James Doig and the Australian Weird

Over the last decade and a half, James Doig has quietly shown himself to be the premiere authority on classical Australian weird fiction and fantasy. I've enjoyed his anthologies, and the single-author collection by Ernest Ferenc (whose work also appears in multiple anthologies), not to mention Doig's own excellent fiction (ten stories) in the Sarob Press volume Friends of the Dead (2015).

Last summer I learned of a new (to me) anthology from 2019, and after acquiring it I made for my own reference a table of contents to the five anthologies (plus the Ferenc collection), so I could more easily recall which stories appeared in which book. I thought I'd share with Wormwoodiana my contents listing and title index. 

At least one book (Australian Nightmares, 2008) is currently unavailable, and the listing for the others oddly do not come up at Amazon.com via a search by Doig's name (though they do at Amazon.co.uk). Yet the Amazon.com links do come up if you search via bookfinder.com. I have no idea why. 

Books:

Australian Gothic: An Anthology of Australian Supernatural Fiction, ed. James Doig
    Mandurah, W.A.:  Equilibrium Books, 2007
    [n.p.]: Borgo Press, 2013
    [Contains: “Introduction”;  “The Spirit of the Tower” by Mary Fortune;  “Little Luiz” by B.L. Farjeon; “The House by the River” by G.A. Walstab; “The Ghost from the Sea” by J.E.O. Muddock; “Spirit-Led”, “A Haunt of the Jinkarras” and “The Boundary Rider’s Story” by Ernest Favenc; “Cannabis Indica” by Marcus Clarke; “Norah and the Fairies” by Hume Nisbet; “The Ghost-Monk” by Rosa Praed; “Lupton’s Guest: A Memory of the Eastern Pacific” by Louis Becke; “A Colonial Banshee” by Fergus Hume; “A Strange Experience” by A.F. Bassett Hull; “A Bushman’s Story” by Frances Faucett; “The Death Child” by Guy Boothby; “The Jewelled Hand” and “The Vengeance of the Dead” by Lionel Sparrow; “The Cave” and “The Forest of Lost Men” by Beatrice Grimshaw;  “The Cave of the Invisible” by James Francis Dwyer; “Where the Butterflies Come From” by William Hay; “The Vampire” by W.W. Lamble; “Hallowe’en” by Dulcie Deamer.]   

Australian Nightmares: More Australian Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, ed. James Doig
    Mandurah, W.A.:  Equilibrium Books, 2008
    [Contains: “Introduction”;  “Acknowledgements”; “The White Maniac: A Doctor’s Tale” by Mary Fortune; “The Silent Sepulchre” by Charles Junor; “What the Rats Brought” and “On the Island of Shadows” by Ernest Favenc; “The Odic Touch” by Hume Nesbit; “Told in the ‘Corona’s’ Cabin. On Three Evenings” by J.A. Barry; “The House of Ill Omen” by Rosa Praed; “A Thing of Wax” by Morley Roberts; “The Prophetic Horror of the Great Experiment” and “The Precipitous Details of the High Mountain and the Three Skeletons” by James Edmund; “The Strange Case of Alan Heriot” by Lionel Sparrow; “The Blanket Fiend” by Beatrice Grimshaw; “The Phantom Ship of Dirk Van Tromp” by James Francis Dwyer; “The Pledge” by Helen Simpson; “The Watch” and “The House That Took Revenge” by Vernon Knowles; “The Story of the Waxworks” by Rosaleen Norton; “The Undying One” by Roger Dard.] 

