mixtape. It can be found here. Enjoy.

1. Wharton, Edith The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton (London: Virago, 1996), pg. 3. [back]
2. Ibid. [back]

Evenin' all.

Given that one of very short stories up for discussion tonight ("Sredni Vashtar") concerns a great ferret god who lays "some special stress on the fierce impatient side of things", it's probably unwise of me to waffle on too much in an introductory fashion. Therefore, given my (fairly understandable) opposition to having my throat ripped out, I'll keep it brief.

What, you might reasonably ask, links this pair of tales (written some 70 years apart) together? I'm not altogether sure…possibly nothing. There's abundant hatred (both psychotic and desperately lonely) in each of them I suppose – but it's best to leave further such speculation for our back and forth chatter below.

The main reason I chose 'em was (as mentioned previously) because they represent, for me, two highly effective examples of what the "horror"¹ short story can achieve "in (very) short compass".

Since the Dreadful Thoughts project still hopes to encourage/bully readers (and I am one) into submitting their own 500-word tales of terror (see here) then it seems perfectly appropriate to take a look at how the professionals have done it.

Plus, y'know, it's fun…

But enough of all that. Fire up your hookahs, uncork those draughts of vintage that have been "Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth" and let's do the Monster Mash.

Away we go.

1. I'm happy to accept Saki's tale as "horror", using a broad definition of the term. [back]

Welcome, once more, dear friends to the second meeting of our most dreadful story club. Though tomorrow may be (for some) a good Friday, this evening we hope to enjoy a most wicked Thursday.

After the previous session, in which we gazed fearlessly into a terrible face of crumpled linen, we paddle our canoe in the direction of Algernon Blackwood and the cosmic, elemental horror of "The Willows".

The story – in which two travelling companions journey into a wilderness, and there find a spot where our world and an (awesome & terrifying) otherworld intersect – is based heavily on Blackwood's own adventures. In the summers of 1900 and 1901 he took two trips down the Danube (the second with his friend Wilfred Wilson) and chronicled his experiences in a two-part essay (imaginatively titled) "Down the Danube in a Canadian Canoe".¹

While those "real life" trips must certainly have helped Blackwood create a credible sense of space & place, the almost overwhelming terrors that the narrator and "the Swede" are forced to try and comprehend (and escape from) appear solely the protean products of Blackwood's fertile imagination. Or at least we hope so…

By the way, despite previous statements to the contrary we're not going to be posting a list of "observations" for you to riff off and react to. This is partly because I couldn't figure out how to phrase them so they wouldn't threaten to lead the conversation in slightly tedious directions. The more important reason is that hardly anyone emailed us any!

So, like last time, the stage is yours to say whatever tickles (and terrifies) your various fancies. Crack open the good stuff, dim the lights, kiss your loved ones goodbye (for a few hours at least) and let's get chatting.

Begin.

1. Joshi, S.T. in (Blackwood's) Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories (USA: Penguin, 2002), p. 353. [back]