While Gilchrist's stories themselves are probably PD, the selection, arrangement, and texts used (including typos and punctuation, in general anything that distinguishes one text from another) can be copyrighted for a particular edition. It looks like Wordsworth did that with the Gilchrist and several others. The problem, of course, is that litigation costs time and money, which is something a small press publisher like ATP does not necessarily have.

Scott



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12 Sep 08 | 11:45AM by Scott Connors.

Another interesting aspect of "less familiar weird literature" is the question of what the Russians have (or haven't) contributed to the genre. I was thinking about this recently, and it strikes me as somewhat strange that there isn't a stronger supernatural tradition in Russian literature. Of course, there are noteworthy examples of it here and there, for example, Gogol's The Overcoat" (more of a comedy than a genuinely weird tale), the Devil appearing to Ivan in "The Brother's Karamazov" (more psychological than supernatural), Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" (more of a social satire, etc.), and a few others. Still, I find it somewhat paradoxical that they haven't given us more memorable works in, say, the classic ghost story mold. But perhaps I'm thinking too much of the "big" names and neglecting some lesser known contributions...

At any rate, wouldn't it have been nice if Leo Tolstoy had something of the "cosmic fear" outlook, instead of all the prosaic social and domestic preoccupations? Just think, instead of a tedious neurotic woman, Anna Karenina might have been a demon in disguise, destroying countless lives just for the sheer pleasure of it! But that's the point I'm trying to make. If nothing else, many of the great English and American writers (Dickens, Kipling, Hawthorne, James, etc.) at least dabbled in the weird, even if it wasn't their fundamental preoccupation. So why isn't there more of this in the Russian literary tradition?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 13 Sep 08 | 03:30AM by Dexterward.

Quote:

While Gilchrist's stories themselves are probably PD, the selection, arrangement, and texts used (including typos and punctuation, in general anything that distinguishes one text from another) can be copyrighted for a particular edition.

Editorial "value added" enhancements can be copyrighted, but they would likely have to involve more than merely what you mention to justify a copyright violation claim.

I suppose I am evil Leftist, in this regard ;-), but I say, "Power to the people", and down with $40-per-book collector's volumes that barely exceed 100 pages!

Russian weird literature:

In this area, I know only the works of Fyodor Sologub. I've read relatively little of his work, because what I did read did not interest me much, but he is one modern Russian author who writes in the weird vein, at times.

Kyberean Wrote:
[snippage]
> I suppose I am evil Leftist, in this regard ;-),
> but I say, "Power to the people", and down with
> $40-per-book collector's volumes that barely
> exceed 100 pages!
>
"Like the Night Shade CAS volumes?" he asked innocently while secretly reaching for his knife....

: )

Scott

Although it's not really "weird literature" as commonly defined, you might want to check out "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov, one of the greatest (Russian) novels of the 20th century.

But being a fan of both Russian literature and weird tales, I would be very interested indeed to read Russian weird tales. That'd be quite splendid, I think. Some quick Googling resulted in "The Gothic-fantastic in Nineteenth-century Russian Literature" by Neil Cornwell. I should get a copy of that, if I find it somewhere cheap...

While not entirely specifically Russian, Julian Hawthorne's Lock and Key Library has a volume devoted to "North Europe -- Russian -- Swedish -- Danish -- Hungarian" which might be of interest. In fact, that entire 10-volume set has some very good things; many of them available elsewhere, but quite a few are not easy to find these days. Several of these volumes are available at Gutenberg, while picking up the original printings of them (and that for a very reasonable to even "cheap" price) is often not that difficult....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 13 Sep 08 | 03:00PM by jdworth.

Quote:

Another interesting aspect of "less familiar weird literature" is the question of what the Russians have (or haven't) contributed to the genre(...)