Australian Ghost Stories, ed. James Doig
    Ware, Hertfordshire:  Wordsworth Editions, 2010
    [Contains:  “Introduction”; “The White Maniac:  A Doctor’s Tale” by Mary Fortune;  “Spirit-Led” by Ernest Favenc; “A Haunt of the Jinkarras” by Ernest Favenc;  “The Mystery of Major Molineaux” by Marcus Clarke;  “The Bunyip” by Rosa Campbell Praed; “Lupton’s Guest: A Memory of the Eastern Pacific” by Louis Becke;  “The Haunted Pool: A Tale of the Blue Mountains” by Edward Wheatley;  “A Colonial Banshee” by Fergus Hume;  “The Devil of the Marsh” by H.B. Marriott Watson;  “The Accursed Thing” by Edward Dyson;  “The Third Murder: A New South Wales Tale” by Henry Lawson;  “The Death Child” by Guy Boothby;  “A Strange Goldfield” by Guy Boothby;  “Sea Voices” by Roderic Quinn;  “The Cave” by Beatrice Grimshaw;  “The Cave of the Invisible” by James Francis Dwyer;  “Hallowe’en” by Dulcie Deamer.]

Australian Hauntings: Colonial Supernatural Fiction, ed. James Doig
    Mandurah, W.A.:  Equilibrium Books, 2011
    [n.p.]: Borgo Press, 2013
    [Contains:  “Acknowledgements”; “Introduction”; “Jerry Boake’s Confession” by Ernest Favenc; “The Track of the Dead” by Ernest Favenc; “Blood for Blood” by Ernest Favenc; “In the Night” by Ernest Favenc; “A Strange Occurrence on Huckey’s Creek” by Ernest Favenc;  “The Wraith of Tom Imrie”by William Sylvester Walker; “Hulk No. 49” by J.A. Barry; “Miss Crosson’s Familiar” by Rosa Praed; “The Ghost of Brigalow Bend” by “Wanderer”; “The Spectre of the Black Swamp: An Overlander’s Story” by Edwin M. Merrall; “Chronicles of Easyville” by Patrick Shanahan; “Point Despair” by H.B. Marriott Watson; “A New Species” by Robert Coutts Armour; “De Profundus” by Robert Coutts Armour; “The Story of the Stain” by Sophie Osmond; “The Sorcerer of Arjuzanx” by Max Rittenberg; “The Queer Case of Christine Madrigal” by A. E. Martin, “The Hollmsdale Horror” by A. E. Martin; “The Pythoness” by Helen Simpson; “The Evil That Men Do” by Patience Tillyard.] 

 

Ghost and Mystery Stories, by Ernest Favenc, ed. by James Doig
    [n.p.]: Borgo Press, 2013
    [Contains: “Introduction”;  “My Story”; “The Lady Ermetta; or, The Sleeping Secret”; “The Medium”; “The Dead Hand”; “Jerry Boake's Confession”; “A Haunt of the Jinkarras”; “The Last of Six”; “The Spell of the Mas-hantoo”; “Spirit-led”; “The Ghost's Victory”; “Malchook's Doom”; “The Red Lagoon”; “The Track of the Dead”; “Blood for Blood”; “In the Night”; “The Ghostly Bullock-bell”; “My Only Murder”; “An Unquiet Spirit”; “The Boundary Rider's Story”; “A Strange Occurrence on Huckey's Creek”; “The Unholy Experiment of Martin Shenwick, and What Came of It”; “Doomed”; “The Mount of Misfortune”; “The Blood-debt”; “On the Island of Shadows”; “The Haunted Steamer”; “The Girl Body-stealer”; “M'Whirter's Wraith”; “The Land of the Unseen”; “What the Rats Brought”; “The Kaditcha: A Tale of the Northern Territory”; “Bibliography”.]

Beyond the Orbit: Australian Science Fiction to 1935, ed. by James Doig
    [n.p.]: Wildside Press, 2019
    [Contains:  “Introduction”; “What the Rats Brought” by Ernest Favenc; “The Land of the Unseen” by Ernest Favenc; “The Instrument” by H.B. Marriott Watson; “Lost Wings” by Beatrice Grimshaw; “The Social Code” by Erle Cox; “Beyond the Orbit” by Robert Coutts Armour; “Take It as Red” by Robert Coutts Armour; “After 1 Million Years” by J.M. Walsh; “The Gland Men of the Island” by Max Afford; “The Inner Domain” by Phil Collas; “The Bluff of the Hawk” by Desmond Hall and Harry Bates; “The Reign of the Reptiles” by Alan Connell; “Dream's End” by Alan Connell.]

