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The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories
Marjorie Bowen (1885-1952) spent the early part of her working life providing for a demanding and ungrateful family. We are lucky that she did so, since among the results were these short stories of rare quality. In their use of dreams, ancient anecdote, and ruined or dilapidated buildings ('Florence Flannery', 'The Fair Hair of Ambrosine') they are at times in the finest tradition of The Castle of Otranto and the Gothic revival which had chilled the blood of the British public a hundred and fifty years earlier. But her stories are more subtle in their construction, and often use simple materials ('The Crown Derby Plate', Elsie's Lonely Afternoon'), interweaving their terror and mystery with the commonplace of everyday life. Their mastery of detail, sureness of expression and acute reading of human nature give them a sinister force, which is realistic and unnerving, yet at the same time tinged with pity and compassion.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
About the author
Marjorie Bowen
298 books79 followersMarjorie Bowen (pseudonym of Mrs Gabrielle Margaret V[ere] Long née Campbell), was a British author who wrote historical romances, supernatural horror stories, popular history and biography. Her total output numbers over 150 volumes with the bulk of her work under the 'Bowen' pseudonym. She also wrote under the names Joseph Shearing, George R. Preedy, John Winch, Robert Paye, and Margaret Campbell. As Joseph Shearing, she wrote several sinister gothic romances full of terror and mystery. Many of these stories were published as Berkley Medallion Books. Several of her books were adapted as films. Her books are much sought after by aficionados of gothic horror and received praise from critics.
Bowen's alcoholic father left the family at an early age and was eventually found dead on a London street. After this, Bowen's prolific writings were the chief financial support for her family. She was married twice: first, from 1912-16, to a Sicilian named Zefferino Emilio Constanza, who died of tuberculosis, and then to one Arthur L. Long. Her first novel was The Viper of Milan (1906), after which she produced a steady stream of writings until the day of her death on 23rd December 1952. Her last, posthumous, novel was The Man with the Scales (1954).
Bowen's alcoholic father left the family at an early age and was eventually found dead on a London street. After this, Bowen's prolific writings were the chief financial support for her family. She was married twice: first, from 1912-16, to a Sicilian named Zefferino Emilio Constanza, who died of tuberculosis, and then to one Arthur L. Long. Her first novel was The Viper of Milan (1906), after which she produced a steady stream of writings until the day of her death on 23rd December 1952. Her last, posthumous, novel was The Man with the Scales (1954).
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December 31, 2022
A "major influence" to Graham Greene and described as a "superb writer" by the New Yorker, Marjorie Bowen (1885-1952) might be one of the most popular authors you've never heard of. Her extensive bibliography is an endless list of novels and short stories, mostly within the romance and horror genres, but also includes history and biography.
In 1949, near the end of her life, she gathered a humble collection of her favorite eerie tales and had them published as The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories. Now newly reprinted under the "Monster She Wrote" banner, celebrating women writers of the macabre, Bowen's words find a new generation of enthralled readers. Here's my reviews of each story:
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine
A man's ex-girlfriend, Ambrosine, was murdered. At the time it didn't seem like so big of a problem. He didn't even like her that much. Had, in fact, forgotten all about her. Then he starts having reoccurring dreams of someone murdering him outside the same house that she was murdered in. "I hate her," he admits. "Why won't she keep quiet in her grave and leave me alone?"
Fearing that the reoccurring nightmare is a prophecy, he plots ways to change details of the dream so that the vision will not come true. As if often the case, it's ill-advised to test fate.
The Crown Derby Plate
A trio of mature gentlewomen sit around the fire, talking of ghosts and auction sales from thirty years ago. Martha Pym recalls purchasing china at such a sale and, in need of more plates to match the set, determines to revisit the same house from several decades before in hopes of getting lucky.
At the eerie house, Martha encounters an eccentric and vaguely sinister china collector. This aged woman never leaves the house in fear someone will steal her precious china, and she still harbors great resentment for the set that got away those thirty years earlier. She had been trying to hide all the china before any could be lost in the auction sale, but failed that one set.
Will Martha complete her china set? Or will the eccentric crone reclaim what she feels is rightfully hers? Will there be blood?!
Bowen's slow start makes this story seem insignificant at first, but soon enough her language is a delicious blend of impending doom and the domestic trifling over plates. There is silliness in tone, but the characters take their china so seriously that it all feels rather life-or-death. A little spooky and a lot of fun!
The Housekeeper
Classic ghost story involving a bitter marriage and the mysterious death of an ex-wife. An eerie build-up leads to a Poe-inspired conclusion. Though not especially original, the classic formula is well-handled by Bowen's component hand.
Florence Flannery
Another domestic situation involving loveless marriage. The husband realizes that he knows very little about his wife and the matter gets more complicated as it is revealed she shares the same name with an ancestor, born three hundred years earlier. Then there's also a blood-thirsty fish supervised by a creepy caretaker that terrifies her. I struggled to understand connections between these two mysteries and found the overall presentation overly daunting with excess characters and a lacking focus. Not terrible, but definitely not a highlight.
Elsie's Lonely Afternoon
In 1933, London's The Guardian described Bowen as "most at home when she is invoking the unhappy, far-off centuries." Though this story has an ambiguous time period, it certainly delivers a heaping dose of unhappy. There is an offbeat and slightly comical element mixed with the woe that makes it satisfying, however.
Told from the perspective of a mistreated six-year-old girl, the reader is left to wonder which ghosts are real and which are manifested from a naive mind. The poor child is punished for anything and everything, with her one goal being to unlock a cupboard so she can fill her half-starved tummy with jam. When the opportunity arises, she faces off with an alleged ghost to get her wish.
Thus far, this is my favorite story in the collection. The way Bowen describes ghosts, death and the macabre in such flippant manners is a triumph. The dying grandmamma and young Elsie make a fabulous pair. Both are mirrors of different extremes. The child lacks understanding of the world, while the wizened lady is likewise out of touch for different reasons. The "happy ending" is a remarkable achievement of surprise and disconnect. On one hand, Elsie is thrilled by the outcome, on the other it is an absolute climax of woe. I don't think I've read anything that could achieve so many emotions simultaneously. Bravo!
The Bishop of Hell
Set around the time period when The Monk (1796) was published, this Gothic tale includes familiar themes from Matthew Lewis' novel. Notably, sexy religious authorities whose sinful horniness knows no bounds. The major dilemma surrounds the seduction of a reputable married woman and the awful events which follow.
In the tradition of the best Gothic narratives, it's a scandalous, soap opera tale that jumps from one shock to the next. A touch of supernatural at the end delivers a knockout finale worthy of the salacious build-up.
The Grey Chamber
A short chiller about a bed chamber haunted by vengeful and romantic ghosts. It is presented as an anonymously written French story "translated" by Bowen. I'm almost certain that's not true, but the gimmick recalls early Gothic novels and chapbooks which added authenticity by pretending to be an old "found manuscript". It's a fun technique that adds character to an otherwise simple and stilted work of prose. Not a highlight of the collection, but still a lovely dish of spooky.
The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie
This is a 5/5! Set in 1690, it’s a classic Gothic thriller with eerie masked characters, midnight dwellings, and all manner of moonlit mysteries unfurling as death becomes more and more certain. Delicious!
The Scoured Silk
Arranged marriage, mysterious murder, infidelity, insanity, torture and trap doors -- this story has it all! The pacing is weak, perhaps, and the characters are only okay, but gotta love all that juicy melodrama!
The Avenging of Ann Leete
A complicated tale of physical and ethereal romance. Not sure that I understood it very well. I imagine the premise is very creative if I could put my finger on what it's trying to say.
Kecksies
Another head-scratcher. I think it's about two young men who are caught in a storm and find themselves in the cottage with dead bodies and possibly inhabited by a witch. At some point they decide to throw out a body into the nearby weeds and play a joke by taking the place of the corpse at the funeral? (I think). But then, the jokester dies too? I'll have to read this one again at some point. There's a LOT going on and while it all seems deliciously macabre, I couldn't follow the plot.
Ann Mellor's Lover
An antique bookseller is clairvoyant, not for the future but for the past. Occasionally he feels a spiritual-like connection to old things, and never has this been more extreme than at the discovery of a small sketch of a woman. Suddenly he is divinely driven to a grave and other artifacts belonging to the sketched girl. Then his mind is literally placed into the body of a man who pursued the girl from many years earlier. This allows him to solve the mystery of who she was and how she died.
I imagine Bowen placed this story last because it was likely personal to her. She clearly prefers to write fiction set hundreds of years in the past, and probably considered herself to be somewhat clairvoyant for history like this protagonist. In any case, it encapsulates the collection nicely and is a solid work on its own.
OVERALL: It took me a long time to finish this collection, so I think it's fair to say it's not one that will keep you glued to your seat. That said, every story is good. Rarely superior, but all good. Even the few confusing ones. Bowen has a unique style that mashes up a variety of Gothic archetypes. She's much more of a premise writer, however, and doesn't seem to focus much energy on characters. I think they would all be stronger if the characters had more drive and personal investment beyond being in thrilling situations. But still solid recommended reading.
