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.