Dissections Horror E-Zine

Review
Tales of the Weird – from the British Library
Gina Wisker

If you’ve walked past King’s Cross or St Pancras (Gothic structure!) you will have seen the British Library with its lovely setting, coffee shops, and a range of exhibitions, and of course books. What you might not know is that it also publishes the Tales of the Weird. This is a collection of so far 16 small books, each filled with wonderful weird stories from the household name to the more obscure greats of the weird. I only know of this series as Xavier Aldana Reyes, a Gothic scholar friend, introduced me to it, and now I have most of the books, sent by the British Library. The series adviser is Mike Ashley, who has collected the tales for, and edited, several of the books.

In From the Depths and Other Strange Tales of the Sea (2018) ed. Mike Ashley, Albert R. Wetjens, ‘The Hope of Silence’ is inspired by lost wrecked ghosts ships such as the Marie Celeste, and the Flying Dutchman. Similarly, William Hope Hodgson’s ‘The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship’ tells of finding a deserted ship. The captain and crew tow it but its lights keep cutting off, something strange dominates it – not an octopus, nothing explicable – perhaps ghosts, but certainly gold and pirates are involved. Hope Hodgson died in the First World War and wrote many sea tales. His wife sold them on to small magazines but only a few have been in wider circulation since then, so, like most of the other recovered weird tales in this, as other volumes in the series, this is the first widely available publication. Lady Eleanor Smith, daughter of wealth, who appeared in the circus, published a ‘Satanic Circus’ collection, but this tale was not included. ‘No Ships Pass’ is mostly set on a deserted island. The crucial moment comes when Patterson decides he will leave the controlling (in his own view) Madame Inez alone on the island, except for another man, the Captain. A wall of water suddenly prevents his home-made raft from moving and he is returned to the same place. This is an early example of one of the tales which always circles protagonists to the same trapped location for eternity. The story is also supposed to have influenced the TV series Lost.

Xavier Aldana Reyes also has several collections in this series, and in Promethean Horrors: Classic Tales of Mad Science (2019) he collects tales by Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H. P. Lovecraft and E. Nesbit, among many other famous authors. The authors of some of the tales are less well known, and each deals with the construction of ‘poisonous humans’ or the perpetuation/cessation of life through those mad scientist controlling figures – favourites of Gothic horror. Edith Nesbit, an English children’s author, was also fascinated by scientific experiments, and her 1913 ‘The Haunted House’ looks at extending human life into immortality through blood transfusions (a tale familiar in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s earlier ‘The Good Lady Ducayne’). Here in ‘The Five Senses’, Professor Boyd Thompson wants to extend the world beyond the five senses, but he is a mad scientist and the results are far from positive. He terrifies his wife, Lucilla, who believes him dead, nearly leaves him, and when he comes round he gives up science and forgets his notes. It is a tale of curbing horror based on too much idealism and hubris.

Georges Langelaan’s 1957 ‘The Fly’ is known for inspiring the first film of The Fly and then the David Cronenberg version. The story is told from the point of view of the scientist’s brother, as he tries a form of teleportation in which the bodies of man and fly are accidentally swopped.

The tales in this volume are not obscure as such (E.T.A Hoffmann’s ‘The Sandman’ is well known, for instance) but some like ‘The Fly’, the origins of popular films, have themselves become out of print, or unread.

The books are stocky, well produced, introduced briefly with well researched knowledge of the origins of the publications of the tales connected to contemporary or popular issues, and strains of writing, and each collection offers a kind of missing link between stories of the Gothic, of Horror, of Science and the weird. Scholarly, accessible and fascinating.

List of titles:
1. From the Depths (2018)
2. Glimpses of the Unknown (2018)
3. Mortal Echoes (2018)
4. Spirits of the Season (2018)
5. The Platform Edge (2019)
6. The Face in the Glass (2019)
7. Evil Roots (2019)
8. The Ghost Stories of M. R. James (2018)
9. The Gothic Tales of H. P. Lovecraft (2018)
10. Haunted Houses (2018)
11. The Weird Tales of William Hope Hodgson (2019)
12. Doorway to Dilemma (2019)