In 1949, near the end of her life, she gathered a humble collection of her favorite eerie tales and had them published as The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories. Now newly reprinted under the "Monster She Wrote" banner, celebrating women writers of the macabre, Bowen's words find a new generation of enthralled readers. Here's my reviews of each story:
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine
A man's ex-girlfriend, Ambrosine, was murdered. At the time it didn't seem like so big of a problem. He didn't even like her that much. Had, in fact, forgotten all about her. Then he starts having reoccurring dreams of someone murdering him outside the same house that she was murdered in. "I hate her," he admits. "Why won't she keep quiet in her grave and leave me alone?"
Fearing that the reoccurring nightmare is a prophecy, he plots ways to change details of the dream so that the vision will not come true. As if often the case, it's ill-advised to test fate.
The Crown Derby Plate
A trio of mature gentlewomen sit around the fire, talking of ghosts and auction sales from thirty years ago. Martha Pym recalls purchasing china at such a sale and, in need of more plates to match the set, determines to revisit the same house from several decades before in hopes of getting lucky.
At the eerie house, Martha encounters an eccentric and vaguely sinister china collector. This aged woman never leaves the house in fear someone will steal her precious china, and she still harbors great resentment for the set that got away those thirty years earlier. She had been trying to hide all the china before any could be lost in the auction sale, but failed that one set.
Will Martha complete her china set? Or will the eccentric crone reclaim what she feels is rightfully hers? Will there be blood?!
Bowen's slow start makes this story seem insignificant at first, but soon enough her language is a delicious blend of impending doom and the domestic trifling over plates. There is silliness in tone, but the characters take their china so seriously that it all feels rather life-or-death. A little spooky and a lot of fun!
The Housekeeper
Classic ghost story involving a bitter marriage and the mysterious death of an ex-wife. An eerie build-up leads to a Poe-inspired conclusion. Though not especially original, the classic formula is well-handled by Bowen's component hand.
Florence Flannery
Another domestic situation involving loveless marriage. The husband realizes that he knows very little about his wife and the matter gets more complicated as it is revealed she shares the same name with an ancestor, born three hundred years earlier. Then there's also a blood-thirsty fish supervised by a creepy caretaker that terrifies her. I struggled to understand connections between these two mysteries and found the overall presentation overly daunting with excess characters and a lacking focus. Not terrible, but definitely not a highlight.
Elsie's Lonely Afternoon
In 1933, London's The Guardian described Bowen as "most at home when she is invoking the unhappy, far-off centuries." Though this story has an ambiguous time period, it certainly delivers a heaping dose of unhappy. There is an offbeat and slightly comical element mixed with the woe that makes it satisfying, however.
Told from the perspective of a mistreated six-year-old girl, the reader is left to wonder which ghosts are real and which are manifested from a naive mind. The poor child is punished for anything and everything, with her one goal being to unlock a cupboard so she can fill her half-starved tummy with jam. When the opportunity arises, she faces off with an alleged ghost to get her wish.
Thus far, this is my favorite story in the collection. The way Bowen describes ghosts, death and the macabre in such flippant manners is a triumph. The dying grandmamma and young Elsie make a fabulous pair. Both are mirrors of different extremes. The child lacks understanding of the world, while the wizened lady is likewise out of touch for different reasons. The "happy ending" is a remarkable achievement of surprise and disconnect. On one hand, Elsie is thrilled by the outcome, on the other it is an absolute climax of woe. I don't think I've read anything that could achieve so many emotions simultaneously. Bravo!
The Bishop of Hell
Set around the time period when The Monk (1796) was published, this Gothic tale includes familiar themes from Matthew Lewis' novel. Notably, sexy religious authorities whose sinful horniness knows no bounds. The major dilemma surrounds the seduction of a reputable married woman and the awful events which follow.
In the tradition of the best Gothic narratives, it's a scandalous, soap opera tale that jumps from one shock to the next. A touch of supernatural at the end delivers a knockout finale worthy of the salacious build-up.
The Grey Chamber
A short chiller about a bed chamber haunted by vengeful and romantic ghosts. It is presented as an anonymously written French story "translated" by Bowen. I'm almost certain that's not true, but the gimmick recalls early Gothic novels and chapbooks which added authenticity by pretending to be an old "found manuscript". It's a fun technique that adds character to an otherwise simple and stilted work of prose. Not a highlight of the collection, but still a lovely dish of spooky.
The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie
This is a 5/5! Set in 1690, it’s a classic Gothic thriller with eerie masked characters, midnight dwellings, and all manner of moonlit mysteries unfurling as death becomes more and more certain. Delicious!
The Scoured Silk
Arranged marriage, mysterious murder, infidelity, insanity, torture and trap doors -- this story has it all! The pacing is weak, perhaps, and the characters are only okay, but gotta love all that juicy melodrama!
The Avenging of Ann Leete
A complicated tale of physical and ethereal romance. Not sure that I understood it very well. I imagine the premise is very creative if I could put my finger on what it's trying to say.
Kecksies
Another head-scratcher. I think it's about two young men who are caught in a storm and find themselves in the cottage with dead bodies and possibly inhabited by a witch. At some point they decide to throw out a body into the nearby weeds and play a joke by taking the place of the corpse at the funeral? (I think). But then, the jokester dies too? I'll have to read this one again at some point. There's a LOT going on and while it all seems deliciously macabre, I couldn't follow the plot.
Ann Mellor's Lover
An antique bookseller is clairvoyant, not for the future but for the past. Occasionally he feels a spiritual-like connection to old things, and never has this been more extreme than at the discovery of a small sketch of a woman. Suddenly he is divinely driven to a grave and other artifacts belonging to the sketched girl. Then his mind is literally placed into the body of a man who pursued the girl from many years earlier. This allows him to solve the mystery of who she was and how she died.
I imagine Bowen placed this story last because it was likely personal to her. She clearly prefers to write fiction set hundreds of years in the past, and probably considered herself to be somewhat clairvoyant for history like this protagonist. In any case, it encapsulates the collection nicely and is a solid work on its own.
OVERALL: It took me a long time to finish this collection, so I think it's fair to say it's not one that will keep you glued to your seat. That said, every story is good. Rarely superior, but all good. Even the few confusing ones. Bowen has a unique style that mashes up a variety of Gothic archetypes. She's much more of a premise writer, however, and doesn't seem to focus much energy on characters. I think they would all be stronger if the characters had more drive and personal investment beyond being in thrilling situations. But still solid recommended reading.
November 28, 2019
"The Crown Derby Plate" included here is a classic. Whoever would have thought you could base a great ghost story on the hobby of china collecting?
The rest of the tales--many of them set during the Regency period--are well-crafted, and although they may be only mildly scary, the collection as a whole pleases because the stories share the unifying theme of women facing limited choices in a man's world. (Appropriate for a female author who wrote to support a large demanding family).
Worth a read by anybody who admires the classic English ghost story.
September 9, 2018
3.5 stars
A collection of twelve tales by Marjorie Bowen, mostly ghostly and supernatural tales. Bowen wrote to support her family and wrote a great number of novels and short stories under a great variety of pen names. She is renowned for her gothic novels and her short stories, but she also wrote crime novels and a wide variety of other genres. These stories are set in the late seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
There’s plenty of melodrama, unhappy marriages, abused women, atrocious men (most of them get their comeuppance), obsessive lovers, marry in haste and repent at leisure, plenty of revenge, a few twists, a bit of clairvoyance and kidnap as a technique for attracting the opposite sex.
The Crown Derby Plate is an interesting story, a ghost story based on china collecting. Martha Pym buys a Crown Derby service at a house sale after the death of its occupant, sadly it is missing one plate. Many years later, she is in the area again which is very remote and isolated and hears that the current occupant is a very old woman. She decides to visit to see if the plate is there:
“"Do you really do everything yourself here and live quite alone?" she asked, and she shivered even in her thick coat and wished that Miss Lefain's energy had risen to a fire, but then probably she lived in the kitchen, as these lonely eccentrics often did.
"There was someone," answered Miss Lefain cunningly, "but I had to send her away. I told you she's gone, I can't find her, and I am so glad. Of course," she added wistfully, "it leaves me very lonely, but then I couldn't stand her impertinence any longer. She used to say that it was her house and her collection of china! Would you believe it? She used to try to chase me away from looking at my own things!"
"How very disagreeable," said Miss Pym, wondering which of the two women had been crazy. "But hadn't you better get someone else."
"Oh, no," was the jealous answer. "I would rather be alone with my things, I daren't leave the house for fear someone takes them away—there was a dreadful time once when an auction sale was held here—"”
The stories are brief and some of the endings are easy to anticipate. The Scoured Silk is one of the best stories, really creepy. Kecksies (a dialect name for hemlock) is particularly nasty. There are plenty of examples of the murkier side of human nature, especially of the male variety! This is a variable mix of stories, not as good as M R James, but for aficionados of classic ghost stories, it’s worth reading.
A collection of twelve tales by Marjorie Bowen, mostly ghostly and supernatural tales. Bowen wrote to support her family and wrote a great number of novels and short stories under a great variety of pen names. She is renowned for her gothic novels and her short stories, but she also wrote crime novels and a wide variety of other genres. These stories are set in the late seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
There’s plenty of melodrama, unhappy marriages, abused women, atrocious men (most of them get their comeuppance), obsessive lovers, marry in haste and repent at leisure, plenty of revenge, a few twists, a bit of clairvoyance and kidnap as a technique for attracting the opposite sex.
