The Signalman

Originally written by Charles Dickens and published in the 1866 Christmas edition of his own weekly literary journal 'All the Year Round', 'The Signal-Man' is the story of the three appearances of ghostly figure to the solitary occupant of a signal box situated on a deep cut railway line at the mouth of a tunnel.  Each manifestation of the figure with its call of "Halloa! Below there!" has preceded an accident on that particular stretch of the railway line.

This adaptation was made in 1976 for the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas strand and features Denholm Elliott as the haunted signal-man and Bernard Lloyd as the visitor to whom he relates his story.  As with many of the other stories it was directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark who maintains an intimate sense of encroaching danger ably assisted by powerful performances from the two men, Elliott in particular.

Buy it here - UK / US - or watch it below.

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Ghost Stories

Various
Cathay Books

Twenty-two exciting stories from the twilight world of haunted houses and hair-raising spectres are contained in this spine-chilling anthology.
Each tale is illustrated with specially commissioned drawings.

The more of these anthologies I read the quicker I get through them.  They're generally a fairly fast read anyway being short stories but in many cases the same stories appear again and again and again.  In the case of this 1984 collection from Cathay Books I already knew 12 of the 22.  Some, like M.R. James' 'A School Story' and Captain Frederick Marryat's 'The Phantom Ship' I skip past on a fairly regular basis but as these things are meant to entice (as opposed to being a warning to) the curious into the charms of the genre that's something that one has to accept.  With that being the case the above are fine inclusions as are other regulars such as Hugh Walpole's poignant 'A Little Ghost', Lovecraft's non mythos short 'The Music of Erich Zann', the unsettling presence of the cupboard in Algernon Blackwood's 'The Occupant of the Room' or Fritz Leiber's sooty city spirit in 'The Smoke Ghost'.

R. Chetwynd Hayes

Elsewhere in the book the unidentified editor has made some fine, if maybe a tad unadventurous, choices.  Charles Dickens is represented by his macabre tale of avarice and murder, 'The Ghost in the Bride's Chamber' wherein a murderer is forced to feel the intensity of his punishment increasing with each passing hour of the night which is far more than the guilty party at the heart (if you'll excuse the pun) of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' would have ever managed to endure.

The conclusion of Poe's tale signals the start of a run of rather inconsequential stories,  the black magic cat of R. Chetwynd-Hayes' 'The Cat Room', Catherine Crowe's somnambulist clergyman in 'The Monk's Story' and Saki's weakly witty 'Laura' before we hit a rich vein of the standards that I mentioned earlier.

Rosemary Timperley

The book makes another move towards the lesser known with Rosemary Timperley's tale of infatuation and fire, 'The Mistress in Black' and Guy de Maupassant's creepy little oddity, 'An Apparition'.

Undoubtedly the oddest inclusion here is an utterly pointless extract from Penelope Lively's 'The Ghost of Thomas Kempe' but it's easily skipped for the aforementioned Blackwood story and Jerome K. Jerome's practical joking ghost of 'The Haunted Mill'.

Guy de Maupassant

One of the biggest draws here was the opportunity to read something by another of the Le Fanu's.  The venerable Sheridan is here with 'The White Cat of Drumgunniol' but also his daughter Elizabeth who tells of a case of ghostly possession in 'The Harpsichord' which is a fairly told but lacks the invention of her father's work.

Closing the book are two authors who are anthology stalwarts, W.W. Jacobs, who is represented by a story I hadn't read before,'The Three Sisters' which reminded me entirely of 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and finally Joan Aiken's 'Sonata for Harp and Bicycle' allows the book to end on a romantic high even if it's a long way from being one of her best.

Some interesting stories make this a good but not essential anthology unless of course you're a newcomer to the delights of the genre then it's probably one to keep an eye out for.

Ghosts, Spooks and Spectres

Charles Molin (ed)
Puffin Books

A collection of horror stories, many with a humorous turn.