Link to the British Library shop:
https://www.google.com/search?q=british+library+
shop+tales+of+the+weird+series&rlz=1C1CHBF_
enGB879GB879&oq=british&aqs=chrome.1.
69i60j69i59l3j69i57j69i60l3.3604j0j7&sourceid
=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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	Review Tales of the Weird – from the British Library Gina Wisker If you’ve walked past King’s Cross or St Pancras (Gothic structure!) you will have seen the British Library with its lovely setting, coffee shops, and a range of exhibitions, and of course books. What you might not know is that it also publishes the Tales of the Weird. This is a collection of so far 16 small books, each filled with wonderful weird stories from the household name to the more obscure greats of the weird. I only know of this series as Xavier Aldana Reyes, a Gothic scholar friend, introduced me to it, and now I have most of the books, sent by the British Library. The series adviser is Mike Ashley, who has collected the tales for, and edited, several of the books. In From the Depths and Other Strange Tales of the Sea (2018) ed. Mike Ashley, Albert R. Wetjens, ‘The Hope of Silence’ is inspired by lost wrecked ghosts ships such as the Marie Celeste, and the Flying Dutchman. Similarly, William Hope Hodgson’s ‘The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship’ tells of finding a deserted ship. The captain and crew tow it but its lights keep cutting off, something strange dominates it – not an octopus, nothing explicable – perhaps ghosts, but certainly gold and pirates are involved. Hope Hodgson died in the First World War and wrote many sea tales. His wife sold them on to small magazines but only a few have been in wider circulation since then, so, like most of the other recovered weird tales in this, as other volumes in the series, this is the first widely available publication. Lady Eleanor Smith, daughter of wealth, who appeared in the circus, published a ‘Satanic Circus’ collection, but this tale was not included. ‘No Ships Pass’ is mostly set on a deserted island. The crucial moment comes when Patterson decides he will leave the controlling (in his own view) Madame Inez alone on the island, except for another man, the Captain. A wall of water suddenly prevents his home-made raft from moving and he is returned to the same place. This is an early example of one of the tales which always circles protagonists to the same trapped location for eternity. The story is also supposed to have influenced the TV series Lost. Xavier Aldana Reyes also has several collections in this series, and in Promethean Horrors: Classic Tales of Mad Science (2019) he collects tales by Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H. P. Lovecraft and E. Nesbit, among many other famous authors. The authors of some of the tales are less well known, and each deals with the construction of ‘poisonous humans’ or the perpetuation/cessation of life through those mad scientist controlling figures – favourites of Gothic horror. Edith Nesbit, an English children’s author, was also fascinated by scientific experiments, and her 1913 ‘The Haunted House’ looks at extending human life into immortality through blood transfusions (a tale familiar in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s earlier ‘The Good Lady Ducayne’). Here in ‘The Five Senses’, Professor Boyd Thompson wants to extend the world beyond the five senses, but he is a mad scientist and the results are far from positive. He terrifies his wife, Lucilla, who believes him dead, nearly leaves him, and when he comes round he gives up science and forgets his notes. It is a tale of curbing horror based on too much idealism and hubris. Georges Langelaan’s 1957 ‘The Fly’ is known for inspiring the first film of The Fly and then the David Cronenberg version. The story is told from the point of view of the scientist’s brother, as he tries a form of teleportation in which the bodies of man and fly are accidentally swopped. The tales in this volume are not obscure as such (E.T.A Hoffmann’s ‘The Sandman’ is well known, for instance) but some like ‘The Fly’, the origins of popular films, have themselves become out of print, or unread. The books are stocky, well produced, introduced briefly with well researched knowledge of the origins of the publications of the tales connected to contemporary or popular issues, and strains of writing, and each collection offers a kind of missing link between stories of the Gothic, of Horror, of Science and the weird. Scholarly, accessible and fascinating. List of titles: 1. From the Depths (2018) 2. Glimpses of the Unknown (2018) 3. Mortal Echoes (2018) 4. Spirits of the Season (2018) 5. The Platform Edge (2019) 6. The Face in the Glass (2019) 7. Evil Roots (2019) 8. The Ghost Stories of M. R. James (2018) 9. The Gothic Tales of H. P. Lovecraft (2018) 10. Haunted Houses (2018) 11. The Weird Tales of William Hope Hodgson (2019) 12. Doorway to Dilemma (2019) Link to the British Library shop: https://www.google.com/search?q=british+library+ shop+tales+of+the+weird+series&rlz=1C1CHBF_ enGB879GB879&oq=british&aqs=chrome.1. 69i60j69i59l3j69i57j69i60l3.3604j0j7&sourceid =chrome&ie=UTF-8 Home Next Contents
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