The Crown Derby Plate is an interesting story, a ghost story based on china collecting. Martha Pym buys a Crown Derby service at a house sale after the death of its occupant, sadly it is missing one plate. Many years later, she is in the area again which is very remote and isolated and hears that the current occupant is a very old woman. She decides to visit to see if the plate is there:
“"Do you really do everything yourself here and live quite alone?" she asked, and she shivered even in her thick coat and wished that Miss Lefain's energy had risen to a fire, but then probably she lived in the kitchen, as these lonely eccentrics often did.
"There was someone," answered Miss Lefain cunningly, "but I had to send her away. I told you she's gone, I can't find her, and I am so glad. Of course," she added wistfully, "it leaves me very lonely, but then I couldn't stand her impertinence any longer. She used to say that it was her house and her collection of china! Would you believe it? She used to try to chase me away from looking at my own things!"
"How very disagreeable," said Miss Pym, wondering which of the two women had been crazy. "But hadn't you better get someone else."
"Oh, no," was the jealous answer. "I would rather be alone with my things, I daren't leave the house for fear someone takes them away—there was a dreadful time once when an auction sale was held here—"”
The stories are brief and some of the endings are easy to anticipate. The Scoured Silk is one of the best stories, really creepy. Kecksies (a dialect name for hemlock) is particularly nasty. There are plenty of examples of the murkier side of human nature, especially of the male variety! This is a variable mix of stories, not as good as M R James, but for aficionados of classic ghost stories, it’s worth reading.
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March 25, 2021Horror stories from Marjorie Bowen, written in the 20s and 30s though many with historical settings. These are mostly ghost type stories but the actual horror here is domestic abuse: the stories are all but one a procession of murdered, raped, abused, exploited women, over and over, usually as background for the story of a man's haunting or a man's narrative. Ooof, basically.
October 9, 2015
I planned to read this slim collection last Halloween-time, but I ran out of time. This year I made it a priority because I regularly mutter to myself about the lack of quality horror or supernatural stories written by women. I thought, since this collection is so teeny-tiny, that maybe this Marjorie Bowen person didn't write all that much in her life.
Um, under the pseudonym Marjorie Bowen alone, she wrote at least 150 titles. She also wrote under the names Joseph Shearing, George Preedy, and Robert Paye. So she's written a freaking lot. What have you done today?
That's what I thought.
My understanding is that not all of those titles are specifically supernatural, but I just love how prolific she was.
These stories are rather charming in their Gothic-ness, and perfect for curling up with for Halloween-month as the weather is getting cooler. One story reminded me of Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room which was rather fun.
Bowen liked to focus more on atmosphere rather than in-your-face, which I find more exciting anyway, so I could appreciate her writing style. Some of the stories tended to meander a bit too much, but that probably speaks to my own mood right now than anything else. Overall, I found reading these stories a blast.
Um, under the pseudonym Marjorie Bowen alone, she wrote at least 150 titles. She also wrote under the names Joseph Shearing, George Preedy, and Robert Paye. So she's written a freaking lot. What have you done today?
That's what I thought.
My understanding is that not all of those titles are specifically supernatural, but I just love how prolific she was.
These stories are rather charming in their Gothic-ness, and perfect for curling up with for Halloween-month as the weather is getting cooler. One story reminded me of Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room which was rather fun.
Bowen liked to focus more on atmosphere rather than in-your-face, which I find more exciting anyway, so I could appreciate her writing style. Some of the stories tended to meander a bit too much, but that probably speaks to my own mood right now than anything else. Overall, I found reading these stories a blast.
January 8, 2021
At the tail end of my recent review of D. K. Broster's "Couching at the Door," I mentioned that I so enjoyed this volume of creepy stories that I was minded to immediately begin another book from British publisher Wordsworth Editions' Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural division...and I'm so glad that I followed through on that! My latest discovery from this wide-ranging series is Marjorie Bowen's "The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories," and in retrospect the two books have happily paired quite well together. Both were released in the 1940s (1942 for the Broster book, 1949 for the Bowen) and are the products of British authoresses more well known for their historical fiction than for their work in the realm of horror. And both feature meticulously written short stories evincing a great amount of historical research.
Before I go on to discuss each of the 12 stories in this very fine collection, a brief word on the author herself. Marjorie Bowen was born on Hayling Island in Hampshire in 1885, with the rather unwieldy name Margaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell Long. She would come out with her first novel in 1906, at the age of 21; a piece of historical fiction called "The Viper of Milan" that went on to become a best seller. Under the Bowen pen name, as well as several others (such as George Preedy, Robert Paye and Joseph Shearing), the author would ultimately write over 150 books--historical novels, mysteries, biographies, nonfiction, horror stories--before her death in 1952, at age 67. This reader had long been wanting to experience Bowen's 1933 collection of horror stories, "The Last Bouquet," after reading Jessica Amanda Salmonson's enthusiastic review of that collection in Jones & Newman's "Horror: 100 Best Books," but that volume is virtually impossible to find today. Happily, "The Bishop of Hell..." collection contains six of the 14 stories from that earlier grouping, plus half a dozen others. All the stories in the 1949 anthology were written from the period 1919 - 1933; of the 12, only 2 ½ take place in modern times (that is to say, the early 20th century), while the other 9 ½ are set anywhere from 1690 - 1845. Fortunately, Bowen was an author who knew her 18th century period backward and forward, and the net result is a collection of highly authentic-seeming and shuddery tales guaranteed to please the discriminating horror buff.
The collection starts off very nicely with its first offering, "The Fair Hair of Ambrosine." Set during the French Revolution, this story introduces us to poor Claude Boucher, a clerk who is assigned the task of delivering some papers in the very vicinity where his ex-sweetheart, the actress Ambrosine, had been murdered three years previously. As the day of the delivery approaches, Claude has repeated dreams of entering the house where the murder took place, and of encountering the murderer himself. This nifty little chiller speeds along to a conclusion that almost seems foreordained, and even though the reader easily anticipates where this story is heading, it is still nice to see how Ms. Bowen gets us there.
The highly regarded tale entitled "The Crown Derby Plate" is a straightforward ghost story that yet manages to slip the rug from under the reader's expectations. Here, 60-year-old Martha Pym drives her governess cart into the lonely marshes of Essex, after having heard of the reclusive Miss Lefain who lives there. Lefain, she suspects, might be the possessor of a piece of china that is missing from her own collection. But upon being admitted to the ancient woman's decrepit home, Martha experiences a rather shocking afternoon, indeed. Simply yet elegantly written, this modern-day tale is one that reveals its many clevernesses only upon a second reading, and its surprise ending is one that no reader will see approaching.
In the wonderful ghost story "The Housekeeper," set in the London of 1710, we meet the miserably married couple Robert Sekforde and his wife, a former countess. Now impoverished, the two spend their time sniping at and insulting each other; a relationship that one senses might turn murderous very easily. But one night, the drunken Sekforde notices that meals have begun to be prepared, and his home tidied up, precisely as his first, currently deceased wife used to do. What really puts this tale over the top is the absolute malevolent bitterness that is evident in our not-so-loving couple's conversations, its fidelity to period detail, and its marvelous--and again, surprise--conclusion. Some very fine work here indeed from Ms. Bowen.
Another squabbling couple, this one unhappily married newlyweds, is featured in "Florence Flannery," set in the year 1800. Here, the lady of the title regards the ancestral home of her new husband, Daniel Shute, with great disfavor, although she is intrigued by one of the bedroom windows, on which someone had long ago etched the words "Florence Flannery Borne 1500." Conflating some more wonderfully written connubial discord, the Medici family, a 16th century love story, and a South Seas fish god, of all things, this surely is one unusual and unpredictable story, and one that grows increasingly bonkers as it draws to its conclusion. A marvelously engrossing and atmospheric story, this.
In "Elsie's Lonely Afternoon," Bowen abandons her usually florid and highly detailed style of writing for one that is much more simple...and appropriately enough, too, as this is a tale as seen from a child's point of view. Here, 6-year-old Elsie, a bored little girl who lives with her bedridden grandmother and a house full of aloof servants in modern-day Hampstead, finally finds some excitement in her dreary young existence when she hears footsteps in the attic above...footsteps that she just knows belong to ghosts! And before long, Elsie does indeed encounter one of those ghosts...or is it a ghost? This cleverly written story wraps up on a sad note but remains the loveliest tale in this entire collection.
In the book's title piece, "The Bishop of Hell," we meet another very nasty character indeed: Hector Greatrix, known as the Bishop of Hell to his comrades in the London of 1770 due to his sinful and profligate ways. But even his closest associates are aghast when Greatrix seduces the wife of his cousin--an innocent woman of high station--runs off with her to Italy, and there proceeds to corrupt her in unspeakable ways. This story wraps up with as grisly a duel as can be imagined, followed by a supernatural coda of sorts in which we realize that Hector's nickname is more than a little apropos. A terrific story, truly, narrated by one of Greatrix' closest mates, who himself becomes appalled at the proceedings therein.
"The Grey Chamber," apparently, was not written by Marjorie Bowen, but rather by an anonymous French author; Bowen merely served as the translator. Another straightforward ghost story, set in what appears to be the 1700s, this one introduces us to young Blendau, who visits his cousin in north Germany and is put up in a room that is supposed to be haunted. In this titular chamber, in the year 1550, a young woman had been raped before she could achieve her dream of becoming a nun, and had later poisoned herself. And our young Blendau does indeed get to verify the legends of eerie manifestations in the Grey Chamber during one long and frightening night spent there. This is the collection's shortest tale, but still a very effective one.
