SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MORE OCTOBER READING

Halloween is rapidly approaching, but you still have time to read a few of these stories -- a baker's dozen just perfect for the season!

• Robert Aickman, "Ringing the Changes"  (first published in The Third Ghost Book, edited by Cynthia Asquith, 1955; reprinted in Dark Entries:  Curious and Macabre Ghost Stories, 1964, and in Painted Devils:  Strange Stories, 1979)   Aickman (1914-1981) was arguably the greatest writer of "strange stories" in the last half of the Twentieth century.  His tales are not quite supernatural stories, but rather unsettling and indirect tales, placing his characters in some sort of distorted time and place.  Aickman was the winner of a World Fantasy Award and a British Fantasy Award.  He was the grandson of writer Richard Marsh (The Beetle), co-founded the Inland Waterways Association of Britain, and, for fifteen years, was chairman of the London Opera Club. According to a former lover, Aickman "hated children.''  In "Ringing the Changes," a recently married couple are honeymooning in a small English seaside village when they hear the tolling of a loud bell.  As they walk through the deserted streets, more and more bells begin ringing loudly.  They are told that the bells are being rung to wake the dead...  This story is the most anthiologized of Aickman's strange tales, and has been broadcast on both radio and television.
• "A. J. Alan" (Leslie H. Lambert), "The Hair"  (first written in 1926 and printed in Alan's collection Good Evening, Everyone!, 1928)   Alan (1883-1941) was a British radio broadcaster in the years before World War II, reading his own stories on air for the BBC, beginning in 1924.  His stories. from 1924 on, were very popular, and, despite their having appeared to have been made up off the cuff, Alan spent an inordinate amount amount of time on each story, presenting only about five a year.  His yarns (which many of them could be called) were whimsical and unexpected, and usually revolved about strange events -- some of which were supernatural --  that supposedly had happened to him.  He made his last radio broadcast in March of 1940.  Alan published only two collections of short stories in his lifetime.  The second  (A. J. Alan's Second Book, Hutchinson, 1933) is a bear to find; if anyone has a copy to lend, please let me know.)  A retrospective collection, The Best of A. J. Alan, edited by Knelm Foss, appeared in  1954, and may or may not include material not found in the previous volumes.  In "The Hair," a beautiful brass box purchaed at an old curiousity shop contains a plait of hair.  It has gruesome properties which lead the finder on a strange adventure, but can he harness its supernatural powers to his own ends?  The story has been reprinted over  half dozen times.
• "Anthony Boucher" (William A. P. White), "They Bite"  (first published in Unknown Worlds, August 1943; reprinted in Far and Away, 1955, and in The Compleat Werewolf, 1969)  Boucher (1911-1968) was a noted author, critic, and editor.  He contributed a regular mystery colum to the New York Times Book Review and also to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.  He was a co-founding editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  He was author of a number of inventive mystery novels, the annual mystery convention Bouchercon is named in his honor.  "They Bite" is an effective folk horror story with a weird western vibe (long before that was considered a genre) and a hint of the old legend of cannibalistic Sawney Bean -- with perhaps just a dash of the Bloody Benders.  The boogeymen in the tale are the supposedly mythical Carkers (isn't that a great name?), who are not as mythical as the amoral protagonist, Hugh Tallant, had believed.   Don't feel sad about Tallant, though, he is a Fascist spy.  "They Bite" remains one of Boucher's most effective stories, and has been anthologized about twenty times that I know of.
• Joseph Payne Brennan, "Slime"  (first appeared in Weird Tales, March 1953; reprinted in Nine Horrors and a Dream, 1958, in The Shapes of Midnight, 1980, and in The Feaster from Afar and Other Ghastly Visitants, 2008)  Brennan (1918-1990) was a Yale librarian, short story author and poet.  He edited two amateur magazines, Macabre (horror fiction) and Essence (poetry), and founded the small press publishing company Macabre House.  He may be best known for creating the occult detective Lucius Leffing.  Although Brennan's name may not be as well-known as many of his contemporaries, he is considered one of the great masters of modern horror fiction.  He received a Life Achievement Award from the World Horror Convention in 1982.  He has also received numerous awards for his poetry.  "Slime" has been reprinted over fifty times.  The Slime is an immortal deep-sea, amorphous creature that feeds on anything it can find, from small fish and crustaceans to sharks and giant squid.  An underwater earthquake sends Slime to the coastl waters of a small town of Clinton Center.  The creature oozes its way to a local swamp, where it feeds on muskrat and other life forms, eventually encountering it first human victim.  Then it heads to a more populated area...
• D. K. Broster, "Couching at the Door"  (first published in The Cornhill Magazine, December 1933; reprinted in Couching at the Door, 1942, and From the Abyss:  Weird Fiction, 1907-1945, 2022)  Dorothy Kathleen Broster (1877-1950) was a writer of historical romances who dabbled occasionally in the weird fiction short story.  Her best-seller about Scottish history, The Flight of the Heron, was published in 1925; this and others she wrote were much reprinted in her day, although are now basically forgotten by modern readers.  Not forgotten, however, is "Couching at the Door," a truly chilling story of a woman's encounter with mysterious entity.  Broster does not give an explanation for the entity, even in supernatural terms -- it's just there and the reader has top deal with it.  The story has been reprinted at least sixrteen times.
