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| Sir Hugh Walpole sketched by Edgar Spence, 1935 | |
Hugh Walpole's Weird Tales
a bibliography
introduced by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole was an English novelist whose homosexuality was rather more furtive than Wilde's, as well it might be since Walpole as a young man was able to follow, with all England, what happened to Wilde.
Hugh was born March 13, 1884 in Auckland, New Zealand. His father became the Bishop of Edinburgh in 1910, providing Hugh with experiences commemorated in his play The Cathedral (1922). Hugh served with the Russian Red Cross in the Great War resulting in material for his novels The Dark Forest (1916) & The Secret City (1919). The experience also put him into the Order of St. George for bravery rescuing a wounded man under fire. Having been educated in England, he regarded himself an Englishman rather than an Aucklander or Scot, & his trilogy of novels following the life of an Englishman from boyhood on -- beginning with Jeremy (1919) -- were like many of his works inspired by his personal biography. His famous "Herries" historicals set in the Lake District -- beginning with Rogue Herries (1930) -- place him highly among authors of swashbucklers. There are supernatural incidents & intimations of witchcraft in the Herries series but they're very much a side-issue. His horror novels tend to be psychological rather than supernatural, with a brooding underlying mysticism. Two of these are great works for the genre: Portrait of a Man with Red Hair (1925) has a Jekyll & Hyde theme of possession, with similar Good & Evil personalities not sharing one body in The Killer & the Slain (1942). This latter is all the more disturbing if the homosexual subtext is followed. Two lads develop a strange affinity for one another. When grown, to free himself of this connection, one of the two decides on murder -- with unexpected repurcussions. Among his shorter weird tales three at least are little masterpieces: "Tarnhelm," "The Silver Mask" & "The Little Ghost."
At the height of his success, having become a wealthy bachelor with dogs & books his main companions, he kept an apartment in Piccadilly, & made his country home in Cumberland, his residence being today a Bed & Breakfast. Collector of books & manuscripts generally & of weird tales especially, his taste for things beautiful & macabre extended to having a neolithic megalith transported from Jersey into his own gardens. He was knighted in 1938, three years before his relatively early death, June 1, 1941, of a heart attack brought on by over exertion doing volunteer war work in Kenswick. He is buried in his beloved Cumberland.
Here is a checklist of his weird fiction only; I hope it is complete though perhaps there remains an item or two to add. Anthology citations for short stories are a bit random & very far from complete. If you can point me to apropriate additions, I would be most glad.
Above the Dark Circus: An Adventure
- novel of madness & horror (Macmillan, 1931); US title Above the Dark Tumult: An Adventure (Doubleday Doran, 1931). The London issue included a special interior edition of 200 signed copies on larger paper.
- also in his omnibus Four Fantastic Tales (Macmillan, 1932)
"The Adventure of the Imaginative Child" in:
- his collection Head in Green Bronze & Other Stories (Macmillan, 1938; Doubleday Doran, 1938)
"A Carnation for an Old Man" in:
- Lady's Home Journal September 1929
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
"The Conjuror" in:
- his collection Head in Green Bronze & Other Stories (Macmillan, 1938; Doubleday Doran, 1938)
"'Enery" in:
- his collection The Golden Scarecrow (Cassell, 1915; George H. Doran, 1915)
"Epilog: Hugh Seymour" in:
- his collection The Golden Scarecrow (Cassell, 1915; George H. Doran, 1915)
"The Fear of Death" in:
- his collection Head in Green Bronze & Other Stories (Macmillan, 1938; Doubleday Doran, 1938)
"The Field of Five Trees" in:
- his collection Head in Green Bronze & Other Stories (Macmillan, 1938; Doubleday Doran, 1938)
"Head in Green Bronze" in:
- his collection Head in Green Bronze & Other Stories (Macmillan, 1938; Doubleday Doran, 1938)
The Inquistor
- murder thriller set in a haunted village (Macmillan, 1935; Doubleday Doran, 1935)
The Killer & the Slain: A Strange Story
- weird novel (Macmillan, 1942; Doubleday Doran, 1942)
"The Little Ghost" in:
- Red Book Magazine October 1922
- Cynthia Asquith's When Churchyards Yawn (Hutchinson, 1931)
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
- the anonymously edited A Century of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, 1934); reissued as Creepy Stories (Bracken Books, 1994)
- Andre Norton's Small Shadows Creep (Dutton, 1974; Chatto & Windus, 1976)
- Michael Cox & R. A. Gilbert's The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories (Oxford University Press, 1986)
"Lizzie Rand" in:
- his collection The Thirteen Travellers (Hutchinson, 1921; Doran, 1921)
"Major Wilbraham" in:
- The Chicago Tribune November 13, 1921