    

Contents, alphabetically by author:

Max Afford
“The Gland Men of the Island”
    Beyond the Orbit (2019)

Robert Coutts Armour
“Beyond the Orbit”
    Beyond the Orbit (2019)
“De Profundus”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
“A New Species”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
“Take It as Red”
    Beyond the Orbit (2019) 

J.A. Barry
“Hulk No. 49”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
“Told in the ‘Corona’s’ Cabin. On Three Evenings”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

Louis Becke
“Lupton’s Guest: A Memory of the Eastern Pacific”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)

Guy Boothby
“The Death Child”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)
“A Strange Goldfield”
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)

Marcus Clarke
“Cannabis Indica”
    Australian Gothic (2007)

Phil Collas
“The Inner Domain”
    Beyond the Orbit (2019)

Alan Connell
“Dream's End”  
    Beyond the Orbit (2019)
“The Reign of the Reptiles”
    Beyond the Orbit (2019)

Erle Cox
“The Social Code”
    Beyond the Orbit (2019)

Roger Dard
“The Undying One”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

Dulcie Deamer    
“Hallowe’en”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)

James Francis Dwyer
“The Cave of the Invisible”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)
“The Phantom Ship of Dirk Van Tromp”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

Edward Dyson
“The Accursed Thing”
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)

James Edmund
“The Prophetic Horror of the Great Experiment”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
“The Precipitous Details of the High Mountain and the Three Skeletons”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

B.L. Farjeon
“Little Luiz”
    Australian Gothic (2007)

Frances Faucett
“A Bushman’s Story”
    Australian Gothic (2007)

Ernest Favenc
“Blood for Blood”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Blood-debt”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Boundary Rider’s Story”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Dead Hand”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Ghost's Victory”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Ghostly Bullock-bell”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Girl Body-stealer”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“Doomed”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“A Haunt of the Jinkarras”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Haunted Steamer”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“In the Night”
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“Jerry Boake’s Confession”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Kaditcha: A Tale of the Northern Territory”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Lady Ermetta; or, The Sleeping Secret”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Land of the Unseen” Beyond the Orbit (2019)  
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Last of Six”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“M'Whirter's Wraith”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“Malchook's Doom”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Medium”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Mount of Misfortune”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“My Only Murder”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“My Story”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“On the Island of Shadows”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Red Lagoon”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Spell of the Mas-hantoo”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“Spirit-Led”
    Australian Gothic  (2007)
    Australian Ghost Stories  (2010)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
 “A Strange Occurrence on Huckey’s Creek”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Track of the Dead”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“The Unholy Experiment of Martin Shenwick, and What Came of It”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“An Unquiet Spirit”
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)
“What the Rats Brought”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
    Beyond the Orbit (2019)
    Favenc, Ghost and Mystery Stories (2013)

Mary Fortune
“The Spirit of the Tower”
    Australian Gothic  (2007)
“The White Maniac: A Doctor’s Tale”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
    Australian Ghost Stories  (2010)

Beatrice Grimshaw  
“The Blanket Fiend”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
“The Cave”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)
“The Forest of Lost Men”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
“Lost Wings”  
    Beyond the Orbit (2019) 

Desmond Hall and Harry Bates
“The Bluff of the Hawk”
    Beyond the Orbit (2019)

William Hay
“Where the Butterflies Come From”
    Australian Gothic (2007)

A.F. Bassett Hull  
“A Strange Experience”
    Australian Gothic (2007)

Fergus Hume
“A Colonial Banshee”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)

Charles Junor
“The Silent Sepulchre”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

Vernon Knowles
“The Watch”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
“The House That Took Revenge”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

W.W. Lamble
“The Vampire”
    Australian Gothic (2007)

Henry Lawson
“The Third Murder: A New South Wales Tale”
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)

A.E. Martin
“The Queer Case of Christine Madrigal”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)
“The Hollmsdale Horror”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

