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”
Author Archives: 9siduri
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”
Review of “Lot No. 249” by Arthur Conan Doyle: Halloween Countdown
Plot: Jephro Hastie, a student at “Old College” at Oxford, is visiting with his friend, medical student Abercrombie Smith, in the latter’s third-floor turret room. Hastie warns him about the student in the room below his, Edward Bellingham. “There’s something damnable about him. My gorge always rises around him. I should put him down asContinue reading “Review of “Lot No. 249” by Arthur Conan Doyle: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “The Kit-Bag” by Algernon Blackwood: Halloween Countdown
Plot: The successful defense of John Turk, a client of the great Arthur Wilbraham, KC, brings the barrister no joy. His private secretary, Johnson, is glad to be rid of the case. Despite the verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, he agrees with the general sentiment that few men were more deserving ofContinue reading “Review of “The Kit-Bag” by Algernon Blackwood: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “The Haunted Chair” by Richard Marsh: Halloween Countdown
Plot: As Mr. Philpotts walks into the smoking room of the club, he hears, “Well, that’s the most staggering thing I’ve ever known!” The narrator hints that the actual comment was not quite so tame. The speaker, Mr. Bloxom, stands in front of his chair, looking around. He asks Mr. Philpotts, “Did you see him?”Continue reading “Review of “The Haunted Chair” by Richard Marsh: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “A Ghost Story” by Mark Twain: Halloween Countdown
Plot: The narrator recounts that he took a large room in a huge old building. The upper stories, where his room is, have been unoccupied for years and have long given up to cobwebs, solitude, and silence. He feels he’s invading the privacy of the dead. For the first time in his life, a superstitiousContinue reading “Review of “A Ghost Story” by Mark Twain: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “The Furnished Room” by O. Henry: Halloween Countdown
Plot: In the turn of the century New York’s Lower West Side, a young man seeks to rent a room. After confirming with the prospective landlady that she rents to a lot of “theatrical people,” he asks if she has recently rented to Miss Eloise Vashner. “[D]o you remember such a one among your lodgers?Continue reading “Review of “The Furnished Room” by O. Henry: Halloween Countdown”
Review of “Fishhead” by Irvin S. Cobb: Halloween Countdown
Plot: “Fishhead” is the unkind name given to the mixed-race main character who lived by swampy Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee. The lake was created by an 1811 series of earthquakes, which caused an area of land to subside and the Mississippi to flood in. Fishhead’s “half-breed Indian” mother—so the story goes—was frightened by one ofContinue reading “Review of “Fishhead” by Irvin S. Cobb: Halloween Countdown”
Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old 