Hugh Walpole: A Century Of Creepy Stories

[demonik]

Hugh Walpole (ed.) - A Century Of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, n.d.: 1934)

Thanks to Rob Humphreys for the cover scan

Hugh Walpole - The Snow, The Tarn, A Little Ghost, Mrs. Lunt
Arthur Machen - The Islington Mystery, The Cosy Room, Opening The Door, Munitions Of War
Flavia Richardson (Christine Campbell Thomson) - The Red Turret
Oscar Cook - When Glister Walked, Si Urag Of The Tail, The Great White Fear, Boomerang
Elizabeth Bowen - The Apple Tree, Telling, The Cat Jumps
Walter De La Mare - Crewe, A Recluse
Oliver Onions - Two Trifles, The Smile Of Karen, "John Gladwin Says ...."
E. F. Benson - The Hanging Of Alfred Wadham
Shane Leslie - As In A Glass Dimly, The Hospital Nurse, The Lord In Waiting
Barry Pain - A Considerable Murder
Lady Cynthia Asquith - The Lovely Voice, The Playfellow, "God Grante That She Lye Stille", The Corner Shop
J. M. Barrie - Shall We Join The Ladies?
D. H. Lawrence - The Rocking-Horse Winner, The Lovely Lady
M. R. James - Rats
L. P. Hartley - The Killing Bottle, The Travelling Grave, A Visitor From Down Under, The Cotillion
W. B. Maxwell - The Prince, The Last Man In
C. H. B. Kitchen - Dispossession, Beauty And The Beast
Hilda Hughes - Those Whom The Gods Love, The Birthright
Charles Dickens - The Haunted Man And The Ghosts Bargain
May Sinclair - The Villa Desiree
Mrs. Belloc-Lowndes - The Duenna, The Unbolted Door
Daniel Defoe - The Apparition Of Mrs. Veal
Dennis Mackail - The Lost Tragedy
Clemence Dane - Spinster's Rest
Edgar Wallace - Circumstantial Evidence
Edgar Allan Poe - A Descent Into The Maelstrom, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, The Black Cat
Charles Whibley - Twelve O'Clock
Enid Bagnold - The Amorous Ghost
Desmond MacCarthy - Pargiton And Harby
H. G. Wells - The Country Of The Blind
Washington Irving - The Spectre Bridegroom
Mary Webb - Mr. Tallent's Ghost
Ann Bridge - The Buick Saloon
W. S. Morrison, M. P. - The Horns Of The Bull
William Gerhardi - The Man Who Came Back
Philip MacDonald - Our Feathered Friends
Ambrose Bierce - The Stranger
Michael Joseph - The Yellow Cat
A. J. Alan - My Adventure In Norfolk
Honore De Balzac - The Mysterious Mansion
Algernon Blackwood - The Stranger.

There are 1178 pages of this one. Walpole has been attributed as editor of this epic, although the hard work had already been done by others: Essentially, A Century Of Creepy Stories compiles the contents of at least three Lady Cynthia Asquith collections - The Ghost Book, When Churchyards Yawn and The Black Cap - loans Oscar Cook and 'Flavia Richardson' from the Not At Night series, and throws in a number of genre classics to keep everybody happy.
The Asquith anthologies would go on to provide the backbone of the Aickman-edited Fontana Ghost books thirty years later.

[Severance]

Picked this up for £4.00 last month (sans DJ) - so far only read the 4 Oscar Cook entries, though I'd already read the Poe and M.R. James - what, in your opinion Dem, are the gems in this little lot?
I plan to read a couple of stories a week from this, as well as the half a dozen other anthologies I've got on the go at the moment, so it's likely to take me some time!!

[demonik]

L. P. Hartley's The Visitor From Down Under, Philip MacDonald's Our Feathered Friends (far nastier than The Birds), "The Playfellow" and "God Grante ..." by Lady Asquith, Benson, the Hugh Walpole's and Balzac's The Mysterious Mansion all did it for me but it's maybe ten years since I read it. I also have a soft spot for Flavia Richardson's The Red Turret, Michael Joseph's The Yellow Cat (from the Creeps series) and anything by A. J. Alan. Enid Bagnold's The Amorous Ghost is a very pretty, inoffensive 'erotic' spookie twenties style: I re-read it not a month ago and enjoyed it far more than I thought I would (though you may not).

I'm afraid Dickens' The Haunted Man bored me rigid. I was disappointed with the Oliver Onions selections but I guess nobody can write The Beckoning Fair One every time, and the Machen's aren't anywhere near what I consider to be his best work.

A good thumb of rule is: if it's in Asquith's The Ghost Book chances are it is well worth reading.

It's a lovely collection to have and £4 well spent I'd have said.

If you get the time, what did you make of the Oscar Cook stories?