Hi everyone,
I'm new here. I just noticed you are discussing the supernatural tradition in Russian literature and thought I could point out some writers and titles.
I was wondering if there are any anthologies collecting some major works of Russian supernatural tales in English. I have two such anthologies in Polish (one of which, I just realized, exists in English: Russian 19th Century Gothic Tales). Some of the stories included therein are:

The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin
The Family of the Vourdalak (aka The Curse Of The Vourdalak) by Aleksey Tolstoy
The Vampire (Upyr) by Aleksey Tolstoy
The Tale of a Dead Body, Belonging to No One Knows Whom by Vladimir Odoevsky
Viy by Nikolai Gogol
The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
The Portrait by Nikolai Gogol
The Song of Triumphant Love by Ivan Turgenev
Bobok by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
An Apparition in the Engineers’ Castle by Nikolai Leskov
The Black Monk by Anton Chekhov
Stuss by Mikhail Lermontov

Another writer worth examining is Leonid Andreyev. Wikipedia says that ""The Seven Who Were Hanged" and "The Red Laugh" was found in the library of horror writer H.P.Lovecraft". There is also an English translation of a short story collection by V.F. Odoevsky entitled Salamander and Other Gothic Tales - some of these stories are also included in the two anthologies I mentioned. Books on Russian supernatural literature are listed here.

Best Regards,
Slawek Wielhorski (a CAS fan from Poland)



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 14 Sep 08 | 05:14AM by yellowish haze.

I note, for no particular reason, that both Tolstoy's "The Family of the Vourdalak" and Gogol's "Viy" were filmed by Mario Bava in the 60s. (BLACK SABBATH and BLACK SUNDAY, respectively.) While I have seen the films, I have not read the stories.

Quote:

I note, for no particular reason, that both Tolstoy's "The Family of the Vourdalak" and Gogol's "Viy" were filmed by Mario Bava in the 60s. (BLACK SABBATH and BLACK SUNDAY, respectively.) While I have seen the films, I have not read the stories.

I've read both stories and seen both movies. Each is very worthwhile, in its own way, but "Viy", in particular, has nothing to do with the story line of Black Sunday (aside from the character of an evil witch). I have no idea why Bava claimed that Black Sunday was based upon Gogol's tale.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've read both stories and seen both movies. Each
> is very worthwhile, in its own way, but "Viy", in
> particular, has nothing to do with the story line
> of Black Sunday (aside from the character of an
> evil witch). I have no idea why Bava claimed that
> Black Sunday was based upon Gogol's tale.

Presumably because both the story and the film deal with a resurrected witch. (I still have not read Gogol's story, but I have seen the 1967 Russian film VIY, which supposedly sticks closer to the story.)

He also apparently claimed De Maupassant as the source for the story on which based the segment "The Telephone", and Chekhov as the source for "The Drop of Water" in Black Sabbath/The Three Faces of Fear -- but I don't believe any of those have stood up when questioned.... Still, they are effective pieces of film, worth seeing.

"Viy", in particular, seems to have been included in several anthologies over the years, such as Peter Haining's The Ghouls (or, if you're going by the Orbit pb edition, The Ghouls, Book 2). The Tolstoy is a little less reprinted, but does show up occasionally, such as Haining's Vampire or Christopher Frayling's Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula, for popular editions....

yellowish haze Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >

>
> The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin
> The Family of the Vourdalak (aka The Curse Of The
> Vourdalak) by Aleksey Tolstoy
> The Vampire (Upyr) by Aleksey Tolstoy
> The Tale of a Dead Body, Belonging to No One Knows
> Whom by Vladimir Odoevsky
> Viy by Nikolai Gogol
> The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
> The Portrait by Nikolai Gogol
> The Song of Triumphant Love by Ivan Turgenev
> Bobok by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
> An Apparition in the Engineers’ Castle by
> Nikolai Leskov
> The Black Monk by Anton Chekhov
> Stuss by Mikhail Lermontov
>
> Another writer worth examining is Leonid Andreyev.

