Plot:A girl faints during a dance at a country house over Christmas in Victorian-era Great Britain. She is sent to recover in a dressing room. Other girls sleep in a bedroom attached to the dressing room. Of course, they don’t sleep but sit up, telling each other ghost stories. While they’re scaring themselves, a knockContinue reading “Review of “The Shadow” by Edith Nesbit: Halloween Countdown”
Author Archives: 9siduri
Review of “The Shadow in the Corner” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon: Halloween Countdown
Plot:Wildheath Grange sits back from the road, the last remnants of a once-vast estate of the Bascom family. The house has a bad reputation among the locals in the nearby village of Holcroft, but it suits the current owner, Michael Bascom, a middle-aged bachelor who spends his days among his books in scientific reading. TheContinue reading “Review of “The Shadow in the Corner” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “Scoured Silk” by Marjorie Bowen: Halloween Countdown
Plot: Some twenty years earlier, Mr. Humphrey Orford moved to Covent Garden with his young wife. The understanding is that his family was from Suffolk, where he had considerable estates that he never visited. Only a few weeks after they arrived, his wife, Flora, fell ill and passed away. He erected a small plaque: Flora,Continue reading “Review of “Scoured Silk” by Marjorie Bowen: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “The Open Window” by Saki
Plot:Mr. Nuttel’s doctors have recommended that he get rest for his nerves. With letters of introduction from his sister, he visits people she knows better than he does. He stops one day at the Sappleton residence. Mrs. Sappleton is late in meeting him, so her “very self-possessed” fifteen-year-old niece speaks to him, letting him knowContinue reading “Review of “The Open Window” by Saki”
Review of “Negotium Perambulans” by E. F. Benson: Halloween Countdown
Plot: The narrator describes an isolated fishing village he was sent to when he was ten, “a small boy, weak and sickly and threatened with pulmonary trouble.” He slept not in the house but in a “shelter” in the backyard of his uncle, the local vicar, and spent his days wandering. His uncle taught himContinue reading “Review of “Negotium Perambulans” by E. F. Benson: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “The Moonlit Road” by Ambrose Bierce: Halloween Countdown
Plot:The following things happened: Joel Hetman returned from a trip at an unexpected time and used the back door without disturbing anyone. He chased what appeared to be a prowler into the woods, who got away. His wife, Julia, was strangled to death in her bedroom. He summoned his nineteen-year-old son, Joel, Jr., home fromContinue reading “Review of “The Moonlit Road” by Ambrose Bierce: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “Master of Fallen Years” by Vincent O’Sullivan: Halloween Countdown
Plot:Augustus Barber works in a paper-box manufacturing business in London. The narrator is at pains to tell the reader how ordinary, if commonplace, Augustus is. He doesn’t read anything outside of newspapers and shows no interest in anything spiritual or metaphysical. After falling ill to the point that he was expected not to recover, BarberContinue reading “Review of “Master of Fallen Years” by Vincent O’Sullivan: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “The Marble Hands” by Bernard Capes: Halloween Countdwon
Plot:Our hero rides his bike with his friend Heriot to the churchyard. Heriot wants him to check something out but doesn’t want to see it himself. Our hero soon finds what he’s looking for—a grave with no headstone or inscription. A beveled marble curb encloses a graveled area. In the graveled area stand two marbleContinue reading “Review of “The Marble Hands” by Bernard Capes: Halloween Countdwon”
Review of “The Wolf-Man” by Erckmann-Chatrian: Halloween Countdown
Plot:Around Christmas time in the year 18—, our hero Fritz lies fast asleep at the Cygne in Fribourg in the Black Forest when someone awakens him, telling him: “I have good news for you; I am going to take you to Nideck, two leagues from this place. You know Nideck, the finest baronial castle inContinue reading “Review of “The Wolf-Man” by Erckmann-Chatrian: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “Luella Miller” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Halloween Countdown
Plot:The only person alive who remembers Luella Miller is Lydia Anderson, now eighty years old. She never thought Luella was pretty, though her husband Erastus worshipped the ground she walked on. Luella came to teach school but didn’t do much of the teaching. The work was left to one of the older girls, Lottie Henderson,Continue reading “Review of “Luella Miller” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Halloween Countdown”
Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old 