No.As far as I can tell,the PD text will remain PD no mater how many tims it will be reprinted from now on (or from the moment it entered the PD),so thats why you dont have to buy the 6th trilionth edition of Frankenstein,which is also on of THE most over rated books.Its good,yes,but its too over rated for its own good,resulting in other and more quality stuff not geting the room it would need,like Ewers,for instance.

Well that settles it, I am going to have to take some time over the holiday weekend to revisit "The Mask" in 3d. Maybe also the marvelous "Street of Crocodiles" by the Quay brothers (mentioned earlier as a Polish weird tale).

Kind of off topic,but oh well.

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
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> Anyone have $35,000.00 dollars to spend?....

Still off-topic, but the same seller is now also offering 52 letters from Lovecraft to Frank Belknap Long. Only a measly $150,000! (The Lovecraft-Petaja letters appear to remain unsold, so you can get the whole package for just $185,000 plus $8 shipping if you live in the US. You could probably negotiate about the shipping charge, too.)

As a voluntary worker within a local bookshop (used and antiquary stock), I come across some very intriguing works from time to time that definitely fall into the genre of weird tales or strange stories. Two that have recently grabbed my attention is Dead Man's Diary (Coulson Kernahan, 1890) and a new publication from a small local publishing house featuring short stories by Hanns Heinz Ewers.

(John) Coulson Kerhanan was a poet, novelist and man of letters. He was a friend of many contemporary UK poets and wrote several memoirs thereof - notably Kipling and Swinburne. During the period 1890 - 1910, he wrote several weird tales novels that sold rather well at the time. He was a friend and correspondent of Lt Wiliam Hope Hodgson and supported him throughout the latter's many years of being rejected for publication. Dead Man's Diary was his first publication (anonymous) and purports to be a narrative of what happened to him during a prolonged outer-body near-death experience when he was believed to be dead. I've only read bits of it and it's very much in the Poe tradition.

Hanns Heinz Ewers was a very strange man who wrote very strange tales. There's a recent forum thread on him on Eldritch Dark for those who want to know more. His stories have been unavailable for many years and many have never been translated into English. Fortunately for those of us who are a sucker for weird tales, a local publishing house, Side Real Press (www.siderealpress.co.uk) has recently published a selection of his stories, several of which appear in English for the first time. It's one of those limited edition hardcover pressings that is expensive, but, nevertheless, a beautiful thing. I'll put a review together when I've had a chance to read it.

I think I heard something about a new limited edition Hanns Heinz Ewers collection. Does anyone know anything about it?

From Side Real Press [www.siderealpress.co.uk] (which plans 4 volumes devoted to Ewers):

Hanns Heinz Ewers 'Nachtmahr - Strange Tales' (2009)

ISBN: 798-0-9542953-4-9
350 numbered copies (with free extras only available via this website)
Cost worldwide is £30.00 incl surface postage- please add £5.00 for airmail- this is a heavy book at 349pp.

We are very pleased to announce that, in conjunction with the H.H.E. estate, a new volume of stories, including some newly translated works is now available, together with Ewers essay/paean to Edgar Allan Poe (first published in English in 1917).

Contents:

* Introduction by J. N. Hirschhorn-Smith
* ‘Carnival In Cadiz’*
* ‘The Dead Jew’*
* ‘John Hamilton Llewellyn's End’
* ‘Gentlemen of the Bar’*
* ‘The Tophar Bride’*
* ‘The Typhoid Mary’*
* ‘The Spider’
* ‘Fairyland’
* ’From The Diary Of An Orange Tree’
* ‘The Death of Baron Jesus Maria von Friedel’*
* ‘Mamoloi'
* Edgar Allan Poe

*=newly translated.


Jim

I only have Kernahan' "A book of strange sins" . Anyway, am just reading something interesting, called "The republic of the Southern cross and other stories(tales, I dunno)" by Valery Brussof . The last two in the book, "Eluli, son of Eluli", but especialy " In the tower" were very nice, the later reminescent of Borges and even early Lovecraft (aka "Polaris") .

Also, Jim, could you maybe not spam that message everywhere ? I know you want to advertise it, but especialy for such a limited run, you could write individualy, instead of just copy pasting the same message into a newly generated account created wherever and whenever the name Ewers is utered .

There has been much talk of typographical errors in Night Shade Books. In my Mysteries of Time And Spirit there are frequent symbols in the text that look like backward "P"s with the loop filled in with black. Do the Hodgson books from Night Shade Books also have typographical errors?

The poster Jojo Lapin X mentioned over at the Jack Vance message board that he got silver on his hands when handling these Hodgson books. Has anyone else had problems with this?

