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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 3, September 1944
Page 46
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46 FANTASY COMMENTATOR the groundwork by the publication, in this country, of Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder, and a Poem (1910), a small board-bound brochure which gave rough synopses of those episodes which were thoroughly treated in the larger volume. On the whole, reviewers reacted even more favorably to Carnacki than had they to the author's previous writings. The Westminster Gazette dubbed it "A collection of admirable ghost stories"; the British Weekly complimented Hodgson's ability by calling it "a book of thrills which should not, perhaps, be taken up by nervous readers too late in the evening"; "There is not one of this collection of ghostly episodes which does not grip with its weird fascination," remarked the Globe. Said the Daily Express: "Some ghosts are real, some are not, but from both kinds Mr. Hodgson...gets a maximum of blood-curdling thrills. Better stories of haunted houses have not been told in our day..." For a more complete account, The Bookman may be once more referred to; in its June 1913 issue (vol. 44, p. 142) there appeared this: Mr. Hope Hodgson's new novel comprises half-a-dozen of the "creepiest" experiences imaginable. Carnacki, the hero or victim of these experiences, narrates them to a privileged circle of friends with an artistic sense of cumulative horror calculated to create the sensation known as gooseflesh in your veriest skeptic. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, you are sure to find something to your taste in Carnacki's thrilling reports of his investigations; for in some cases the mysterious forces at work prove to be merely ingeniously contrived tricks of human origin, while in other cases strange and horrific Beings take threatening shape and have to be dealt with according to the laws of supernatural "science". Read after nightfall in a dimly lighted room peopled with uneasy shadows, these tales carry with them a haunting atmosphere of terror and an ever-present sense of the unknown powers of darkness. Take for example the phenomenon of "The Whistling Room" in an old Irish castle. The room at nights was wont to give out a weird whistling sound "like a monster with a man's soul." Carnacki climbing in by moonlight to the window from the outside looks in. "And then, you know, I saw something. The floor in the middle of the huge, empty room, was puckered upwards in the centre into a strange, soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an everchanging hole, that pulsated to that great, gentle heening...And suddenly, as I stared, dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale moonlight..." Mr. Hope Hodgson plays deftly on the strings of fear, and his new novel stamps him a fascinating panic-monger with a quick eye for all the sensational possibilities of ghost lore. Again let it be borne in mind that such a complimentary review involves a tacitly favorably comparison of Hodgson's ghost stories with not only those mentioned earlier in this article, but with M. R. James' second collection More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911)---which, incidentally, contains that master's finest work---and with Blackwood's Lost Valley (1910), as well as the sterling work of two newcomers to the field, F. Marion Crawford, represented by Wandering Ghosts (1911) and E. F. Benson, whose Room in the Tower (1912) had appeared in the previous year. And yet, coming on the heels of these notables, Hodgson was actually characterized by the Liverpool Courier as "...probably our best writer of Ghost stories, whether he finds them afloat or ashore..."
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46 FANTASY COMMENTATOR the groundwork by the publication, in this country, of Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder, and a Poem (1910), a small board-bound brochure which gave rough synopses of those episodes which were thoroughly treated in the larger volume. On the whole, reviewers reacted even more favorably to Carnacki than had they to the author's previous writings. The Westminster Gazette dubbed it "A collection of admirable ghost stories"; the British Weekly complimented Hodgson's ability by calling it "a book of thrills which should not, perhaps, be taken up by nervous readers too late in the evening"; "There is not one of this collection of ghostly episodes which does not grip with its weird fascination," remarked the Globe. Said the Daily Express: "Some ghosts are real, some are not, but from both kinds Mr. Hodgson...gets a maximum of blood-curdling thrills. Better stories of haunted houses have not been told in our day..." For a more complete account, The Bookman may be once more referred to; in its June 1913 issue (vol. 44, p. 142) there appeared this: Mr. Hope Hodgson's new novel comprises half-a-dozen of the "creepiest" experiences imaginable. Carnacki, the hero or victim of these experiences, narrates them to a privileged circle of friends with an artistic sense of cumulative horror calculated to create the sensation known as gooseflesh in your veriest skeptic. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, you are sure to find something to your taste in Carnacki's thrilling reports of his investigations; for in some cases the mysterious forces at work prove to be merely ingeniously contrived tricks of human origin, while in other cases strange and horrific Beings take threatening shape and have to be dealt with according to the laws of supernatural "science". Read after nightfall in a dimly lighted room peopled with uneasy shadows, these tales carry with them a haunting atmosphere of terror and an ever-present sense of the unknown powers of darkness. Take for example the phenomenon of "The Whistling Room" in an old Irish castle. The room at nights was wont to give out a weird whistling sound "like a monster with a man's soul." Carnacki climbing in by moonlight to the window from the outside looks in. "And then, you know, I saw something. The floor in the middle of the huge, empty room, was puckered upwards in the centre into a strange, soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an everchanging hole, that pulsated to that great, gentle heening...And suddenly, as I stared, dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two enormous, blackened lips, blistered and brutal, there in the pale moonlight..." Mr. Hope Hodgson plays deftly on the strings of fear, and his new novel stamps him a fascinating panic-monger with a quick eye for all the sensational possibilities of ghost lore. Again let it be borne in mind that such a complimentary review involves a tacitly favorably comparison of Hodgson's ghost stories with not only those mentioned earlier in this article, but with M. R. James' second collection More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911)---which, incidentally, contains that master's finest work---and with Blackwood's Lost Valley (1910), as well as the sterling work of two newcomers to the field, F. Marion Crawford, represented by Wandering Ghosts (1911) and E. F. Benson, whose Room in the Tower (1912) had appeared in the previous year. And yet, coming on the heels of these notables, Hodgson was actually characterized by the Liverpool Courier as "...probably our best writer of Ghost stories, whether he finds them afloat or ashore..."
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