The Ash-Tree Press Annual Macabre 2002

3.4/5 ( ratings)

The later years of the Victorian era are justly famous for many things, not least the extraordinary flowering of monthly and weekly magazines which sprang up to cater to the newly literate middle classes. Among the most famous—and most successful—of these magazines was The Cornhill, which was created in 1860 and outlasted all its rivals, finally closing its doors in 1975. From the start, The Cornhill featured some of the finest storytellers British literature had to offer; and from the 1890s onwards, its respective editors allowed their obvious fondness for the ghostly tale to find an outlet in the pages of the magazine.

Jack Adrian has uncovered many weird tales in the pages of The Cornhill, none of which has seen print since its original publication. This, the first of two Annual Macabres highlighting the magazine's supernatural content, contains stories ranging from the odd to the horrific: a rich mix of the weird, the outré, and the downright horrid.

CONTENTS:
Introduction by Jack Adrian
'Wanted! Quarmin Tay!' by W. H. Adams
The Wade Monument by Violet Jacob
The Wedding by John Sampson
The Moral Opiate by William Bradley
The Black Cat by George Blake
Fladda Light by Hilton Brown
The Jackals by Edward Liveing
The Trouble at Totton Corner by H. T. Sheringham
The Peacock Sari by L. M. Crump
A Bunch of Balloons by Barbara Euphan Todd
Mrs Murdoch's Man by F. H. Dorset
A Jester of the King by F. H. Dorset
Nisi Dominus by Cecil Binney
The Portent by John Fisher
Red Hair and Yellow Curtains by Shaugh Courtenay
Notes and Sources

Jacket art is by Rob Suggs
Limited to 500 copies