>Welcome Slawek,

Thanks for the list, it will be interesting to explore some of those titles.

Since you live in Poland, perhaps you can further our theme by listing any contributions from Polish weird authors (if such there be). I'm a passionate devotee of Henryk Sienkiewicz, by the way. Few things in literature have affected me like his epic "Trilogy." But as far as I'm aware, your greatest writer had little concern with the supernatural, though perhaps there's a lost "Sienkiewicz ghost story" out there somewhere?

Regards,
Rich

Rich,

Sure I’d be glad to share some titles. At last after so many years of lurking I am honoured to contribute to this wonderful forum.

I’m not aware of any links between Sienkiewicz’s fiction and the supernatural tradition. I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t read him since primary school. :)

I recommend Stefan Grabinski. Grabinski remains unique in Polish literature. He seems to be the only polish writer to dedicate his who whole body of works to the genre in question. As far as I know there are three collections of his stories in English:
- The Dark Domain [www.amazon.com]
- The Motion Demon [www.ash-tree.bc.ca]
- In Sarah’s House [www.cbeditions.com]

I think Bruno Schulz’s The Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass and Street of Crocodiles should also be regarded as weird, particularly for the wonderfully surreal imagery.

Many supernatural themes can be found in Adam Mickiewicz’s Forefathers’ Eve, a cycle combining folklore and mystic patriotism. It consists of 4 volumes and sometimes inspires discussions on whether it should or shouldn’t be regarded as horror fiction. If Shelley’s Frankenstein is horror then why shouldn’t Mickiewicz’s magnus opum?

Some other works by polish writers which spring to mind are Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa and Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird, however both of these were written in foreign languages – French and English respectively. The latter is in Newman’s and Jones’ 100 Best Horror Novels list.



-------------------------------

Other European weird and quasi-weird writers worth mentioning on this thread:
- Tommaso Landolfi. Italian writer whose numerous stories are both surreal and disturbing.
- Dino Buzzati.
- Ladislav Klima (Czech writer). His gothic novel The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch is available in English. I’m not sure if there are any touches of supernatural elements in it, but it’s certainly weird. Klima has also produced some good horror stories, however I’m not aware of any translations to English.
- From weird fiction in German, besides Meyrink, Hoffmann and Ewers there is also Karl Hans Strobl ... and once again I can’t say if you can find any of his horror stories in English.

Slawek



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 15 Sep 08 | 07:00AM by yellowish haze.

yellowish haze Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> Hi everyone,
> I'm new here. I just noticed you are discussing
> the supernatural tradition in Russian literature
> and thought I could point out some writers and
> titles.
>
[snip]

> Best Regards,
> Slawek Wielhorski (a CAS fan from Poland)

Hey, welcome aboard, Slawek! It's a small world! :-)

Martin the Swede (from Gavin Smith's mailing list)

>>"I've yet to come across a copy of the (from what I understand) horrific but non-supernatural Octave of Claudius, but other tales have been appearing in anthologies recently."

There was a silent film made of this book, starring Lon Chaney, and retitled A Blind Bargain. The film was lost, but MagicImage filmbooks released a reconstruction of it in book form. The film of it makes it look like a traditional mad scientist/evolutionary experiments with monkeys-type tale.

>>"SHADOWLAND is a shameless ripoff of John Fowles's THE MAGUS---the author has even admitted this."

My Dad is always saying to me, "You've got to read The Magus, Gavin, it's really good." Isn't plagiarism illegal? What would Poe have done?

>>"I've yet to read The Princess and the Goblin (or any of Macdonald's other longer works except for Lilith and Phantastes, both of which I would recommend"

I read Lilith too, I think in Lin Carter's adult fantasy series from the seventies. It has some some incredible scenes/elements/ideas; MacDonald has effects preceding causes, and other weird effects, which make some portions of his book read almost like a fourth-dimensional novel. But I disliked the overall structure of the book.