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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 1, December 1943

Page 3

"A Few Uncomfortable Moments"

Although his four volumes of material devoted to the subject contain over fifty stories, the late E.F. Benson is comparitively unknown in this coun-try as a modern exponent of the short weird tale, and has seemingly fare little better in his native Britain. In fact, collectors of the weird as a rule remem-ber merely "The Man Who Went Too Far" which through repeated anthological repre-sentation has become, of late, almost too familiar. And the anthologists them-selves, sad to say, appear to know little more about him than do their readers.

The first of E.F. Benson's collections appeared in 1912 under the in-triguing title The Room in the Tower. The edition was a very small one, and its present day scarcity has raised the price considerably, despite the fact that it was once reprinted in 1929. The comparatively few copies of this book that are in circulation, coupled with the fact that it has never been published in Ameri-ca, make it both a scarce and an expensive addition to the average fantasy fan's collection; book dealers consistently ask from four dollars to six-fifty for a copy, depending on the edition, and even at this figure it is a but infrequently encountered item.

It is in this volume that "The Man Who Went Too Far" was first given the permanence of hard covers. Little need be said of the story, it being well-known, other than to quote H.P. Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature" which notes its breathing "whisperingly of a house at the edge of a dark wood, and of Pan's hoof-mark on the breast of a dead man." Benson later refashioned the germ of the story into a novel, The Angel of Pain, somewhat in the habitual way of Le Fanu and Vernon Lee. The story has been reprinted countless times in its original short form; suffice it to mention two of the collections including it; Arthur Reeve's Best Ghost Stories, and the Mystic-Humorous Stories of Joseph L. French's editorship.

Of equally high quality in The Room in the Tower are "The House with the Brick-Kiln" and "How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery". The former tells of the hauntings of an isolated Sussex manor, once inhabited by a jealous-crazed artist who murdered his wife and then attempted to incinerate her remains in the brick-kiln near by. Summer vacationists living at the manor frequently see the ghost of the former tenant about the grounds; smoke, smelling of charred human flesh, emanates from the cold kiln; the servants' bell is frequently rung from a disused  bedroom. The climax is reached one evening when the  crime itself is re-enacted:

"The doorway into the room beyond was open, and just inside it we saw the man bending over some dark huddled ob-ject. Though the room was dark we could see him perfectly, for a light stale and impure seemed to come from him. He had again a long knife in his hand, and as we entered he was wiping on the mass that lay at his feet..."

Benson's unerring choice of detail and admirable restraint make this tale one of the best in the collection. In the second story mentioned the author re-verts to a more quiet apparition of ghostly twin-babies; they are always seen in the long gallery of the house, and then only between sunset and sunrise. Anyone luckless enough to see them meets a violent death soon afterward. Of these lat-ter was one Mrs. Canning, a great beauty of her day; her fate was to be inflict-ed with a nameless dread disease--gray-green patches appeared on her skin, each burgeoning into lichenaceous tendrils which, finally spreading to her respirato-ry organs, caused her death. A guest visits the house, and, falling asleep one afternoon in the fatal gallery, wakes from a distorted dream of Mrs. Canning's fate to discover it is past sunset. Before she can escape from the room---being unfamiliar with its geography in the near-darkness---the twin-babies appear, but

Saving...

"A Few Uncomfortable Moments" Although his four volumes of material devoted to the subject contain over fifty stories, the late E.F. Benson is comparitively unknown in this coun-try as a modern exponent of the short weird tale, and has seemingly fare little better in his native Britain. In fact, collectors of the weird as a rule remem-ber merely "The Man Who Went Too Far" which through repeated anthological repre-sentation has become, of late, almost too familiar. And the anthologists them-selves, sad to say, appear to know little more about him than do their readers. The first of E.F. Benson's collections appeared in 1912 under the in-triguing title The Room in the Tower. The edition was a very small one, and its present day scarcity has raised the price considerably, despite the fact that it was once reprinted in 1929. The comparatively few copies of this book that are in circulation, coupled with the fact that it has never been published in Ameri-ca, make it both a scarce and an expensive addition to the average fantasy fan's collection; book dealers consistently ask from four dollars to six-fifty for a copy, depending on the edition, and even at this figure it is a but infrequently encountered item. It is in this volume that "The Man Who Went Too Far" was first given the permanence of hard covers. Little need be said of the story, it being well-known, other than to quote H.P. Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature" which notes its breathing "whisperingly of a house at the edge of a dark wood, and of Pan's hoof-mark on the breast of a dead man." Benson later refashioned the germ of the story into a novel, The Angel of Pain, somewhat in the habitual way of Le Fanu and Vernon Lee. The story has been reprinted countless times in its original short form; suffice it to mention two of the collections including it; Arthur Reeve's Best Ghost Stories, and the Mystic-Humorous Stories of Joseph L. French's editorship. Of equally high quality in The Room in the Tower are "The House with the Brick-Kiln" and "How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery". The former tells of the hauntings of an isolated Sussex manor, once inhabited by a jealous-crazed artist who murdered his wife and then attempted to incinerate her remains in the brick-kiln near by. Summer vacationists living at the manor frequently see the ghost of the former tenant about the grounds; smoke, smelling of charred human flesh, emanates from the cold kiln; the servants' bell is frequently rung from a disused bedroom. The climax is reached one evening when the crime itself is re-enacted: "The doorway into the room beyond was open, and just inside it we saw the man bending over some dark huddled ob-ject. Though the room was dark we could see him perfectly, for a light stale and impure seemed to come from him. He had again a long knife in his hand, and as we entered he was wiping on the mass that lay at his feet..." Benson's unerring choice of detail and admirable restraint make this tale one of the best in the collection. In the second story mentioned the author re-verts to a more quiet apparition of ghostly twin-babies; they are always seen in the long gallery of the house, and then only between sunset and sunrise. Anyone luckless enough to see them meets a violent death soon afterward. Of these lat-ter was one Mrs. Canning, a great beauty of her day; her fate was to be inflict-ed with a nameless dread disease--gray-green patches appeared on her skin, each burgeoning into lichenaceous tendrils which, finally spreading to her respirato-ry organs, caused her death. A guest visits the house, and, falling asleep one afternoon in the fatal gallery, wakes from a distorted dream of Mrs. Canning's fate to discover it is past sunset. Before she can escape from the room---being unfamiliar with its geography in the near-darkness---the twin-babies appear, but