Going back farther in time than any other story in this book, "The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie" is set in the London of 1690. This tale forsakes the supernatural for the more realistic realm of murder, mystery and intrigue. In it, 60-year-old Proudie, an apothecary and bachelor of settled habits, undergoes a very trying night when a black nobleman and a mysterious woman barge into his shop, seeking medical assistance. Proudie's lodger, a young doctor, goes off with them and is not seen again. Thus, Proudie himself is drawn into this bizarre case, ultimately uncovering multiple murders in a web of dual domestic disputes dating back many years. Proudie makes for a terrific nonhero here, timorous and completely believable.
In "The Scoured Silk," Bowen presents us with not only one unhappy marriage, but with another that promises to be. Here, the middle-aged scholar and widower Humphrey Orford, who lives near Covent Garden in 1733, becomes engaged to a much younger woman, Elisa Minden, who is strangely repelled by the man. She is also somehow frightened of anything pertaining to Orford's first wife, Flora, and especially of Orford's private library, in which a portrait of Flora is hung. The mild-mannered and erudite Orford has the reader's sympathies throughout, however...until, that is, we discover a bit more concerning that private library, and the secrets that it contains. A surprisingly grisly and macabre story, as things turn out!
"The Avenging of Ann Leete" gives us a tale in which the mental use of force leads to a case of spiritual displacement and an ironic vengeance. In the Glasgow of 1845, our narrator becomes obsessed with the portrait of a woman in a green dress, and after some casual sleuthing, finally tracks down a very elderly man, Eneas Bretton, who tells him the story of his would-be fiancée, the woman in the painting, Ann Leete, some 70 years before. The old codger sadly relates to our narrator the story of Ann's murder, at the tender age of 20; of his suspicions as to the foul perpetrator of the deed; and of how he managed to take a most unusual tactic to expose the killer. This is still another lovely tale, wrapping up on a note that should appeal to all fans of the great fantasy "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."
In "Kecksies" (the title story of Arkham House's highly collectable "Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales," from 1976; the first collection of Bowen's short fiction published in the U.S.), we meet two more debauched men of the 1700s, Nick Bateup and Ned Crediton. After the two are forced to seek shelter in a cottage during a sudden downpour, Crediton decides to play a little joke on the mourners who will soon be arriving there to pay their respects to the body of one Robert Horne, who lays in the back room. Substituting himself for the shrouded corpse, Crediton plans to frighten the wits out of all the gathered mourners. But things don't go quite as expected, in this tale of vengeance from the grave and a carnal desire that transcends even death.
The Wordsworth edition of "The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories" concludes with a tale of profound clairvoyance, or race memory, or reincarnation--our narrator is not sure what to call it--in "Ann Mellor's Lover." Here, a modern-day book dealer becomes obsessed with the pencil drawing of a woman that falls out of one of his volumes, dating from 1749. As in "The Avenging of Ann Leete," our narrator engages in some amateur sleuthing to learn about the object of his fascination, but here, his powers of clairvoyance--of being able to pass by a church and feel its significance to his quest, for example--and his ability to just close his eyes and journey back in time prove even more useful. This is a rather lovely story, actually, even though an essentially tragic one.
So there you have it...a dozen wonderful and chilling tales, brought to indelible life by the hand of an evident master. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed this Bowen collection so much that I think I am about ready to tackle the author's sixth novel, 1909's "Black Magic: A Tale of the Rise and Fall of the Antichrist," which has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for years, and which was itself chosen for inclusion in Cawthorn & Moorcock's "Fantasy: The 100 Best Books." Stay tuned....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of creepy fare such as this....)
Before I go on to discuss each of the 12 stories in this very fine collection, a brief word on the author herself. Marjorie Bowen was born on Hayling Island in Hampshire in 1885, with the rather unwieldy name Margaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell Long. She would come out with her first novel in 1906, at the age of 21; a piece of historical fiction called "The Viper of Milan" that went on to become a best seller. Under the Bowen pen name, as well as several others (such as George Preedy, Robert Paye and Joseph Shearing), the author would ultimately write over 150 books--historical novels, mysteries, biographies, nonfiction, horror stories--before her death in 1952, at age 67. This reader had long been wanting to experience Bowen's 1933 collection of horror stories, "The Last Bouquet," after reading Jessica Amanda Salmonson's enthusiastic review of that collection in Jones & Newman's "Horror: 100 Best Books," but that volume is virtually impossible to find today. Happily, "The Bishop of Hell..." collection contains six of the 14 stories from that earlier grouping, plus half a dozen others. All the stories in the 1949 anthology were written from the period 1919 - 1933; of the 12, only 2 ½ take place in modern times (that is to say, the early 20th century), while the other 9 ½ are set anywhere from 1690 - 1845. Fortunately, Bowen was an author who knew her 18th century period backward and forward, and the net result is a collection of highly authentic-seeming and shuddery tales guaranteed to please the discriminating horror buff.
The collection starts off very nicely with its first offering, "The Fair Hair of Ambrosine." Set during the French Revolution, this story introduces us to poor Claude Boucher, a clerk who is assigned the task of delivering some papers in the very vicinity where his ex-sweetheart, the actress Ambrosine, had been murdered three years previously. As the day of the delivery approaches, Claude has repeated dreams of entering the house where the murder took place, and of encountering the murderer himself. This nifty little chiller speeds along to a conclusion that almost seems foreordained, and even though the reader easily anticipates where this story is heading, it is still nice to see how Ms. Bowen gets us there.
The highly regarded tale entitled "The Crown Derby Plate" is a straightforward ghost story that yet manages to slip the rug from under the reader's expectations. Here, 60-year-old Martha Pym drives her governess cart into the lonely marshes of Essex, after having heard of the reclusive Miss Lefain who lives there. Lefain, she suspects, might be the possessor of a piece of china that is missing from her own collection. But upon being admitted to the ancient woman's decrepit home, Martha experiences a rather shocking afternoon, indeed. Simply yet elegantly written, this modern-day tale is one that reveals its many clevernesses only upon a second reading, and its surprise ending is one that no reader will see approaching.
In the wonderful ghost story "The Housekeeper," set in the London of 1710, we meet the miserably married couple Robert Sekforde and his wife, a former countess. Now impoverished, the two spend their time sniping at and insulting each other; a relationship that one senses might turn murderous very easily. But one night, the drunken Sekforde notices that meals have begun to be prepared, and his home tidied up, precisely as his first, currently deceased wife used to do. What really puts this tale over the top is the absolute malevolent bitterness that is evident in our not-so-loving couple's conversations, its fidelity to period detail, and its marvelous--and again, surprise--conclusion. Some very fine work here indeed from Ms. Bowen.
Another squabbling couple, this one unhappily married newlyweds, is featured in "Florence Flannery," set in the year 1800. Here, the lady of the title regards the ancestral home of her new husband, Daniel Shute, with great disfavor, although she is intrigued by one of the bedroom windows, on which someone had long ago etched the words "Florence Flannery Borne 1500." Conflating some more wonderfully written connubial discord, the Medici family, a 16th century love story, and a South Seas fish god, of all things, this surely is one unusual and unpredictable story, and one that grows increasingly bonkers as it draws to its conclusion. A marvelously engrossing and atmospheric story, this.
In "Elsie's Lonely Afternoon," Bowen abandons her usually florid and highly detailed style of writing for one that is much more simple...and appropriately enough, too, as this is a tale as seen from a child's point of view. Here, 6-year-old Elsie, a bored little girl who lives with her bedridden grandmother and a house full of aloof servants in modern-day Hampstead, finally finds some excitement in her dreary young existence when she hears footsteps in the attic above...footsteps that she just knows belong to ghosts! And before long, Elsie does indeed encounter one of those ghosts...or is it a ghost? This cleverly written story wraps up on a sad note but remains the loveliest tale in this entire collection.
In the book's title piece, "The Bishop of Hell," we meet another very nasty character indeed: Hector Greatrix, known as the Bishop of Hell to his comrades in the London of 1770 due to his sinful and profligate ways. But even his closest associates are aghast when Greatrix seduces the wife of his cousin--an innocent woman of high station--runs off with her to Italy, and there proceeds to corrupt her in unspeakable ways. This story wraps up with as grisly a duel as can be imagined, followed by a supernatural coda of sorts in which we realize that Hector's nickname is more than a little apropos. A terrific story, truly, narrated by one of Greatrix' closest mates, who himself becomes appalled at the proceedings therein.
"The Grey Chamber," apparently, was not written by Marjorie Bowen, but rather by an anonymous French author; Bowen merely served as the translator. Another straightforward ghost story, set in what appears to be the 1700s, this one introduces us to young Blendau, who visits his cousin in north Germany and is put up in a room that is supposed to be haunted. In this titular chamber, in the year 1550, a young woman had been raped before she could achieve her dream of becoming a nun, and had later poisoned herself. And our young Blendau does indeed get to verify the legends of eerie manifestations in the Grey Chamber during one long and frightening night spent there. This is the collection's shortest tale, but still a very effective one.
Going back farther in time than any other story in this book, "The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie" is set in the London of 1690. This tale forsakes the supernatural for the more realistic realm of murder, mystery and intrigue. In it, 60-year-old Proudie, an apothecary and bachelor of settled habits, undergoes a very trying night when a black nobleman and a mysterious woman barge into his shop, seeking medical assistance. Proudie's lodger, a young doctor, goes off with them and is not seen again. Thus, Proudie himself is drawn into this bizarre case, ultimately uncovering multiple murders in a web of dual domestic disputes dating back many years. Proudie makes for a terrific nonhero here, timorous and completely believable.