One of the real joys of reading for me these days is cracking open another of these anthologies of late 19th / early 20th century ghostly fiction especially when it turns out to be full of stories I've not read before.  This one transpires to be a really nice cross section of the famous and the less so with Wilde, Dickens and Wells rubbing shoulders with folks such as Dora Broome and Richard Bartram.

The book opens with the venerable Oscar Wilde and his lovely tale of penance paid as a thoroughly modern American family drive the resident spirit to despair in 'The Canterbury Ghost', a story I must have read before as many years ago I read the complete works of Mr. Wilde but I had no memory of whatsoever.

Next up is one of several anonymous stories, none of which really bear much scrutiny but here goes. 'Teeny-Tiny' tells of a stolen bone and the disembodied voice demanding it's return, 'The Strange Visitor' is a truly dreadful piece of poetry, 'A Ghostly Wife' finds a ghost taking the place of a Brahman's wife whilst 'The Ghost- Brahman' finds the husband being replaced.  The final one, 'The Ghost Who Was Afraid of Being Bagged' is a silly folk tale about a barber tricking a gullible spirit into helping improve his fortunes and is easily the best of the five but as I said none are really worth the bother.

J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Charles Dickens is represented by one of his most famous and ubiquitous stories, 'The Signal-man', the story of a man haunted by a ghostly figure at the head of a railway tunnel whose appearance precedes a disaster of some kind.  This is followed by J.Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Madam Crowl's Ghost' where a young girl hired to work in the house of the dying Madam Crowl experiences several terrifying events that eventually bring forth the grim truth about the old lady.

Richard Bartram's 'Legend of Hamilton Tighe' is the second, and thankfully last, poem in the book.  Now, I'm not averse to poetry but this was a load of old 'dum-de-dum-de-dum' tosh but it's nautical theme does filter nicely in Captain Marryat's tale of the Flying Dutchman, 'The Phantom Ship'.

H.G. Wells

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Brown Hand' makes a fairly common appearance but it's story of a ghost seeking the return of the titular appendage is one that stands up to an occasional reread as does Richard Middleton's jokey romp 'The Ghost Ship'.  Less successful but continuing the watery theme is 'The Water Ghost' by John Kendrick Bangs which tells of the vindictive ghost of a drowned woman and the attempts to thwart her.

H.G. Wells goes for the more whimsical route as should be expected from a story titled 'The Inexperienced Ghost'.  Here a drunk man finds, berates and eventually aids a pitiful ghost he finds lurking in the corridors of his club in an amusing little ditty of a tale with an ending you can see coming a mile off.

W.F. Harvey

Dora Broome's 'The Buggane and the Tailor' has the feel of a folktale about it and, as is often the case with stories of that ilk, ends poorly.

Another author who is a regular in these books is Saki, especially in the form of his werewolf tale, 'Gabriel-Ernest' but this time out it's a story about vindictiveness and reincarnation as the titular 'Laura' continues her habit of picking on her friends husband in various forms following her demise.

R. Blakeborough's 'The Betrayal of Nance' is another folktale-esque story this time filled to the brim with betrayal, loss and attempts at redemption from beyond the grave whilst redemption is the last thing on the mind of 'The Beast With Five Fingers' as W.F. Harvey spins a terrific yarn about the murderous creature and the attempts to thwart it.

Andrew Lang

Harvey's tale is really the last hurrah of this fun collection as the final two stories, 'The Night the Ghost Got In' by James Thurber and Andrew Lang's 'The Story of Glam' are amusing but very slight in the case of the former and veering once more into pesky folktale territory with the later which is hardly surprising given his status as the author of the 25 collections of variously coloured 'Fairy Books'.

And so the book ends - for me at least - on an undeserved low note.  Undeserved because for the most part this was a thoroughly enjoyable set that offered a number of highlights whilst the few disappointments were also relatively short lived.