• Fredric Brown, "Don't Look Behind You"  (first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May 1947; reprinted in Mostly Murder, 1954, in Carnival of Crime, 1985, and in Miss Darkness, 1982)  Fredric Brown (1906-1972) was a mystery and science fiction author who was adept in both fields, often blending humor and bizarre occrances in his work.  His most famous characters are the P.I. team of Ed and Am Hunter.  Many of his tandalone books in both fields are considered classics.  His first mystery novel, The Fabulous Clipjioint, won an Edgar Award.  His story "Arena" was judged by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the twenty top science fiction stories written before 1965.  The New England Science fiction Association named seventeen of his works in their list of Core Fantasy and Science Fiction Stories.  "Don't Look Behind You" is them ultimate murder gimmick story, with the gimmick being that the victim is you, the reader.  How Brown pulls off this tour de force and makes is seem somewhat believable goes to his immense talent as an innovative writer.  This is a hard story to forget -- possibly even harder if you are paranoid.  The story has been reprinted at least fifteen times.
• Hanns Heins Ewers, "The Spider"   (first appeard in German as "Die Spinne." in Die Besessenen, 1908; first appeared in English in The International, December 1915)   Ewers (1871-1943) based this story on Erckmann-Chatrian's story "The Invisible eye" (1857, included in Erckmann-Chatrians 1872 collection Popular Tales and Romances).  Ewers was a nationalist German who actively worked for Germany and against the United States through the first World War and into the World War II; however, he discovered he was not welcomed by the Nazis because 1) he was not anti-semetic, and 2) he was a (perhaps flaming) homosexual.  His most famous sequence of novels is his Frank Braun trilogy -- The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Alraune, and Vampire, in which he modelled the pretentious, Nietczschean hero after himself.  The books are effectie, if self-indulgent, and their promotion of eugenics can be off-putting.  Ewers does not appear to have been a good person.  "The Spider," however, is a rip-snorter of a tale,  a story of hypnotic mind controrol that leads a man to destruction.  Three people have committed suicide in a Paris hotel room and medical student Riochard Brecquemont is determined to solve the mystery.  While in the room he notices a woman in a nearby building just outside his window.  She is beautiful and is spinning on a spindle -- something that few people do nowadays.  She smiles at him.  He keeps staring at her and she keeps spinning...  This creepy story of perhaps one of psychological madness, perhaps one of supernatural possession, orperhaps something completely different.  It has been reprinted at least a dozen times.
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"  (first published in The New England Magzine, January 1892; reprinted as a single volume, 1901; and has been included in many later collections of the author's writings)  This one propably should have beenn included last week's post of the "usual suspects."  It is a classic work of American feminaism.  Gilman (1860-1935) was a utopian feminiist who has becomes a role model for moserd day feminists.  She wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" in two days as a reaction to her suffering from a severe case of post-partum depression.  She had had her first chilkd and her first bout of post partum depressionin 1885.  A the time, the theories of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell were popular for treating the illness, especially his "rest cure treatment," where the woman was isolated and confined to their room for weeks (or months!) with little physical activity or intellectual stimuilation.  The result of this now-debunked treatment left Gilmore suicidal, and led to a separation from her usband.  She moved in with a friend and, after their divorce, her ex-husband married the friend.  She then began a lesbian relationship which lasted for about a year.  She wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper in two days, as a reasponse to the treatment she had had while undergoing weir Mitchall's "rest cure."  In it a woman is confined to her room for three months by her husband for the sake of her health.  She becomes obsessed with the disgusting yellow wallpaper in the room.  Is she haunted by whatever lies beneath the wallpaper?. The story has been reprinted and anthologized over eighty times (by my count) in genre publiscations alone, and has been included in many collections of women's literature and American literature, as well in  textbooks.  It has been adapted many times for radio, television, film, and the stage.   Today, 135 years from its first appearance, it remains the all-time best selling book from The Feminist Press.
• Ed Gorman "The Face" (first publisshed in The Best Western Stories of ed Gorman , 1992; reprinted in Cages, 1995, The Dark Fantastic, 2001, The Long Ride Back, 2004. The Moving Coffin, 2007, and Dead Man's Gun & Other Western Stories, 2017)    It's my personal belief that Ed Gorman (1941-2016) cannot be praised enough:  he was a one-man marvel in the writing field -- author, short story writer, editor, anthologist, co-founder of Mystery Scene magazine, and tireless supporter and cheerleader for uncounted authors in the field; even today, nearly a decade after his death, it is difficult to overestimate the influence Ed had on the field.  He wrote a lot -- mysteries, suspense, horror, science fiction, westerns, fantasties, and a lot more.  His best writing displays a sensitivity that is difficult to duplicate.  Above all else, Ed's characters were people, desspite their flaws -- and Ed never let you forget that.  Which brings us to "The Face," a Civil War story about a Confederate doctor in the closing days of the conflict.  A patient is brought to him and, upon viewing his face, the doctor places the patient in quarantine because...well, he had his reasons.   A startling, moving, and unforgettable story -- one of the best ever written in the late 20th century (no hype, just a dead cert fact).  This is a story that is not read; it is experienced.  It deservedly won a Spur Award for Best Western Short Story, and is the most reprinted of eny of Gorman's stories.  If you read just one of the tories listed in today's post, THIS IS THE ONE.
