Hotel Bruce

With wintry nights lengthening and daylight at a minimum, the frigid Cleveland December beckons you to indulge in a nocturnal literary excursion. Move your chair closer to that roaring fire, snuggle under the duvet, or station yourself in a cozy reading room. Now crack open that musty old tome and step back through decades passed.

These English authors share a sensibility far removed from our own lightning-paced realm. Atmosphere and ambiguity are crucial, fear is inevitable, and blood and guts are minimal. Find yourself in the grip of a classic ghost story or a charmingly weird tale.

With a pantheistic reverence and a body of work that includes a staggering 200 short stories, Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) is a tower of strength in the horror/weird tales genre. From the swamplands of the Danube to the unexplored Canadian wilderness settings, his accounts are rife with ancient sorceries, spiritual terror and deep metaphysical leanings. A reporter, adventurer and member of the occult society called The Golden Dawn, Blackwood's endless curiosity about the inner workings of the soul informed a vast number of his tales, imbuing them with an almost magical charge.

The great outdoors in a Blackwood tale is presented, for better or worse, as a force of transformation—displaying his keen belief in the existence and activity of powerful nature spirits. John Silence, a psychic detective, and a character clearly modeled on Blackwood himself, visits villages across Europe and solves inexplicable events such as local townspeople transforming into felines during an unholy Sabbath.

Recommended reading: The Wendigo, The Willows, The Man Whom the Trees Loved, The Empty House (short stories, all).

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Another member of The Golden Dawn, one-time decadent and occasional journalist, Arthur Machen (1863-1947) produced more than 40 tales of the supernatural and a handful of novels. His lyrical and Baroque style successfully conveys a sense of cosmic horror in conjunction with an obvious fear and respect for pagan deities.

Several of his stories are steeped in esoteric lore and faint eroticism, providing a counterpoint to the pastoral, evocative descriptions of the rolling Welsh countryside and the quaint, primitive peoples inhabiting these lands. Like many protagonists in weird tales, the curious are often punished by atavistic powers, resulting in what many consider highly moral cautionary tales.

Recommended reading: The Great God Pan, The Inmost Light, The Novel of the White Powder, The Novel of the Black Seal (short stories).

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Though better known for his whimsical PBS fodder "Mapp and Lucia", E. F. Benson (1867-1940) produced an extraordinary number of works dealing with the very traditional ghost story, or "spook story" as he referred to them.

The son of The Archbishop of Canterbury and a three-time mayor, Edward Frederic Benson's stories often focused on the activities of upper-class people of leisure. Benson embarks them on holidays to cozy country estates that just happen to be plagued by malevolent spirits and fiendish creatures.

His characters' encounters with dread revenants occasionally seem too easily dismissed by the presence of an almighty positive force (invocation of God's name, for example), but atmosphere is present in abundance.

It seems quite evident from several of these encounters that Benson had a humorously severe aversion to slugs and caterpillars.

Recommended reading: The Man Who Went Too Far, Gavon's Eve, Negotium Perambulans, How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery (short stories).

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Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton, M. R. James (1862-1936) is considered by many to be the unofficial Father of the Modern Ghost Story. His approximately 40 ghost stories are exquisitely and, alas, sometimes ponderously detailed, presenting extended histories of cathedrals, tracts of land, trials and turn-of-the-century customs. Nosy antiquarians are in surplus, not surprising given James’ background as a medieval scholar. Hapless protagonists stumble upon the odd 'nameless evil', or uncover an artifact that is inextricably linked to some vengeance-seeking ghoul. No one is safe from harm in his work; the innocent and the guilty alike are the unwitting prey for damage and death.

Recommended reading: Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad; Casting the Runes; Count Magnus; Canon Alberic's Scrapbook (short stories).

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Lesser known than the previously mentioned authors but certainly deserving of praise is William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918), an author, sailor, and bodybuilder killed during World War I. With four novels and 30 tales of supernatural horror and nautical adventure, he produced his entire output within a period of 11 years.

Like Blackwood's John Silence, Hodgson imagined many terrifying scenarios for his 'spiritual investigator', Carnacki the Ghost Finder. Running into unexplained phenomenon in addition to pranksters and misfits masquerading as bogeymen, Carnacki was clever and skilled in occult matters, but not necessarily brave when faced with danger.

Hodgson's masterpiece is The House on the Borderland, a short novel that is thoroughly gripping in its depiction of primal creatures and cosmic phenomena.

Recommended reading: The House on the Borderland, The Voice in the Night, The Whistling Room, The Gateway of the Monster (short stories).

The works of these authors are readily available through Clevenet Libraries, specialty bookshops and, yes, even those big box chain stores. Please patronize small businesses when possible. Purchasing First Editions will likely result in your bankruptcy. Spread the word.