The Supernatural Omnibus

Montague Summers

Description

This collection of haunting tales delves into the thrilling world of the supernatural, and shines light on witchcraft, the undead, and satanism.

Collated by the pioneering Catholic witch-hunter, Montague Summers, this spooky compendium takes inspiration from the author’s research into witchcraft. First published in 1931, this spine-chilling collection of short stories explores many taboo topics.

The subjects featured in this volume include:

- Haunting and Disease

- From Beyond the Grave

- The Undead Dead

- A Soul from Purgatory

- Shadow Destiny

- Black Magic

- Witchcraft

- Contracts with the Demon

- The Vampire

- Voodoo

Sujets

• Catholicisme
• Fiction
• Ghost

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 22 septembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473394896
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE SUPERNATURAL OMNIBUS
Introduction By
MONTAGUE SUMMERS

First published in 1931


This edition published by Read Books Ltd. Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library


Contents
Mont ague Summers
INTRODUCTION
SECTION I
Stories Of Hauntings And Horror
NARRATIVE OF THE GHO ST OF A HAND
J. Sher idan De Fanu
AN ACCOUNT OF SOME STRANGE DISTURBANCES IN AU NGIER STREET
J. Sher idan Le Fanu
MAN-SI ZE IN MARBLE
E. Nesbit
THE J UDGE’S HOUSE
Bram Stoker
TH URNLEY ABBEY
Per ceval Landon
THE STORY OF THE SPANIARDS, HAMMERSMITH
E. And H. Heron
THE P HANTOM COACH
Ameli a B. Edwards
BRI CKETT BOTTOM
Amy as Northcote
THE COLD EMBRACE
Miss Braddon
HOW THE THIRD FLOOR KNEW T HE POTTERIES
Ameli a B. Edwards
NOT TO BE TAKEN AT BED-TIME
Ros a Mulholland
TO BE TAKEN WITH A G RAIN OF SALT
Cha rles Dickens
TH E SIGNAL-MAN
Cha rles Dickens
THE COMPEN SATION HOUSE
Cha rles Collins
THE ENGINEER
Ameli a B. Edwards
WHE N I WAS DEAD
Vincen t O’sullivan
THE STORY OF YAND MANOR HOUSE
E. And H. Heron
THE BUSINESS OF MADAME JAHN
Vincen t O’sullivan
AMOUR DURE
Vernon Lee
OKE OF OKEHURST OR THE P HANTOM LOVER
Vernon Lee
EVELIN E’S VISITANT
Miss Braddon
JOHN CHARRINGT ON’S WEDDING
E. Nesbit
DE PROFUNDIS
Roger Pater
THE DREAM WOMAN
Wi lkie Collins
SECTION II
Diabolism, Witchcraft, And Evil Lore
SINGULAR PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF THE LATE HENRY HARRIS, DOCTOR IN DIVINITY
Ri chard Barham
THE SPIRIT O F STONEHENGE
Jasper John
THE SEE KER OF SOULS
Jasper John
THE ASTROLO GER’S LEGACY
Roger Pater
MY BROTHER’S GHOST STORY
Ameli a B. Edwards
SIR DOMINI CK’S BARGAIN
J. Sher idan Le Fanu
THE BARGAIN OF R UPERT ORANGE
Vincen t O’sullivan
CARMILLA
J. Sher idan Le Fanu
THE WHITE WOLF OF THE HAR TZ MOUNTAINS
Frede rick Marryat
A PORTA INFERI
Roger Pater
JERRY JARVIS’S WIG A LEGEND OF THE W EALD OF KENT
Ri chard Barham
THE WATCHER O’ THE DEAD
John Guinan
THE STORY OF KONN OR OLD HOUSE
E. And H. Heron
TOUSSEL’ S PALE BRIDE
W. B. Seabrook




Montague Summers
Augustus Montague Summers was born in Bristol, England in 1880. He was raised as an evangelical Anglican in a wealthy family, and studied at Clifton College before reading theology at Trinity College, Oxford with the intention of becoming a Church of England priest. In 1905, he graduated with fourth-class honours, and went on to continue his religious training at the Lichfield Theological College. Summers entered his apprenticeship as a curate in the diocese of Bitton near Bristol, but rumours of an interest in Satanism and accusations of sexual misconduct with young boys led to him being cut off; a scandal which dogged him his whole life. Summers joined the growing ranks of English men of letters interested in medievalism and the occult. In 1909, he converted to Catholicism and shortly thereafter he began passing himself off as a Catholic priest, the legitimacy of which was disputed. Around this time, Summers adopted a curious attire which included a sweeping black cape and a silver- topped cane.
Summers eventually managed to make a living as a full-time writer. He was interested in the theatre of the seventeenth century, particularly that of the English Restoration, and was one of the founder members of The Phoenix, a society that performed neglected works of that era. In 1916, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Summers also produced some important studies of Gothic fiction. However, his interest in the occult never waned, and in 1928, around the time he was acquainted with Aleister Crowley, he published the first English translation of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger's Malleus Maleficarum (' The Hammer of Witches' ), a 15th century Latin text on the hunting of witches. Summers then turned to vampires, producing The Vampire: His Kith and Kin (1928) and The Vampire in Europe (1929), and then to werewolves with The Werewolf (1933). Summers' work on the occult is known for his unusual, archaic writing style, his intimate style of narration, and his purported belief in the reality of the subject s he treats.
In his day, Summers was a renowned eccentric; The Times called him “ in every way a 'character'” and “a throwback to the Middle Ages .” He died at his home in Richm ond, Surrey.



