Books I Read in December 2023

Four books and some extra short stories this month. 

The Haunted Looking Glass edited by Edward Gorey (New York Review of Books, 2001)

This anthology collects twelve Victorian ghost stories selected by artist Edward Gorey. Each story is accompanied by one of his illustrations. I’ve been a fan of his artwork ever since I encountered it on television in the opening animated sequences used on the PBS Mystery! anthology series. 

Lots of great stories with “Man-Size in Marble” by E. Nesbit being my favorite. After a couple move into a country cottage, the husband hears about a legend of marble statues in an old cathedral that come to life on All Hallow’s Eve. This story had me from start to finish. 

Also included is another one of my favorites, “The Signalman” by Charles Dickens. A railway signalman tells a man he meets about a strange apparition that is haunting him. It was adapted into an excellent episode of the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas in 1976, which I rewatched this month. 

The only story I didn’t care for was “August Heat” by W.F. Harvey. The ending was too ambiguous for me, and the story doesn’t actually include any ghosts. 

The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin Classic, 2012)

The Penguin English Library edition of The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales consists of nineteen tales of horror and the macabre and an afterword by D.H. Lawrence. 

Poe’s use of long sentences and esoteric vocabulary was a little challenging to read in some stories but was more straightforward in others where the words just flowed. Something that helped with that was reading the next book at the same time. 

The Annotated and Illustrated Edgar Allan Poe edited by M. Grant Kellermeyer (Oldstyle Tales Press, 2016)

The Annotated and Illustrated Edgar Allen Poe (Oldstyle Tales Press) edited by M. Grant Kellermeyer consists of twenty stories and fourteen poems with annotations. Also included are short essays before and after each story as well as chiaroscuro illustrations by the editor. This collection is a mix of stories from the previous collection plus a number of others. I found the detailed annotations extremely helpful for vocabulary definitions, story analysis, and for helping to decipher the meaning of many of the poems. You can find my full review here:

We Learn by Writing: The Annotated and Illustrated Edgar Allan Poe

Now that I’ve read these collections, I plan on watching the Roger Corman film adaptations and Mike Flanagan’s mini-series, The Fall of the House of Usher. 

Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope (Penguin Classics, 2014)

Okay, I cheated here as I don’t actually have this book. But I do have Anthony Trollope The Complete Shorter Fiction, which has all forty-two of his short stories, including the five Christmas stories which have been collected together.

I became interested in Trollope after reading his novel The Warden. I haven't gotten around to his other novels so I figured that I would read his Christmas stories this month. These five stories all deal with family and or romantic relationships during the Christmas season. I enjoyed some more than others with the title story being my favorite. One of the funniest stories I've read in a long time.

A Few More Short Stories 

“The Premature Burial” by Edgar Allan Poe from The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Barnes and Noble, 2015)

This story isn’t included in the two collections above, but I wanted to read it as it's one of the stories adapted by Roger Corman. Suitably creepy. 

“Lot No. 249” by Arthur Conan Doyle from Classic Horror Stories (Barnes and Noble, 2015)

I read this before watching this year’s BBC A Ghost Story for Christmas special. Instead of adapting another M. R. James story this year, they adapted this story by Conan Doyle. The story was great until the end which I thought was pretty lackluster. The BBC version on the other hand was even better. With a small addition it gives the story an M. R. James spin which I loved. 

“The Blue Carbuncle” by Arthur Conan Doyle from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Book of the Month Club)

I read this story as it takes place during Christmas. Holmes winds up with an old hat, a goose, and eventually a blue jewel and investigates how they all fit together. A fun adventure to finish up my December reading. 

The Annotated and Illustrated Edgar Allan Poe

The Annotated and Illustrated Edgar Allan Poe (Oldstyle Tales Press) edited by M. Grant Kellermeyer consists of twenty stories and fourteen poems with annotations. Also included are short essays before and after each story as well as chiaroscuro illustrations by the editor. 

The stories are arranged in order of original publication. Kellermeyer explains in his introduction:

“By beginning and ending in the order in which these tales are printed, you will have the ability to follow the themes that recur and develop throughout Poe’s literary career. The notes will assist in tying together shared themes by referring you to other stories (by Poe and others) which either influenced or were influenced by the story at hand. Additionally, it should be noted that we have cataloged the tales into four sub-categories to engender comparative analysis.”