• Henry Kuttner, "Pile of Trouble"  (first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, April 1948; reprinted in Ahead of Time, 1953, Mountain Magic, 2004, and The Hogben Chronicles, 2013)   Yeah, I vcould have gone with "The Graveyeard Rats" (Weird Tales, March 1936), but how could I pass up the chance to promote a Hogben story?  Kuttner (1915-1958) was a superprolific author (often with his wife Catherine L. Moore;  their work was so intertwined, it is often hard to tell who wrote what).  A lot of Kuttner's work was cheap, pulp stuff, but a lot was also fantastic reading.  Case in pint, the Hogbens, the strangest family you will ever meet.  (One is called Gimpy because of his three legs, and the Baby lives in a water tank; think Chas Addams cartoons and Ray Bradbury's Elliott family, but weirder.)  The Hogbens are an extremely long-living family of rednecks in "Kaintuck" with all sort of quirks and supernatural, powers.  In this story, they are forced to move from north Kaintuck to south Kaintuck and move in with their slow cousin Lem.  Locals there, however, are not too thrilled when  they discover tht the Hogbens have an atomic reactor in their cellar.  (When reading the story, pay attention to the raccoons.)  Writer F. Paul Wilson's fist reaction when he read the story as a kid was, "What the hell?"  What the hell, indeed.  A don't-miss-it story.
• Joe R. Lansdale, "The Night They Missed the Horror Show"  (firt published in Silver Scream, edited by David J. Schow, 1988; reprinted in By Bizarre Hands, 1989, Electric Gumbo:  A Lansdale Reader, 1994, Atomic Chili:  The Illustrated Joe R. Lansdale, 1996, High Cotton:  The Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale, 2000, The Little Green Book of Monster Stories, 2003, Sanctified and Chicken-Fried:  The Portable Joe R. Lansdale, 2009,  ByBizarre Hands Rides Again, 2010, The Best of Joe R. Lansdale, 2010, Gothic Wounds, 2022, and The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale, 2025.  The story of some East Texas boys who really should have gone to the movies.  Instead, they meet violence, death, and alligators, Lansdale-style.  A major story from a major author -- perhaps his best.  Reprinted at least thirteen times.  winner of a Stoker Award for Best short Story.
• Arthur Quiller-Couch, "The Roll-Call of the Reef"  (first published in The Idler, June 1895, as by "Q"; reprinted in Wandering Heath:  Stories, Studies, and Sketches by "Q," 1895; in Selected Stories by "Q," 1921, in Q's Mystery Stories:  Twenty Stories from the Works of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, 1957, and in The Horror on the Stair and Other Weird Talees, 2000)   Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) was a prolific novelist. but may be best remembered as the editor of The Oxford Book of English Verse  1250-1900.  "The Roll-Call of the Reef" was based on the wreck of the HMS Primrose off the Cornish coast in 1809.  Relics from a shipwreck include a trumpet and a drum, both bound together and locked with a special padlock.  The instruments contain the spirits of the drummer and the trumpeter, both of whom died in the wreck.  The padlock binds the spirits and can only be opened with a specific word, thanks to  a local parson.  And then the padlock is opened...   The story has been reprinted in at least fifteen different anthologies.  [As a side note:  The author used the pseudonym "Q" early in his career because he was frustrated with how people were pronouncing his name, as if it were a sofa -- the correct pronounciation is "Cooch.")
• H. R. Wakefiled, "The Frontier Guards"  (first published in Imagine a Man in a Box, 1931; reprinted in  Ghost Stories, 1932)  Wakefield (1888-1964 -- his birthdate is sometimes erroneously given as 1880) was one of the great masters of supernatural horror, often being compared to M. R. James.  (James himself, however,  called one of Wakefield's collections "a mixed bag," stating that one or two of the nastier tales should have been removed.)   Critic R. S. Hadji listed "The Frontier Guards" as one of the most frightening horror stories ever.  "The Frontier Guards" is a haunted house story with an effective twist.  It has been reprinted at least nine times.  Wakefiled by some accounts was a rather prickly character, a career civil sevant who published nine collections of supernatural tales, two studies of true crime, and three detective novels.  Shortly before his death he destroyed all jhis correspondence files, manuscripts, and photographs of himself.

BONUS:  Peter Cannon, "Scream for Jeeves"  (first published in Dagon #27, June 1990, as by "H. P. G. Wodehouse"; reprinted in the collection Scream for Jeeves, 1994)   I love me some H. P. Lovecraft, and I love me some P. G. Wodehouse, so is it no wonder that I love me some "Scream for Jeeves"?  I think you will, too.

So, there you have it.  A baker's dozen (plus one) of great reading for Halloween.  There are a lot more good stories out there but they will have to wait until next October.

In the meantime, do you have any favorites?  Which if these are you most anxious to read?