I'm going to be rereading "Supernatural Horror In Literature" and posting the occasional thought here. If anyone would care to join me, the essay can be found at http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/works/super.htm

Sounds like an interesting topic, Francis. This essay, the Wise & Fraser collection from Modern Library, and the volumes E. F. Bleiler edited for Dover in the 60s and 70s were the base from which I built my weird literature collection.

Jim

I had the Bleiler books from Dover. I live in the tropics, however, and books don't last long here. I'm unfamiliar with the Modern Library collection you mentioned.

What a pity about the effects a tropical climate has had on your books!

The Modern Library anthology is still in print after almost 60 years:

Herbert A. Wise & Phyllis Fraser (eds.) GREAT TALES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL. Modern Library, 1944.

It is not perfect--its selection of work by foreign, female and (for that time period) contemporary authors is poor--but it is a good selection of "canonical" authors in weird fiction. It could be argued that David Hartwell's excellent anthology, THE DARK DESCENT (Tor, 1987), has superseded it, but both books offer gems the other ignores, there is very little duplication, and Hartwell's representation of foreign and women authors is only a little better than Wise & Fraser's had been. At least Hartwell partially redressed this deficiency in his later anthology, THE FOUNDATIONS OF FEAR (Tor, 1992), though I still ask myself, "How could he possibly omit Vernon Lee, let alone at least a score of other fine female writers?" Pace Pierre Comtois, any extensive reading in weird fiction shows that honors in supernatural literature are due on almost equal basis between the genders.

Lovecraft is the only author of the pulps to make it into both GREAT TALES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL and THE DARK DESCENT. Leiber, Bloch, Sturgeon and Wellman make appearances in the latter. Smith, Howard and others appear in harder to find anthologies by the likes of Kaye, Karloff, Carr and others, but in neither of these.

Jim

I live in the tropics, however, and books don't last long here

oh it must be just terrible living in the Virgin Islands.
:-D

Boyd.
Living in just awful New Zealand

Virgin Islands?

Home of the great (and unjustly neglected) Henry Whitehead!

What source of information do you have about Henry Whitehead's life? I was unaware that he was from the Virgin Islands.

Well, he was not FROM the Virgin Islands, but he was the Episcopal Archdeacon there for many years and his stories are often set there.

Quite an excellent writer, Whitehead. I think he's rather unfairly neglected.

I agree with Gabriel that Whitehead's work has received much less attention than it deserves. His work seems to have fallen between two stools (and suffered from snobbery from both sides as a result):

1) He was a pulp writer which largely rules him out for most connoiseurs of the classic ghost story tradition

2) His focus on the mostly British classic ghost story tradition makes him seem pallid next to those who favor his more adventurous, lurid American confreres.

How many people who have ruled out the significance of Whitehead's work have actually tested their prejudices by READING him?

Jim

Is there anything currently in print by him, or posted on the net?

Not at present.

Jim

His two key collections are JUMBEE and WEST INDIA LIGHTS, both from Arkham House. Expensive these days, although I believe they were also reprinted by Neville Spearman and the reprints are less expensive.

Jim is correct that he writes within the English ghost story tradition rather than the pulps, but it's worth emphasizing that his stories are set for the most part in the VI and are centered around the folklore of the island natives. And although his writing is not "of" the pulps, he was most certainly a Weird Tales writer. He even collaborated on a story with Lovecraft, if I recall correctly.

Gabriel M

I have the 1971 Ballantine edition of The History of the Caliph Vathek. Who is the translator of the third episode of Vathek "The Story of the Princess Zulkais and the Prince Kalilah" in this edition. Sir Frank T. Marzalials or C. A. Smith? It doesn't say in the book.

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Author: Ludde (---.telia.com)
Date: Mar-30, 09:59

I have the 1971 Ballantine edition of The History of the Caliph Vathek. Who is the translator of the third episode of Vathek "The Story of the Princess Zulkais and the Prince Kalilah" in this edition. Sir Frank T. Marzalials or C. A. Smith? It doesn't say in the book.
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[Jim Java]
I have the 1971 BB ed. of __Vathek__ and Panther's 1972 ed. of __The Abominations of Yondo__; a cursory look at the first few pages of "The Third Episode of Vathek" in each made them look identical to me. . . .

Odd if they used Smith's translation for the third episode, instead of using Marzalials' for all three episodes which would have been homogeneous.