In "The Scoured Silk," Bowen presents us with not only one unhappy marriage, but with another that promises to be. Here, the middle-aged scholar and widower Humphrey Orford, who lives near Covent Garden in 1733, becomes engaged to a much younger woman, Elisa Minden, who is strangely repelled by the man. She is also somehow frightened of anything pertaining to Orford's first wife, Flora, and especially of Orford's private library, in which a portrait of Flora is hung. The mild-mannered and erudite Orford has the reader's sympathies throughout, however...until, that is, we discover a bit more concerning that private library, and the secrets that it contains. A surprisingly grisly and macabre story, as things turn out!
"The Avenging of Ann Leete" gives us a tale in which the mental use of force leads to a case of spiritual displacement and an ironic vengeance. In the Glasgow of 1845, our narrator becomes obsessed with the portrait of a woman in a green dress, and after some casual sleuthing, finally tracks down a very elderly man, Eneas Bretton, who tells him the story of his would-be fiancée, the woman in the painting, Ann Leete, some 70 years before. The old codger sadly relates to our narrator the story of Ann's murder, at the tender age of 20; of his suspicions as to the foul perpetrator of the deed; and of how he managed to take a most unusual tactic to expose the killer. This is still another lovely tale, wrapping up on a note that should appeal to all fans of the great fantasy "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."
In "Kecksies" (the title story of Arkham House's highly collectable "Kecksies and Other Twilight Tales," from 1976; the first collection of Bowen's short fiction published in the U.S.), we meet two more debauched men of the 1700s, Nick Bateup and Ned Crediton. After the two are forced to seek shelter in a cottage during a sudden downpour, Crediton decides to play a little joke on the mourners who will soon be arriving there to pay their respects to the body of one Robert Horne, who lays in the back room. Substituting himself for the shrouded corpse, Crediton plans to frighten the wits out of all the gathered mourners. But things don't go quite as expected, in this tale of vengeance from the grave and a carnal desire that transcends even death.
The Wordsworth edition of "The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories" concludes with a tale of profound clairvoyance, or race memory, or reincarnation--our narrator is not sure what to call it--in "Ann Mellor's Lover." Here, a modern-day book dealer becomes obsessed with the pencil drawing of a woman that falls out of one of his volumes, dating from 1749. As in "The Avenging of Ann Leete," our narrator engages in some amateur sleuthing to learn about the object of his fascination, but here, his powers of clairvoyance--of being able to pass by a church and feel its significance to his quest, for example--and his ability to just close his eyes and journey back in time prove even more useful. This is a rather lovely story, actually, even though an essentially tragic one.
So there you have it...a dozen wonderful and chilling tales, brought to indelible life by the hand of an evident master. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed this Bowen collection so much that I think I am about ready to tackle the author's sixth novel, 1909's "Black Magic: A Tale of the Rise and Fall of the Antichrist," which has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for years, and which was itself chosen for inclusion in Cawthorn & Moorcock's "Fantasy: The 100 Best Books." Stay tuned....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of creepy fare such as this....)
December 16, 2014
I've read a number of Victorian-era ghost and horror stories. Only a few authors manage to scare -- M. R. James, comes easiest to mind. But this collection has one of the scariest stories I've read in a long time. And on the whole I'd say this collection in terms of overall quality is one of the best I've read from that era.
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine - A rather predictable story, but still has a neat tone and sense of doom, but not exactly a ghost story. A man continues to dream that while on an errand, he enters the home of a girl he loved and is murdered as she was.
The Crown Derby Plate - OH MY GOD!!! I loved this story, the atmosphere was pitch-perfect and thick, the setting was wonderful, and it was really downright SCARY when I think about it, even reading it in the day! A woman travels to an isolated old haunted house on a desolate moor to see about buying some rare china from the curious inhabitant who lives there.
The Housekeeper - OK ghost story, good gothic feel, but predictable, stuff I've read before. A miserable couple have fallen into poverty, the husband thinks fondly about his first wife's ability as a housekeeper, even in poor times, and starts finding everything fixed up by a mysterious housekeeper.
Florence Flannery - This is a weird story, Gothic and strange to the core. I like the setting and it's predictable, but it's not your typical Victorian ghost story at all. A couple who hate one another move into the husband;s ancestral mansion, only to discover the wife is the same woman who lived there 300 years ago with a vengeful lover still after her today.
Elsie's Lonely Afternoon - An affecting, sad little story, has a hint of the ghostly about it, but that's not exactly what it's about. I liked how it was all told, sympathetically from the perspective of a little girl. Elsie lives in her grandmother's gloomy old mansion where she spends long, miserable days. She soon discovers the house seems to be haunted, by ghosts, and a mysterious uncle no one wants to talk about.
The Bishop of Hell - I liked this one, has a gritty naturalism one might find in Zola, with a really thick Gothic and grotesque flair too. A man tells of his acquaintance who was ordained, but lived a debauched and violent life. But after he steals the wife of his uncle, he has finally wronged someone who will get vengeance.
The Grey Chamber - OK little story, very short and sweet, nothing great here, typical ghost story fare about a young man who takes up the challenge to sleep in a room haunted by a girl who was raped, and later killed herself.
The Extraordinary Adventure of John Proudie - More of a mystery, with a touch of ghostly atmosphere, but not a lot. A pharmacist gets a visit from a mysterious man during the night who requests the young doctor who lives above accompany him. Later a woman frantically requests he come with her as well, leading him to a murder scene.
The Scoured Silk - Wow, good stuff here, this isn't exactly a ghost story, but it's definitely horrific and cruel. It has a good "locked room murder" in it which I expected to find a supernatural solution to, but Bowen has something far more sinister in store! A girl hesitates to marry a widowed scholar after she discovers the dark past connected with his first wife who died under strange circumstances at a young age.
The Avenging of Anne Leete - OK story, nothing great here, average ghostly revenge type story, mild. I'm pretty sure I heard a CBS Radio Mystery Theater version of this very same story. Story follows a young man who becomes fascinated with a young woman in a portrait who was murdered, and got a strange vengeance.
Kecksies - Wow I was impressed by this story, I found it a bit predictable, but it's still very creepy, deeply Gothic to the core. Two esquires seek shelter in the house of one of their tenants where they discover the corpse of a man they both hated. When they learn that mourners are expected soon they decide to change places with the corpse as part of a joke, that goes terribly wrong.
Ann Mellor's Lover - OK average story of a person seeing into a past tragedy after discovering an intriguing object connected with it. A man with clairvoyance discovers the sketching of a beautiful woman in an old book, and investigates her tragic past.
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine - A rather predictable story, but still has a neat tone and sense of doom, but not exactly a ghost story. A man continues to dream that while on an errand, he enters the home of a girl he loved and is murdered as she was.
The Crown Derby Plate - OH MY GOD!!! I loved this story, the atmosphere was pitch-perfect and thick, the setting was wonderful, and it was really downright SCARY when I think about it, even reading it in the day! A woman travels to an isolated old haunted house on a desolate moor to see about buying some rare china from the curious inhabitant who lives there.
The Housekeeper - OK ghost story, good gothic feel, but predictable, stuff I've read before. A miserable couple have fallen into poverty, the husband thinks fondly about his first wife's ability as a housekeeper, even in poor times, and starts finding everything fixed up by a mysterious housekeeper.
Florence Flannery - This is a weird story, Gothic and strange to the core. I like the setting and it's predictable, but it's not your typical Victorian ghost story at all. A couple who hate one another move into the husband;s ancestral mansion, only to discover the wife is the same woman who lived there 300 years ago with a vengeful lover still after her today.
Elsie's Lonely Afternoon - An affecting, sad little story, has a hint of the ghostly about it, but that's not exactly what it's about. I liked how it was all told, sympathetically from the perspective of a little girl. Elsie lives in her grandmother's gloomy old mansion where she spends long, miserable days. She soon discovers the house seems to be haunted, by ghosts, and a mysterious uncle no one wants to talk about.
The Bishop of Hell - I liked this one, has a gritty naturalism one might find in Zola, with a really thick Gothic and grotesque flair too. A man tells of his acquaintance who was ordained, but lived a debauched and violent life. But after he steals the wife of his uncle, he has finally wronged someone who will get vengeance.
The Grey Chamber - OK little story, very short and sweet, nothing great here, typical ghost story fare about a young man who takes up the challenge to sleep in a room haunted by a girl who was raped, and later killed herself.
The Extraordinary Adventure of John Proudie - More of a mystery, with a touch of ghostly atmosphere, but not a lot. A pharmacist gets a visit from a mysterious man during the night who requests the young doctor who lives above accompany him. Later a woman frantically requests he come with her as well, leading him to a murder scene.
The Scoured Silk - Wow, good stuff here, this isn't exactly a ghost story, but it's definitely horrific and cruel. It has a good "locked room murder" in it which I expected to find a supernatural solution to, but Bowen has something far more sinister in store! A girl hesitates to marry a widowed scholar after she discovers the dark past connected with his first wife who died under strange circumstances at a young age.