Edwin M. Merrall
“The Spectre of the Black Swamp: An Overlander’s Story”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

J.E.O. Muddock
“The Ghost from the Sea”
    Australian Gothic (2007)

Hume Nisbet
“Norah and the Fairies”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
“The Odic Touch”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

Rosaleen Norton
“The Story of the Waxworks”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

Sophie Osmond
“The Story of the Stain”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

Rosa Campbell Praed
“The Bunyip”
     Australian Ghost Stories (2010)
“The Ghost-Monk”
    Australian Gothic (2007)
“The House of Ill Omen”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
“Miss Crosson’s Familiar”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

Roderic Quinn
“Sea Voices”
    Australian Ghost Stories  (2010)

Max Rittenberg
“The Sorcerer of Arjuzanx”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

Morley Roberts
“A Thing of Wax”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)

Patrick Shanahan
“Chronicles of Easyville”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

Helen Simpson
“The Pledge”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
“The Pythoness”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

Lionel Sparrow
“The Jewelled Hand”
    Australian Gothic  (2007)
“The Strange Case of Alan Heriot”
    Australian Nightmares (2008)
“The Vengeance of the Dead”
    Australian Gothic  (2007)

Patience Tillyard
“The Evil That Men Do”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

William Sylvester Walker
“The Wrait of Tom Imrie”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

J.M. Walsh
“After 1 Million Years”
    Beyond the Orbit (2019) 

G.A. Walstab
“The House by the River”
    Australian Gothic (2007)

“Wanderer”
“The Ghost of Brigalow Bend”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

H.B. Marriott Watson
“The Devil of the Marsh”  
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)
“The Instrument”  
    Beyond the Orbit (2019) 
“Point Despair”  
    Australian Hauntings (2011)

Edward Wheatley
“The Haunted Pool: A Tale of the Blue Mountains”
    Australian Ghost Stories (2010)

Australian Hauntings: Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Bibliography

The third and final volume of James Doig's excellent trilogy of historical Australian supernatural fiction has now come out from Equilibrium Books.  Following Australian Gothic (2007) and Australian Nightmares (2008), James put out a bargain-priced sampler collection with Wordsworth Editions, titled Australian Ghost Stories,  that would get more distribution in the US and the UK.  At last James has now finished the trilogy with Australian Hauntings: Colonial Supernatural Fiction.  What makes this volume more special is the long introduction (about 20 pages) about what makes colonial ghost stories, how they work as stories in relation to specific aspects of the Australian experience or environment. A fine capstone to James's trail-blazing explorations of a specific area of supernatural literature that had been too little mapped.

The three volumes from Equilibrium Books can be ordered via their web bookstore here. James has also just published an article on "Australian Ghost Stories" in the June 2011 issue of the quarterly magazine of the National Library of Australia, which you can see here, as well as download a pdf of the article (which has some very interesting illustrations).  

Another resource of interest is the post on "Australian Horror History" at the website of the Austrlian Horror Writers Association.  There you can find the contents listed from several anthologies published over the last thirty years which cover the field of the Australian supernatural story.  Especially worth noting is the list of "Recommended Australian Horror Stories to Circa 1950".

Christmas and Ghosts

On a yuletide note, the following article, from the 12 December 1936 issue of the Melbourne newspaper The Argus, may be of interest - a rare insight into the history of these popular Victorian annuals. Roy Bridges was a Tasmanian author of popular novels and tales who lived for most of his life with his sister Hilda, herself a noted crime writer.

CHRISTMAS AND GHOSTS: AN ANNUAL OF THE EIGHTEEN-SIXTIES

The copy of "Beeton's Christmas Annual" is faded and fingermarked. It is musty with the burial of years in a deal chest, dating from the Portsmouth lad who, in 1817, left his ship to settle in Van Diemen's Land. The book was a Christmas gift to a youngster of this Tasmanian farm in the eighteen-sixties. The title page bears his name; a stone in the Sorell Cemetery has borne the name for years.

