In his 1967 anthology Great Monster Tales Basil Davenport gives a synopsis of an unnamed ghost story. This occurs in his introduction to the Fritz Leiber tale Smoke Ghost. In Basil's own words:

--There is another story--I believe by E. F. Benson, but I have not been able to trace it--of a boy at school who slept in an old-fashioned dormitory with many beds. He dreamed that the boy who slept nearest the door was made away with by a monstrous creature: "It was not a man, nor a dog, nor an ape, nor a bear, but it had resemblences to all these." And every night it came one bed nearer his own.

He concludes, "That is the worst sort of spook" and I would tend to agree. I first read the foregoing synopsis almost 40 years ago and I've never forgotten it. It bears a certain similarity to H.P. Lovecraft's famous description of the creatures in The Festival: "They were not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings; but something I cannot and must not recall."

Does anyone know if this is in fact a Benson story? Or is it by another author? Any info from the forum would be much appreciated.

Due to the resounding silence in answer to my query I have decided to take matters into my own hands and am currently working my way through The Collected Ghost Stories of E. F. Benson. Though 'working' isn't quite the right word--Benson is a very enjoyable writer! I'll post if I encounter the story in question.

One point--considering the similarity in phrasing between the two quotations in my previous posting, I wonder if it's possible that Lovecraft had read the story (if, that is, it predates The Festival)?

I have not responded because I cannot rule out that it is from a story by E F Benson, as I have not read all, only most, of Benson's stories. It does not, however, remind me of anything of Benson's. Also, most of Benson's stories concern adults, not children. It just does not strike me as his sort of thing.

This passage has always puzzled me too. It is not from any Benson story I have ever read (E.F., R. H. or A. C.). I have read all of the canonical stories by E. F. gethered into the Carroll & Graf tome, and am working my way through the "newer" ones collected by Jack Adrian - cannot imagine that Davenport was familiar with any of the recently gathered stories. It sounds MOST like Benson's "The Room in the Tower", one of my favorite EFB tales, but the plot is not identical. I wonder if Davenport dreamt the story he remembers after reading "The Room in the Tower".

I have also read quite a few stories by his brothers A. C. and R. H., but this description also does not match any of those.


Jim

Thanks for the informative comments. If no-one has any luck in tracking down this story, I suppose someone could always take a stab at completing it. It almost sounds like an oft-repeated urban legend from an old boys-only school...

Still no luck identifying this story? Perhaps a search could be made among Benson's papers at Yale. : )

[archives.yale.edu]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 14 Sep 21 | 11:45PM by Dale Nelson.

MURDER AT THE VARSITY a/k/a MURDER AT CAMBRIDGE (1933), novel by Q. Patrick. This appears to be a dream or nightmare described in the course of the novel. I have not read the novel, but came across the passage using a google books search.

"It was not a man, it was not an ape, nor a bear nor a wolf, and yet it suggested all of these. With footsteps that were noiseless, yet somehow hideously menacing, it would creep toward one of the beds, and then -- then, at that point, he always turned his eyes away, screamed and woke up in an icy sweat."

The dream does not come every night, however. It comes at random times, but always comes the night before his birthday. When he is sixteen, the monster is only 2 beds away. I'm not sure the story is ever finished, but the implication seems to be that something horrid will happen when he turns 18.

It's a dream within a story told by a character in the novel, who is an acquaintance of the dreamer. The story gets up to the point where the character meets the dreamer yet again, and the dreamer, in terror, tells him that tonight is the night of his 18th birthday. At this point, the story is interrupted ....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 4 Mar 22 | 05:28PM by Platypus.

Ken K. Wrote:
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> Thanks for the informative comments. If no-one
> has any luck in tracking down this story, I
> suppose someone could always take a stab at
> completing it. It almost sounds like an
> oft-repeated urban legend from an old boys-only
> school...

That, in fact, is how it is more or less how it is presented in the context of MURDER AT CAMBRIDGE. And the novel, I understand, incorporates elements of the author's own experiences as a student at Cambridge. So the story is not necessarily his own invention.

In the novel, one student is telling the story to other students in a Cambridge dorm, during a thunderstorm.

He says that some years ago, while he was at Marlborough, there was an outbreak of measles or smallpox. He was in a common sickroom, and another boy there begged him not to let him fall asleep. The other boy explained that since early childhood, he had been tormented by a recurring nightmare.

In the dream he finds himself in a dormitory containing 18 beds, and he is in the last bed. A horrific entity, such has been described, enters the room, and approaches one of the beds. The dreamer never looks at the horror directly, but buries his head in his bedclothes, and then wakes up screaming an in an icy sweat. The dream recurs unpredictably, except that it always occurs on the night preceding his birthday. And on such occasions, the horror is always one bed closer. And tonight is the night before his 16th birthday.

The storyteller tries to stay awake, but of course falls asleep. He is awakened by a horrible scream, whereupon the dreamer tells him that he has again had the dream, and this time, the horror was only two beds away.

Two years later, the storyteller meets the dreamer at school, and the dreamer tells him in terror that tonight will be the night of his 18th birthday!

(At this point the storyteller is interrupted by a crash of thunder, and the extinguishing of the dorm lights. Everyone runs around in confusion, and by the time the dust settles, a murder has been committed, which the protagonist must spend the rest of the novel solving. At the end of the novel, after the murder has been solved, the protagonist reminds the storyteller of his tale, and asks it how it ends).

The storyteller, somewhat apologetically, explains that the ending is anticlimactic. By all rights, the victim ought to have died horribly on his 18th birthday. Instead, all his hair fell out, and he became bald as an egg.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 5 Mar 22 | 04:59PM by Platypus.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> I have not responded because I cannot rule out
> that it is from a story by E F Benson, as I have
> not read all, only most, of Benson's stories. It
> does not, however, remind me of anything of
> Benson's. Also, most of Benson's stories concern
> adults, not children. It just does not strike me
> as his sort of thing.

And yet, by curious coincidence, E. F. Benson did attend Cambridge, and before that Marlborough.

Thank you for tracking down the location of this (no longer) unknown ghost story. I (and doubtless the shade of the late Basil Davenport!) can now rest. Man, it's been almost 14 years since my initial post! How time flies.

I still think this story could be rewritten effectively by a horror writer studied in the classics. Maybe Ramsey Campbell or T.E.D. Klein?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 15 May 22 | 03:09PM by Ken K..

Ken K. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thank you for tracking down the location of this
> (no longer) unknown ghost story. I (and doubtless
> the shade of the late Basil Davenport!) can now
> rest. Man, it's been almost 14 years since my
> initial post! How time flies.

Sadly, I must give Google the credit. I tried searching for this years ago, and failed. What happened in the interim is that a searchable scanned version showed up online somewhere.

Still, thank you for informing us!

Of course, this only makes me speculate on how much info isn't online because it hasn't been uploaded...