- in Edward J. O'Brien & John Cournos's Best British Short Stories of 1923 (Small Maynard, 1923; Longmans Green, 1923)
- his collection The Silver Thorn (Macmillan, 1928; Doubleday Doran, 1928)
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
- J. M Parrish & John R. Crossland's The Mammoth Book of Thrillers, Ghosts & Mysteries (Odhams, 1936)
"Mr. Huffam" in:
- The Strand December 1933
- Mr Huffam: A Christmas Story (privately printed by the Roger Williams Company, Cleveland, 1935, in an edition of 600 papercover & 200 hardcover copies)
- his collection Mr Huffam & Other Stories (Macmillan, 1948)
- Robert & Marie Lohan's New Christmas Treasury (Daye, 1954)
- Richard Dalby's Shivers for Christmas (O'Mara, 1995; St. Martin's, 1996)
"Mrs. Lunt" in:
- Cynthia Asquith's The Ghost Book (Hutchinson, 1926)
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
- the anonymously edited A Century of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, 1934); reissued as Creepy Stories (Bracken Books, 1994)
- the magazine-format The Master Thriller Series #6: Tales of the Uncanny December 1934
- Hugh Lamb's A Tide of Terror (Taplinger, 1973)
- Mary Danby's 65 Great Tales of the Supernatural (Octopus Books, 1979)
- the anonymously edited Vampires & Other Horrors (Chancellor, 1992)
- Stephen Jones & Dave Carson's H. P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror (Robinson, 1994)
"Mrs Porter & Miss Allen" in:
- his collection The Thirteen Travellers (Hutchinson, 1921; Doran, 1921)
- Michael Cox's The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories (Oxford University Press, 1996)
"The Oldest Talland" in:
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
Portrait of a Man with Red Hair: A Romantic Macabre
- excellent weird novel (Macmillan, 1925; Doran, 1925; Triangle, 1940) The Doran issue included an interior signed edition of 250 copies
- also in his omnibus Four Fantastic Tales (Macmillan, 1932)
Prayer for My Son
- psychological horror novel (Macmillan, 1936; Doubleday Doran, 1936)
The Sea Tower
- psychological horror novel (Macmillan, 1939; Doubleday Doran, 1939)
"Seashore Macabre" in:
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
"The Silver Mask" in:
- Blanche Colton Williams & Maxim Leiber's Panorama of Modern Literature (Heath, 1929)
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
- Dennis Wheatley's A Century of Horror Stories (Hutchinson, 1935)
- Ellery Queen's 101 Years' Entertainment (Little Brown, 1941)
- Boris Karloff's And the Darkness Falls (World Publishing, 1946)
- Herbert van Thal's Told in the Dark (Pan, 1950 wraps)
- Thomas Bertram Costain & John Beecrof's More Stories to Remember (Doubleday, 1958)
- Jack Sullivan's Lost Souls: A Collection of English Ghost Stories (Ohio University Press, 1988)
"The Snow" in:
- Cynthia Asquith's Shudders (Hutchinson, 1929; Scribners, 1929)
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
- the anonymously edited A Century of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, 1934); reissued as Creepy Stories (Bracken Books, 1994)
- the anonymously edited The Evening Standard Second Book of Strange Stories (Hutchinson, 1937)
- Robert Aickman's The Fourth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories (Fontana Books, London, 1967; New York Beagle, 1971)
- Helen Hoke's More Ghosts, Ghosts, Ghosts (Watts, 1981)
- Richard Dalby's Ghosts for Christmas (O'Mara, 1988; Carroll & Graf, 1989)
"The Staircase" in:
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
"The Tarn" in:
- Success October 1923
- The Strand December 1923
- Cynthia Asquith's The Black Cap (Hutchinson, 1927; Scribners, 1928)
- his collection The Silver Thorn (Macmillan, 1928; Doubleday Doran, 1928)
- the anonymously edited A Century of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, 1934); reissued as Creepy Stories (Bracken Books, 1994)
- H. Douglas Thomson's The Great Book of Thrillers (Odhams, 1935)
- Boris Karloff's Tales of Terror (World Publishing, 1943)
- Alfred Hitchcock's Fear & Trembling: Shivery Stories (Dell, 1946 wraps)
- Jack Adrian's Strange Tales from the Strand (Oxford University Press, 1991)
- the anonymously edited Horror by Lamplight (Chancellor Press, 1993)
"Tarnhelm; or, The Death of My Uncle Robert" in:
- Liberty Magazine December 28, 1929
- his collection All Souls' Night (Macmillan, 1933; Doubleday Doran, 1933)
- his anthology A Second Century of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, 1937)
- Philip van Doren Stern's The Midnight Reader (Holt, 1942)
- Joseph Margolies' Strange & Fantastic Stories (Whittesey, 1946)
- A. C. Spectorsky's Man into Beast: Strange Tales of Transformation (Doubleday, 1947)
- Seon Manley & Gogo Lewis's Christmas Ghosts (Doubleday, 1978)
- Helen Hoke's Tales of Fear & Frightening Phenomena (Dutton, 1982)
- Richard Dalby's Mistletoe & Mayhem (Michael O'Mara, 1992; Castle Books, 1993)
"The Tiger" in:
- Harpers Monthly Magazine June 1927
- his collection The Silver Thorn (Macmillan, 1928; Doubleday Doran, 1928)
- Carl Van Doran's London Omnibus (Doubleday Doran, 1932)
- Seon Manley & Gogo Lewis's Baleful Beasts (Lothrop, 1974)
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