Not all the fingermarks, of a Christmastide stickiness, could have been his. Possibly none was, for his youth was of a time when a new book was rare and precious in the farmhouse. Even a paper-covered book must have a brown paper wrapper put on to protect it. This book, like all the children's books of the farmhouse of his time, came down to other generations because of the care shown through the eighteen sixties. So the "Annual" survives, draggle tailed, disreputable, and dog-eared, but bearing, from its shred of paper cover to its last worm-eaten page, a record of the pleasure it has given to youngsters from one generation to another down 70 years.

Not that the "Annual" was a children's Christmas book and no more. The idea of the publisher was Dickensian - Christmas was an affair for family and friends, and for young and for old. The "Annual" was planned to amuse the adult as well as the juvenile. Clearly it succeeded, for this number - for 1865 - was the sixth of the series, edited and published by S. O. Beeton, of the Strand, London, and written, illustrated, and decorated by authors and artists who could conjure up the spirit of Christmas on sound old English lines.

So the "General Contents" range from "Beautiful Helen" - F. C. Burnand's parody of a Greek comedy, not of his best work, but meant only for performance in the "Theatre Royal, Back Drawing-room" - to "Amusing and Curious Card Tricks" - were card tricks ever amusing? Certainly the pages of funny pictures by Charles H. Ross are really funny - illustrating the sort of jokes folk at Christmas parties would see very easily when they were in a seasonable mood and were beginning to see double, before beginning not to see at all.

But the quality of the "Annual" for entertainment-and its real quality lies in the ghost stories, collected as "Hatch-ups," or "Tales Told in the Dark" - the chief section of the worthy old Christmas book.

The tales are told by youngsters in a dormitory at the Rev. Jabez Owlthorpe's school - the idea recalls David Copperfield’s telling his stories to Steerforth and his fellows at Salem House. Mr. Owlthorpe's young gentlemen listen and thrill to, or laugh at, the yarns spun by their fellow with a skill that suggests an early development of literary talent. The usher seems a distant relative of Mr. Mell. Regardless of discipline, he listens secretly in the darkness, and nobody suspects his presence till he is due to take the floor and to reveal a gift for the ghostly decidedly suggestive of J. S. le Fanu. A deep sigh is heard from the middle of the room –a low, wailing sigh: "Gentlemen," says a solemn voice, "pardon the intrusion, but I have been an undetected listener to your stories."

He has interrupted, not to do his duly to the Rev. Mr. Owlthorpe and the young gentlemen, but to reveal himself as an authority on the awful. Nobody is afraid of him. Matched with the ghostly, ghastly, and ghoulish creatures of imagination, the poor, shabby-genteel usher simply docs not matter.

"Since I am here," says the usher, “shall I tell you a ghost story? Shall I tell you of a ghost that sat upon a rail in Australia, with the moonbeams shining through him, till his murderer was brought lo justice?"

“No, please don't!" says the smallest boy. “We have all read it!”

"Well," says the usher, "will you have the story of some other ghost not yet introduced to the public?"

“Yes, if it’s jolly horrible!"

“I must be a poor hand,” says the usher, "if I can’t make you feel like fifty eels running all over your body, and if I don't set your hair on end, so straight and so stiff that it pulls you out of your boots. I'll permit you to call me a humbug!"

They tell him gleefully to go ahead.

“Well," he says, "I have seen so many horrible things in my life, boys that I scarcely know what particular horror I shall put forth for your benefit to-night. I have heard of ghosts who were torn cruelly from their fleshy tenement by murder, walking to and fro on the earth till the appointed day arrives, when, in the course of nature, they would have died, until which time they had no right to enter the abode of spirits. So they wandered restless through the world without a home, haunting houses, sitting on graves in churchyards, or walking in lonely places There was a soldier at Perran buried alive, and his spirit was often seen at night haunting the new-made graves, tearing at the earth, as though he thought any poor creature like himself was buried living."