INTRODUCTION
In the full flush of success during its first London run, Tom Sheridan, who was playing the hero of “wax-work” Brooke’s The Earl of Essex , was wont to be loud up and down the Town in his praises of the poetry and exalted sentiments of this truly mediocre tragedy. In his fine stage voice ore rotundo he would declaim some half a dozen wilting lines and demand applause. On one occasion, in some crowded drawing-room, Sheridan spouts the conclusion of the first Act, ending up with a tremendous—
Who rules o’er freemen should himself be free!
O happy sentiment! Enraptured silence; and then enthusiastic applause. The company vastly commend and admire. After a moment or two, all eyes are turned towards where Dr. Johnson sits. They await a polished panegyric, a swelling eulogy. The great man opens his mouth and looks sternly enough at Sheridan from beneath his frowning brow. “Nay, sir,” quoth he, “I cannot agree with you. It might as w ell be said:
“ Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat .”
Should the writer of the ghost story himself believe in ghosts? Dr. M. R. James, who is among the greatest—perhaps, indeed, if we except Vernon Lee, the greatest—of modern exponents of the supernatural in fiction, tells us that it is all a question of evidence. “Do I believe in ghosts?” he writes. “To which I answer that I am prepared to consider evidence and accept it if it satisfies me.” This leaves us, I venture to think, very much in the same position as we were before the question was asked and the reply returned. Can an author “call spirits from the vasty deep” if he is very well satisfied that there are, in fact, no spirits to obey his conjurations? I grant that by some literary tour de force he may succeed in duping his readers, but not for long. Presently his wand will snap short, his charms will lose their potency and mystic worth; he will soon have turned the last page of his grimoire; he steps all involuntarily out of the circle, the glamour dissipates, and the spell is broken! This has been the fate of more than one writer who began zestfully and fair, but whose muttered abracadabras have puled and thinned, who has clean forgot the word of power if, indeed, he ever knew it and not merely guessed at those occul t syllables.
Dr. James quite admirably lays down that the reader must be put “into the position of saying to himself, ‘If I’m not very careful, something of this kind may happen to me!’ ” Surely to convey this impression the writer is at least bound to admit the possibility of such happenings. He should believe in a phantom world if he is convincingly, at any rate, to draw the denizens of that state, for let it be granted that locality in the sense we understand it may not have. Yet there will be some kind of laws; unknown to us and as yet unknowable, but such as should be in part surmised; such as are reasonable and fitting. A well-reputed writer, whose name I will by your favour omit, gave us some excellent stories at first, but in his eagerness to create horror, to thrill and curdle our blood, latterly he trowels on the paint so thick, he creates such fantastic figures, such outrageous run-riot incidents at noon and in the sunlight, that it is all as topsy-turvy as Munchausen. In contradiction to the postulate of Dr. James we say: “Nothing of this kind could ever happen to anyone!”
There must be preserved a decorum. Even in imagination such wild flights only serve to defeat th eir own end.
I conceive that in the ghost stories told by one who believes in and is assured of the reality of apparitions and hauntings, such incidents as do and may occur—all other things, by which I imply literary quality and skill, being equal—will be found to have a sap and savour that the narrative of the writer who is using the supernatural as a mere circumstance to garnish his fiction must inevitably lack and cannot attain, although, as I have pointed out, some extraordinary talent in spinning a yarn may go far to mask the deficiency. Thus, and for this very reason, it seems to me that there are few better stories of this kind than those the late Monsignor Benson has given us in The Mirror of Shalott and other of his work. Especially might one instance Father Meuron’s Tale, Father Bianchi’s Story and Father Madox’s Tale . But indeed the whole symposium bears amplest evidence. Very fine tales have, no doubt, been written by authors who regarded the supernatural as just a fantasy and a flam. They topple, however, either on the one side into nightmare indigestion or on the other into vague aridities that are in fine meaningless.
Were I not myself convinced of the sensible reality of apparitions, had I not myself seen a ghost, I could hardly have undertaken to collect and introduce The Supernatu ral Omnibus .
A further important point is made by Dr. James. “Another requisite, in my opinion, is that the ghost should be malevolent or odious: amiable and helpful apparitions are all very well in fairy tales or in local legends, but I h