The Avenging of Anne Leete - OK story, nothing great here, average ghostly revenge type story, mild. I'm pretty sure I heard a CBS Radio Mystery Theater version of this very same story. Story follows a young man who becomes fascinated with a young woman in a portrait who was murdered, and got a strange vengeance.
Kecksies - Wow I was impressed by this story, I found it a bit predictable, but it's still very creepy, deeply Gothic to the core. Two esquires seek shelter in the house of one of their tenants where they discover the corpse of a man they both hated. When they learn that mourners are expected soon they decide to change places with the corpse as part of a joke, that goes terribly wrong.
Ann Mellor's Lover - OK average story of a person seeing into a past tragedy after discovering an intriguing object connected with it. A man with clairvoyance discovers the sketching of a beautiful woman in an old book, and investigates her tragic past.
January 4, 2013
This is one of the best of the Wordsworth tales of mystery and the supernatural that I've read. I really enjoyed these stories, they were well written, spooky and even quite disturbing. Most of the time the twists were fairly obvious but it didn't stop me from really enjoying the stories. The characterisation was very good, especially for short stories, for the most part the characters were all very sympathetic which reminded me a little of Elizabeth Gaskell.
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine was a nice story about a murdered dancer in revolutionary Paris, The crown derby was a lovely ghost story about a sad and lonely ghost. The Housekeeper was another ghost story that wasn't quite so sympathetic but had another very cool ghost. Florence Flannery was small bits of a much bigger tragic story that was quite sad. Elsie's lonely afternoon didn't actually have any supernatural elements but was still quite sad as a young child led a totally depressing life, The Bishop of Hell was not the most disturbing tale in the book, but more a tale of justice with the more horrible things being done by mortals not supernatural beings, The Gray chamber was a more typical story of haunted room but how it got to be haunted was quite disturbing. The extraordinary adventure of Mr John Proudie was a weaker story about a chemist and a disappearing doctor. The scoured silk was the most disturbing story I've read in a long time. It was very very good. The avenging of Ann Leete was very sweet and romantic, despite the murder. Kecksies was a little odd but also disturbing and Ann Mellor's lover was a sweet story about lost love in past centuries.
There were a lot of stories with a slightly romantic twist, previous marriages coming back and ruining current ones, ghosts weren't usually bad, and justice was often served. It was a wonderful collection and I hope to find more books by the author, who apparently wrote lots and under many pseudonyms.
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine was a nice story about a murdered dancer in revolutionary Paris, The crown derby was a lovely ghost story about a sad and lonely ghost. The Housekeeper was another ghost story that wasn't quite so sympathetic but had another very cool ghost. Florence Flannery was small bits of a much bigger tragic story that was quite sad. Elsie's lonely afternoon didn't actually have any supernatural elements but was still quite sad as a young child led a totally depressing life, The Bishop of Hell was not the most disturbing tale in the book, but more a tale of justice with the more horrible things being done by mortals not supernatural beings, The Gray chamber was a more typical story of haunted room but how it got to be haunted was quite disturbing. The extraordinary adventure of Mr John Proudie was a weaker story about a chemist and a disappearing doctor. The scoured silk was the most disturbing story I've read in a long time. It was very very good. The avenging of Ann Leete was very sweet and romantic, despite the murder. Kecksies was a little odd but also disturbing and Ann Mellor's lover was a sweet story about lost love in past centuries.
There were a lot of stories with a slightly romantic twist, previous marriages coming back and ruining current ones, ghosts weren't usually bad, and justice was often served. It was a wonderful collection and I hope to find more books by the author, who apparently wrote lots and under many pseudonyms.
Want to read
April 5, 2022PLACEHOLDER REVIEW: Read three Marjorie Bowen stories here, more to come.
In "Ann Mellor's Lover " a psychic bookseller finds himself slowly drawn into solving the mystery of a decades old event, eventually mentally "occupying" (in the past, as a vision) the male participant who perpetrated a horrible wrong on a young spinster woman, abducting her and marrying her by force. A solid story of "psychometry," in a way, and the bad man's complete incapability of grasping what he has done wrong is nicely done (is he mad?, differently customed?, privileged?, all of the above?)
"The Avenging Of Ann Leete" has a young man become interested in an old painting of a young woman, that his family seems to associate with some scandal. Eventually, he is told the whole story (involving unrequited love, a murder, and a guilty suicide). Again, nicely, Gothic - in this case I liked the slow unfolding of events.
"Florence Flannery" has a debauched landholder return to his decrepit family manor (fallen into ruin while he was off drinking and carousing) with an opera singer wife in tow - herself a bit debauched, who has few memories of her history, and coincidentally (and surprisingly) shares a name with an infamous, 300 years back, member of her husband's family who was thrown out of the house in scandal after being cursed by her Portuguese lover. Neither husband or wife much likes the shifty, sullen groundskeeper who skulks around the place, watching the giant carp in the carp pond. Not bad - very straight-ahead, and I liked the blunt and truthful character sketches and the description of the dynamic between Mr. & Mrs. Shutes at the the start.
In "Ann Mellor's Lover " a psychic bookseller finds himself slowly drawn into solving the mystery of a decades old event, eventually mentally "occupying" (in the past, as a vision) the male participant who perpetrated a horrible wrong on a young spinster woman, abducting her and marrying her by force. A solid story of "psychometry," in a way, and the bad man's complete incapability of grasping what he has done wrong is nicely done (is he mad?, differently customed?, privileged?, all of the above?)
"The Avenging Of Ann Leete" has a young man become interested in an old painting of a young woman, that his family seems to associate with some scandal. Eventually, he is told the whole story (involving unrequited love, a murder, and a guilty suicide). Again, nicely, Gothic - in this case I liked the slow unfolding of events.
"Florence Flannery" has a debauched landholder return to his decrepit family manor (fallen into ruin while he was off drinking and carousing) with an opera singer wife in tow - herself a bit debauched, who has few memories of her history, and coincidentally (and surprisingly) shares a name with an infamous, 300 years back, member of her husband's family who was thrown out of the house in scandal after being cursed by her Portuguese lover. Neither husband or wife much likes the shifty, sullen groundskeeper who skulks around the place, watching the giant carp in the carp pond. Not bad - very straight-ahead, and I liked the blunt and truthful character sketches and the description of the dynamic between Mr. & Mrs. Shutes at the the start.
November 15, 2022
Збірка готичних розповідей, деякі досить класичні з всякими старовинними маєтками, протягами і підозрілими силуетами там, де не треба, деякі з вивертом (дуже рекомендую "Crown Derby Plate"), але в деяких за дивною атмосферою є абсолютно прозаїчне пояснення, і от вони й найстрашніші, до речі. Elsie's Lonely Afternoon наче закінчується дуже добре для головної оповідачки, шестилітньої дівчинки, але насправді ввічливі дорослі їй мило й тихо вбили все майбутнє життя. А якщо хочеться чогось з серіальними пристрастями і священниками на перепочити, то теж є! І називається відповідно Bishop of Hell.
August 16, 2016
If you enjoy old-school horror writers such as M.R. James, you'll want to check out this collection by Marjorie Bowen. All of the stories are good and at least two of them - the title story and "The Crown Derby Plate" - are superb.
February 6, 2017
Marjorie Bowen wrote for a living, supporting her family with her work at a time when many women didn't or couldn't work. She's best known for historical novels but this little volume of her supernatural stories is a real pleasure to read. The stories are primarily about hauntings or similar such visitations, with large creepy houses as their locales. Bowen creates quite an eerie atmosphere in each of these tales; there are no violent or gory scenes, but there are a few outcomes ( in "Kecksies", for example) that are really quite disturbing. The dark arts, the devil himself, and vengeance carried well beyond the grave are general themes throughout. Ghosts, of course, turn up with great regularity. "Elsie's Lonely Afternoon" is the most heartbreaking of the tales, while "Florence Flannery" was, for me, the most intriguing and unsettling. A good read for fans of old-fashioned ghost and supernatural stories.
January 28, 2024
A collection of …ok horror stories, the enjoyment of which will depend of how ready the reader is to tackle story after story of similar set-ups and resolutions. The stories are not poorly written but nor are they anything particularly striking. If the similar resolutions weren’t enough, there is constant use of the same/similar tropes, jilted lover, profligate manipulator, quirky relative, etc.
April 24, 2018
Delightfully creepy stories!
Also, helpfully useful for PhD.
Also, helpfully useful for PhD.
March 5, 2011
My venture into the world of truly good literature began scarcely a year ago with the works of Robert E. Howard; since then, nothing has been the same. Marjorie Bowen was a recommendation by Warhammer author C. L. Werner, a savant in the topic of literature. So when I saw this volume in my local bookstore, I picked it up instantly.
Marjorie Bowen (1885 - 1952) was mostly a writer of historical romances and tales of mystery and the supernatural. "The Bishop of Hell & Other Stories" is a Wordsworth Editions collection of Bowen's short stories, as a part of their Mystery & Supernatural series. Unfortunately, the volume is rather thin at a mere 190 pages, but includes 12 masterfully crafted tales of gothic horror.
The contents are as follows: "The Fair Hair of Ambrosine", "The Crown Derby Plate", "The Housekeeper", "Florence Flannery", "Elsie's Lonely Afternoon", "The Bishop of Hell", "The Grey Chamber", "The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie", "The Scoured Silk", "The Avenging of Ann Leete", "Kecksies" and "Ann Mellor's Lover".