The four sub-categories of focus: 

The Tale of Gender and Metaphysics - “...the binary relationship between a man and a woman is used to render a psycho-philosophical commentary on the balance between mind and matter, essence and form…”

The Tale of Existential Adventure - “...a situation of physical horror and natural sublimity is digested through the use of logic and ratiocination - leading to conclusions about the vulnerability of humanity in the face of a hostile cosmos…”

The Revenge Fantasy - “...a malefactor is punished with impunity by a self-justified murderer…”

The Tale of Psychological Duplicity - “...a character is faced with a symbolic or literal episode of psychosis, whereby their psychology is broken into two elements, and they are plagued by their doppelgänger - usually an extension of conscience.” 

Poe’s use of long sentences and esoteric vocabulary was a little challenging to read in some stories but was more straightforward in others where the words just flowed. I found the detailed annotations extremely helpful for vocabulary definitions, story analysis, and for helping to decipher the meaning of many of the poems.

My one criticism is that the annotations were sometimes too detailed. I encountered spoilers two times revealing the endings of stories as I was reading them. In any case, most of the stories were amazing, and I learned quite a lot from the essays and annotations.

Spoilers in this collection aside, I highly recommend the books published by Oldstyle Tales Press. I also have their collection of M.R. James ghost stories (I don’t remember any spoilers in that collection) and absolutely loved it. 

My copy is a third edition with a painting (pictured above) titled The Premature Burial by Antoine Weirtz as the cover, which is not showing up on Goodreads as of this writing.

My story ratings: 

Metzengersten (3/5)

MS. Found in a Bottle (4/5)

The Assignation (4/5)

Berenice (5/5)

Morella (5/5)

Shadow - A Parable (4/5)

Silence - A Fable (4/5)

Ligea (4/5)

The Fall of the House of Usher (5/5)

William Wilson (4/5)

The Man of the Crowd (3/5)

A Descent into the Maelstrom (3/5)

The Oval Portrait (4/5)

The Masque of Red Death (4/5)

The Pit and the Pendulum (5/5)

The Tell-Tale Heart (5/5)

The Black Cat (5/5)

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (5/5)

The Cask of Amontillado (5/5)

Hop-Frog (4/5)

My First Short Story

Whetstone Issue 8, which includes my first published short story “Burning of the Bones,” is now available as a PDF on the magazine’s website. It also includes ten stories by other authors, poetry, and artwork. It’s free to download or read online. Hope you like it. Here’s the link:

Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword and Sorcery: Issue 8 of Whetstone Now Available! (whetstonemag.blogspot.com)

Ghost Stories for Christmas 2023

A few years ago, I became fascinated with the tradition of telling ghost stories during the darkest time of the year. What started out as an oral tradition became a popular trend in Victorian England with the development of printing presses. 

I devoured the ghost stories of M. R. James, which he wrote and read to his friends every year at Christmas. Then I watched the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas anthology series, many of which adapted James’ stories. I really enjoyed the stories and their adaptations. Last year I read Christmas Gothic Short Stories from Flame Tree Press. It’s a collection of classic and new tales. I loved it as well. This year I’m jumping between a few different collections. 

First up is The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories by Henry James from Penguin Classics. I’m a big fan of Mike Flanagon’s films and mini-series, especially Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House. I decided to finally read Henry James because Flanagan's The Haunting of Bly Manor is based on some stories by James. Not all the stories he adapts are in this collection, so I’ll also be reading a collection I have on Kindle that has everything. 

Next is The Haunted Looking Glass - Ghost Stories Chosen by Edward Gorey from New York Review of Books. This includes stories by Charles Dickens, Algernon Blackwood, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker and more. Each story includes an illustration by Gorey. My favorite so far is “The Signalman” by Dickens. 

Finally, I have The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton from Wordsworth Editions. I chose this edition over Ghost Stories from New York Review of Books as the Wordsworth edition has four more stories. This is my first time reading anything by Edith Wharton. The prose is beautiful and the themes are deep. I’m four stories in and now I want to read everything she’s ever written.

I hope to finish all three books by the end of the month, but we’ll see.