The dismal usher is warming up - or freezing down - to his work. He wants to thrill his audience, and he succeeds. He preludes his story, told to him by his cousin Phoebe, of a ghostly face looking from a stone wall in an old chateau of the Ardennes with the declaration, “I can never relate the history without referring first to Phoebe’s death at sea and her bridegroom’s dream: I believe my poor cousin has laid a spell on me which forces me to call her up to tell herself the story of the old chateau!”

The moonlight suddenly streaming into the room discloses the melancholy usher, leaning his pale face on one hand, and holding up the other to impose silence while he fixes his large, prominent eyes on the darkest portion of the room. All eyes follow his, and for a moment several nervous youngsters take a long bolster lying on the floor for the corpse of the dead girl sewn up in her shroud, and floating in the sea. The ticking of a watch grows loud and ghostly “a very death-watch in sound,” and the low growl of the dog downstairs seems to warn the approach of a ghostly visitant.

First the usher tells that his cousin Phoebe died on her way to India to marry Captain Herbert. On the night of her death her lover dreamed that he saw a woman’s hand floating towards him, he was on the seashore, and the waves cast it up at his feet. On the fourth finger of the hand was the diamond ring which he had given to Phoebe. He took the ring and read within it: “Died at sea on 10th September 1845.” On the arrival of the ship the ring was sent to him at Calcutta by a fellow passenger with a letter stating she died on 10th September.

Now as a girl Phoebe was one of a wedding party at the old chateau which was haunted. A white face showed from the wall in the lumber room upstairs. First a little girl who had been sent up to the little room in the turret to look for an embroidery frame came rushing into the drawing room, white as death, and went off into violent hysterics. After the “usual amount of hartshorn and fuss,” she shrieked out, “Oh don t let me see that horrible face again!” Quietened and consoled she told that looking from the wall she had seen a woman’s face - a face white as snow with dark hollow eyes and an expression of unutterable horror.

The room was searched, nothing was found. Wedding guests crowded into the chateau. The room, brightened with a glowing stove, was allotted to Phoebe’s brother Jack. He was about to go to bed late that night when he saw in the wall- “a face, dead, white, and ghastly, staring at him in a fixed and awful manner.” He rushed from the room, and roused Captain Herbert; again search revealed nothing. The young man did not spend the night in the room.

Next day was the wedding day. Phoebe ran up to the room, thinking to find her brother. Not finding him, she turned to go – when, suddenly, she saw in the midst of the wall a ghastly face, whose eyes met hers with a look of such unutterable anguish that she fell on the floor in a swoon.

After that, thorough search was made. High up in the wall a deep hollow was found – a stone had been left out from the masonry. From it a skull grinned at the searchers. It was resting on an iron collar. Long black hair and bones had fallen in a heap into the deep hollow space of the wall. Far back in the Middle Ages a girl, in chains, had been built up in the wall, with an iron collar set around her neck.

“We never heard the story,” the usher tells. “Perhaps, in the old cruel days when she died, the peasants feared their feudal lord too much even to whisper it among themselves, and so the tale of her wrongs, her crime, and her death, was lost in the world forever.

But the usher rounds it off very neatly. “The three who had seen the face in the wall died young. Jack was drowned about a year afterwards in fording a river in Australia, and the little girl, Maggie, before the year was out, was thrown from her pony, and “never spoke again. It looks as if death took the ghost-seers in succession, just in the order in which they saw the apparition.”

Australian Ghost Stories

A shameless plug for an anthology I've edited collecting rare Australian weird tales from the 1860s to the 1930s. The book forms part of Wordsworth Editions' admirable Mystery & Supernatural series that publishes rare and out-of-print volumes at budget prices.

Australian Ghost Stories collects what I believe are the best stories of their kind published in Australia or by Australians during the golden age of the supernatural tale. It includes stories by well-known Australian writers such as Henry Lawson, Edward Dyson, Marcus Clarke and Guy Boothby (of Dr Nikola fame), as well as lesser-known authors such as Roderic Quinn, Mary Fortune, Beatrice Grimshaw and Ernest Favenc amongst many others.

I'm hoping the anthology will showcase some neglected Australian writers of popular fiction.