The yarns included in this collection were, to my surprise, extremely simple in their construction. No age-old beings from the vastness of the Cosmos here, just plain and everyday material, with a scary twist! As the back cover states, "[Marjorie Bowen uses] simpler materials, interweaving their terror and mystery with the commonplace of everyday life". In some stories, it turns out there was nothing actually supernatural in play. Bowen's stories are 0% cheap tricks, and 100% atmosphere.
Her writing style is really extraordinary, since she weaves common words into expertly-constructed sentences, making them quite amazing. For example, the opening paragraph of "The Avenging of Ann Leete"". Where one might say: "This is a strange tale.", Bowen writes:
This is a queer tale, the more queer for the interpretations of passions of the strong human heart that have been put upon it and for glimpses of other motives and doings not, it would seem, human at all. The whole thing is seen vaguely, brokenly, a snatch here and there; one tells the tale, strangely another exclaims amazed, a third points out a scene, a fourth has a dim memory of a circumstance, a nine days' (or less) wonder, an old print helps, the name on a mural tablet in a deserted church pinches the heart with a sense of confirmation, and so you have your story; when all is said it remains a queer tale.
From a style-point of view, Bowen's yarns are a real treat to read. Though there are no blood-hungry ghouls or dreadful out-of-this-world monsters, you'd be surprised what a chilling tale can come from a simple and seemingly merry hobby such as collecting china, or the vivid imagination of a lonely six-year old. Bowen relies heavily on bleak and dark descriptions to create dilapidated and grim locales, and an oppressive atmosphere to the tale, with always a looming menace present above it all.
The only segment that works against Bowen is the predictability of her tales. Because of the simple construction, and often a very small number of characters (two or three), you can guess the outcome outright; for example, you have three characters - two males, one female. The males are both suitors to the female, but she chooses one. Then the woman is murdered, and the perpetrator never found. Years pass, and her ghost haunts her former lover, biding him to uncover the mystery of her demise. So, three personas, out of which one is no more, one is our hero, which leaves...? It's rather blatant who has done it.
While the outcome may (and will) most often be guessed in advance, it is the motives for the deed that will be kept a mystery until the end. These may sometimes prove a slight disappointment because of being too ordinary.
One observation, that has also been mentioned by critics, is Bowen portrayal of female characters. In most tales, we follow the story from the point of view of a man, but always it is a woman that's the central character. They are most of the times unhappy in their life and their love remains unreturned, and they have very limited options to change their status. This is, perhaps, a reflection of her own life. Bowen's parents divorced when she was quite young, forcing her to live with an ungrateful and parasitic family. She was self-educated, learning to read French, Italian and Latin. The hardships of her characters probably had some truth in the hardships she herself endured. However, in the end, Marjorie Bowen did triumph, a testament to it being these great stories.
If you search for well-written and engaging stories of horror, get "The Bishop of Hell & Other Stories"; this was my first encounter with her works, but I'm sure to acquire more. Greatly recommended!
Rating: 8/10
Marjorie Bowen (1885 - 1952) was mostly a writer of historical romances and tales of mystery and the supernatural. "The Bishop of Hell & Other Stories" is a Wordsworth Editions collection of Bowen's short stories, as a part of their Mystery & Supernatural series. Unfortunately, the volume is rather thin at a mere 190 pages, but includes 12 masterfully crafted tales of gothic horror.
The contents are as follows: "The Fair Hair of Ambrosine", "The Crown Derby Plate", "The Housekeeper", "Florence Flannery", "Elsie's Lonely Afternoon", "The Bishop of Hell", "The Grey Chamber", "The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie", "The Scoured Silk", "The Avenging of Ann Leete", "Kecksies" and "Ann Mellor's Lover".
The yarns included in this collection were, to my surprise, extremely simple in their construction. No age-old beings from the vastness of the Cosmos here, just plain and everyday material, with a scary twist! As the back cover states, "[Marjorie Bowen uses] simpler materials, interweaving their terror and mystery with the commonplace of everyday life". In some stories, it turns out there was nothing actually supernatural in play. Bowen's stories are 0% cheap tricks, and 100% atmosphere.
Her writing style is really extraordinary, since she weaves common words into expertly-constructed sentences, making them quite amazing. For example, the opening paragraph of "The Avenging of Ann Leete"". Where one might say: "This is a strange tale.", Bowen writes:
This is a queer tale, the more queer for the interpretations of passions of the strong human heart that have been put upon it and for glimpses of other motives and doings not, it would seem, human at all. The whole thing is seen vaguely, brokenly, a snatch here and there; one tells the tale, strangely another exclaims amazed, a third points out a scene, a fourth has a dim memory of a circumstance, a nine days' (or less) wonder, an old print helps, the name on a mural tablet in a deserted church pinches the heart with a sense of confirmation, and so you have your story; when all is said it remains a queer tale.
From a style-point of view, Bowen's yarns are a real treat to read. Though there are no blood-hungry ghouls or dreadful out-of-this-world monsters, you'd be surprised what a chilling tale can come from a simple and seemingly merry hobby such as collecting china, or the vivid imagination of a lonely six-year old. Bowen relies heavily on bleak and dark descriptions to create dilapidated and grim locales, and an oppressive atmosphere to the tale, with always a looming menace present above it all.
The only segment that works against Bowen is the predictability of her tales. Because of the simple construction, and often a very small number of characters (two or three), you can guess the outcome outright; for example, you have three characters - two males, one female. The males are both suitors to the female, but she chooses one. Then the woman is murdered, and the perpetrator never found. Years pass, and her ghost haunts her former lover, biding him to uncover the mystery of her demise. So, three personas, out of which one is no more, one is our hero, which leaves...? It's rather blatant who has done it.
While the outcome may (and will) most often be guessed in advance, it is the motives for the deed that will be kept a mystery until the end. These may sometimes prove a slight disappointment because of being too ordinary.
One observation, that has also been mentioned by critics, is Bowen portrayal of female characters. In most tales, we follow the story from the point of view of a man, but always it is a woman that's the central character. They are most of the times unhappy in their life and their love remains unreturned, and they have very limited options to change their status. This is, perhaps, a reflection of her own life. Bowen's parents divorced when she was quite young, forcing her to live with an ungrateful and parasitic family. She was self-educated, learning to read French, Italian and Latin. The hardships of her characters probably had some truth in the hardships she herself endured. However, in the end, Marjorie Bowen did triumph, a testament to it being these great stories.
If you search for well-written and engaging stories of horror, get "The Bishop of Hell & Other Stories"; this was my first encounter with her works, but I'm sure to acquire more. Greatly recommended!
Rating: 8/10
October 29, 2014
Thoroughly enjoyed this atmospheric collection of short ghostly stories. An ideal read for the lead up to Halloween and a great one should you be hosting a Ghost Reading Night. Stories are very much in the style of M. R. James, with creepy goings-on and off page violence (rather than the modern taste for graphic entrails and torture porn).
As a semi-professional storyteller, I shall certainly retell 'Kecksies' and will take inspiration from most of the other tales. Most of the tales are set wholly or partly in the 18th century, and have an excellent feel for the period with plenty of rakish ne'er-do-wells and put-upon damsels.
I am quite surprised that Marjorie Bowen (a pen name) is not better known, and - so far as I know - has never had any of her horror stories converted to radio, TV or theatrical productions. They seem to lend themselves to such a thing.
As a semi-professional storyteller, I shall certainly retell 'Kecksies' and will take inspiration from most of the other tales. Most of the tales are set wholly or partly in the 18th century, and have an excellent feel for the period with plenty of rakish ne'er-do-wells and put-upon damsels.
I am quite surprised that Marjorie Bowen (a pen name) is not better known, and - so far as I know - has never had any of her horror stories converted to radio, TV or theatrical productions. They seem to lend themselves to such a thing.
July 30, 2021
I really enjoy this series of books (and was a huge fan of Monster, She Wrote) as it introduces me to authors I might otherwise miss altogether. Marjorie Bowen is one of the few authors I’m at least a little bit familiar with, having read a short or two in a different anthology. I enjoyed this experience although the short stories feel (at least to me) like they’re a lot older than they are. Part of the reason as to why I kept imagining an author in period dress (in spite of me knowing the stories were written in the 1920-30s) is that most of them are set in the more distant past. The other reason is that the writing feels somewhat archaic at times, which depending on how you view it, lends some credence to the tale or will make you feel a bit removed from the characters. I think Valancourt & Anderson did a great job showcasing Bowen’s work though, and I’m happy I sat down to read it.
For those curious, I’ve noted down some kind of overview and description of the short stories underneath:
-The Fair Hair of Ambrosine:
The young actress Ambrosine was murdered 3 years ago and her unsympathetic lover finds himself haunted by a recurring nightmare in which he is lured into her house and stabbed by the same murderer. He works as a clerk and his newest task will have him pass by the late Ambrosine’s home. The tension and dread rises as the day draws near.
-The Crown Derby Plate:
This is the one Bowen story I’ve come across before as I read the anthology ‘Christmas Ghosts’ edited by Kathryn Cramer last year. We’re acquainted with Martha Pym who’s visiting her cousins. They talk about a China set Pym got from a nearby (and rumoured haunted) house. The only issue with this was that she was one plate short of a full set. Soon, Martha finds herself on the way to the house in the hopes of talking to its current inhabitant and getting her hands on the missing piece. Unsurprisingly, she gets a lot more than she bargained for.