I also wonder about The Dream of X. Reviewers have said that this novel actually retains the atmosphere and essence of The Night Land while being much easier to read. What do you think?

Knygatin Wrote:
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> There has been much talk of typographical errors
> in Night Shade Books. In my Mysteries of Time And
> Spirit there are frequent symbols in the text that
> look like backward "P"s with the loop filled in
> with black. Do the Hodgson books from Night Shade
> Books also have typographical errors?

What you are referring to is the "pilcrow", or paragraph sign (¶). I could be mistaken (not having seen the postcards in question, which is where these appear), but I took it to be simply reproducing in text the symbol as used by HPL on the cards themselves. Given that he tended to fill up postcards to the point carriers would charge full letter rates, he'd most likely have wanted to save space, hence would use the pilcrow to indicate a new paragraph rather than leave the white space required to end a line short and begin the next with an indentation.

As I said, I may be mistaken, but this was my assumption.

>
> The poster Jojo Lapin X mentioned over at the Jack
> Vance message board that he got silver on his
> hands when handling these Hodgson books. Has
> anyone else had problems with this?

I've not had any trouble with the Hodgson books in this respect, though I do note some textual problems (lack of indentation with new paragraph and the like -- see, for instance, "The Voice in the Night".

>
> I also wonder about The Dream of X. Reviewers have
> said that this novel actually retains the
> atmosphere and essence of The Night Land while
> being much easier to read. What do you think?

I've not yet had a chance to read this one -- haven't yet received my copy from Night Shade, nor have I seen any earlier edition, despite various attempts through interlibrary loan....

jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Knygatin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There has been much talk of typographical
> errors
> > in Night Shade Books. In my Mysteries of Time
> And
> > Spirit there are frequent symbols in the text
> that
> > look like backward "P"s with the loop filled in
> > with black. Do the Hodgson books from Night
> Shade
> > Books also have typographical errors?
>
> What you are referring to is the "pilcrow", or
> paragraph sign (¶). I could be mistaken (not
> having seen the postcards in question, which is
> where these appear), but I took it to be simply
> reproducing in text the symbol as used by HPL on
> the cards themselves. Given that he tended to fill
> up postcards to the point carriers would charge
> full letter rates, he'd most likely have wanted to
> save space, hence would use the pilcrow to
> indicate a new paragraph rather than leave the
> white space required to end a line short and begin
> the next with an indentation.
>
> As I said, I may be mistaken, but this was my
> assumption.

You are absolutely correct -- I have seen photographs of HPL's postcards and there are plenty of these signs on them.

Which is Hodgson's quintessential work? If you must pick only one.

The House on the Borderland.

Kyberean Wrote:
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> The House on the Borderland.

I was kind of hoping you would say The Night Land. I think The House on the Borderland may be his most well-written work, but it didn't leave me all that excited. I liked the beginning best, and was also impressed by the visionary part with the ending of the Solar system. I will re-read it.

My favorite so far is The Boats of the Glenn Carrig. Its horrors are very intensely manifested and perceived.

I haven't gotten through The Night Land. But I have just purchased the Night Shade edition, so I intend to. The first chapters I read earlier, and even though it was slow reading, the vision and its details were so unique and obsessive that it really grabbed hold of me. It seems to me that both Lovecraft and CAS were overall more impressed, or moved, by this piece than by The House on the Borderland.

Here is a discarded draft from Jack Vance's Suldrun's Garden, first part in his Lyonesse trilogy. Neither the text nor the nymph made it into the book:



The following morning he came to a wide slow river, which he crossed, dry-shod, on magic feathers. In the shallows, among the reeds stood a nymph staring down at the ripples which left her parted knees. Absorbed in her thoughts she failed to see Shimrod, and he watched her for several minutes. Her hair was sleek and lank, greenish-yellow; her ears were very small and lacked lobes; their substance seemed fine as shell. She reached her hand to touch the water and Shimrod saw that her nails were filmy, like insect wings and she seemed to lack thumbs. Slowly she turned; her breasts were tipped with small green nipples and a sparse blue-green down, like moss, covered her pubic area. She became aware of Shimrod; her mouth opened into a shocked round orifice. She sank into the water until mouth and nose were submerged and her green-yellow hair floated. For ten seconds she stared at Shimrod, in mingled wonder and alarm, then submerged her head and was gone.

Somberly Shimrod went his way. The nymph’s face had been blank, almost vacuous, like the face of a fish, or so it seemed at first glance, but there had also been the stir of thoughts and emotions incommensurable to his own, as befitted the circumstances.



What do you think? Similar to CAS?