-The Housekeeper:
Beau Sekford & his countess wife are both scoundrels who deserve and loathe each other, and are unable to pay their debts, having both thought they were marrying into money when they got hitched/scammed each other. All of their servants have left due to not having been paid when Beau finds himself haunted by the memory of his first wife & his home inexplicably tended to. Probably the first time I’ve come across a ghost story that utilizes housekeeping as the mode of haunting and revenge.
-Florence Flannery: An Ornament in Regnecy Paste:
Florence Flannery is a newly wed wife who moves into her husband’s manor when she spots an inscription left by a Florence Flannery in the year 1500. She decides to add her own inscripted name+ the year 1800. Add to this, a legendary curse in which the first Florence Flannery was responsible for having her lover marooned and left for dead on an island & where she was cursed to live until he was avenged. Both the current Florence Flannery & her husband become increasingly unhinged/prone to drink, paranoid and fixated on the carp pond (specifically on one of the more ugly fish).
-Elsie’s Lonely Afternoon:
A story told through the 6-7 year old Elsie; a young orphan living with her grandma who severely neglects, isolates & berates her. They live in a huge mansion with lots of empty rooms & Elsie is told, and believes, the stories of there being ghosts.
A creepingly sad story without any actual supernatural elements, just good ol’ human callousness.
-The Bishop of Hell:
Hector ‘Bishop of Hell’ Greatrix is a horrible man who ruins people’s lives solely because he is able to. He claims not to believe in the afterlife or hell, and spitefully tells his friend that if there is, he’ll come back and let him know what it’s like. Events (entirely self-inflicted) will lead to a deserved ending for Greatrix.
-The Grey Chamber:
Blendau is traveling to Italy but decides to stop by his friend and spend the night. The problem; the only room available for him to sleep in is the haunted Grey Chamber, the room said to be haunted by the wronged (and possibly vengeful) spirit of the young Gertrude who committed suicide there. No longer superstitious, Blendau decides to do so.
-The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie:
A historical mystery in which John Proudie (an apothecary) gets a string of people knocking on his door late in the night seeking his lodger, the doctor Francis Valletort, who then goes missing.
-The Scoured Silk:
Young Elisa Minden is to be married to her father’s friend, Mr.Orford & she’ll be the second wife as the first one passed away 20 years ago. The story grows increasingly tense as Elisa Minden feels like there’s something really wrong and dark about this man & his manor.
Once again not a supernatural tale as such, I’d describe it as a darker Jane Eyre meets Rebecca-story.
-The Avenging of Ann Leete:
An old portrait of a young woman revealed to be Ann Leete opens the door to a 70 y.o tragic tale of love, jealousy, murder and a woman fondly remembered by an old gentleman.
-Kecksies:
Two drunk esquires decide to seize the opportunity and play a tasteless prank using the body of a dead man (possibly a warlock) one of them had run-ins with. A tale of who’ll have the last laugh.
-Ann Mellor’s Lover:
A story in which the main gifted with the sight collects breadcrumbs of visions from the past to learn more about the mysterious woman in a 170 y.o sketch he found in an antique book. Also; Norway!
For those curious, I’ve noted down some kind of overview and description of the short stories underneath:
-The Fair Hair of Ambrosine:
The young actress Ambrosine was murdered 3 years ago and her unsympathetic lover finds himself haunted by a recurring nightmare in which he is lured into her house and stabbed by the same murderer. He works as a clerk and his newest task will have him pass by the late Ambrosine’s home. The tension and dread rises as the day draws near.
-The Crown Derby Plate:
This is the one Bowen story I’ve come across before as I read the anthology ‘Christmas Ghosts’ edited by Kathryn Cramer last year. We’re acquainted with Martha Pym who’s visiting her cousins. They talk about a China set Pym got from a nearby (and rumoured haunted) house. The only issue with this was that she was one plate short of a full set. Soon, Martha finds herself on the way to the house in the hopes of talking to its current inhabitant and getting her hands on the missing piece. Unsurprisingly, she gets a lot more than she bargained for.
-The Housekeeper:
Beau Sekford & his countess wife are both scoundrels who deserve and loathe each other, and are unable to pay their debts, having both thought they were marrying into money when they got hitched/scammed each other. All of their servants have left due to not having been paid when Beau finds himself haunted by the memory of his first wife & his home inexplicably tended to. Probably the first time I’ve come across a ghost story that utilizes housekeeping as the mode of haunting and revenge.
-Florence Flannery: An Ornament in Regnecy Paste:
Florence Flannery is a newly wed wife who moves into her husband’s manor when she spots an inscription left by a Florence Flannery in the year 1500. She decides to add her own inscripted name+ the year 1800. Add to this, a legendary curse in which the first Florence Flannery was responsible for having her lover marooned and left for dead on an island & where she was cursed to live until he was avenged. Both the current Florence Flannery & her husband become increasingly unhinged/prone to drink, paranoid and fixated on the carp pond (specifically on one of the more ugly fish).
-Elsie’s Lonely Afternoon:
A story told through the 6-7 year old Elsie; a young orphan living with her grandma who severely neglects, isolates & berates her. They live in a huge mansion with lots of empty rooms & Elsie is told, and believes, the stories of there being ghosts.
A creepingly sad story without any actual supernatural elements, just good ol’ human callousness.
-The Bishop of Hell:
Hector ‘Bishop of Hell’ Greatrix is a horrible man who ruins people’s lives solely because he is able to. He claims not to believe in the afterlife or hell, and spitefully tells his friend that if there is, he’ll come back and let him know what it’s like. Events (entirely self-inflicted) will lead to a deserved ending for Greatrix.
-The Grey Chamber:
Blendau is traveling to Italy but decides to stop by his friend and spend the night. The problem; the only room available for him to sleep in is the haunted Grey Chamber, the room said to be haunted by the wronged (and possibly vengeful) spirit of the young Gertrude who committed suicide there. No longer superstitious, Blendau decides to do so.
-The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie:
A historical mystery in which John Proudie (an apothecary) gets a string of people knocking on his door late in the night seeking his lodger, the doctor Francis Valletort, who then goes missing.
-The Scoured Silk:
Young Elisa Minden is to be married to her father’s friend, Mr.Orford & she’ll be the second wife as the first one passed away 20 years ago. The story grows increasingly tense as Elisa Minden feels like there’s something really wrong and dark about this man & his manor.
Once again not a supernatural tale as such, I’d describe it as a darker Jane Eyre meets Rebecca-story.
-The Avenging of Ann Leete:
An old portrait of a young woman revealed to be Ann Leete opens the door to a 70 y.o tragic tale of love, jealousy, murder and a woman fondly remembered by an old gentleman.
-Kecksies:
Two drunk esquires decide to seize the opportunity and play a tasteless prank using the body of a dead man (possibly a warlock) one of them had run-ins with. A tale of who’ll have the last laugh.
-Ann Mellor’s Lover:
A story in which the main gifted with the sight collects breadcrumbs of visions from the past to learn more about the mysterious woman in a 170 y.o sketch he found in an antique book. Also; Norway!
June 20, 2020
Marjorie Bowen was a prolific English writer in the early 20th century who wrote, among other things, some awesome ghost stories. This collection has some of her best.
February 29, 2024
Having read Eleanor Scott, Helen de Guerry Simpson, and some other magazine horror writers from the 1920s and 1930s, I feel like I have a handle on this particular subgenre of M. R. James-inflected spooky tale, both its pleasures and its pitfalls. It's great fun to find that women played such a large role in this field (often, as in Bowen and other post- and interwar British women authors, out of necessity), to dig them out from under their male pseudonyms and learn to distinguish their trademark styles and subject matter. I can't say Bowen is my favorite of this crew, perhaps because her use of the long 18th-century setting (of which she was also a historian) turns me off. There's also, let it be said, some pretty vile racism in a few stories.
That said, over time I came to appreciate Bowen's lurid depictions of vice and squalor among the upper classes and their imitators. In "Florence Flannery," the weary, bored nastiness of the married couple's bickering is priceless, reminiscent of "Married with Children," and laced through with their failed aspirations to the lifestyle of the landed gentry. More pointedly, she returns, over and over, to the theme of truly monstrous men who ruin women's lives, including multiple stories about men who murder women after being romantically rejected by them. The most chilling example of this occurs in "Kecksies," which starts with a classic folk tale-type set-up and ends in a climax worthy of a Fulci movie. I really haven't read anything like it, and it's probably my favorite of these stories. It made me shudder.
That said, over time I came to appreciate Bowen's lurid depictions of vice and squalor among the upper classes and their imitators. In "Florence Flannery," the weary, bored nastiness of the married couple's bickering is priceless, reminiscent of "Married with Children," and laced through with their failed aspirations to the lifestyle of the landed gentry. More pointedly, she returns, over and over, to the theme of truly monstrous men who ruin women's lives, including multiple stories about men who murder women after being romantically rejected by them. The most chilling example of this occurs in "Kecksies," which starts with a classic folk tale-type set-up and ends in a climax worthy of a Fulci movie. I really haven't read anything like it, and it's probably my favorite of these stories. It made me shudder.
October 31, 2017
“The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories” isn’t likely to persuade you to sleep with the light on, but every so often you may experience a few shivers.
While there’s no full-blown horror here, we do have some quality tales filled with an eerie atmosphere and suspense. Most stories have a good twist and all are vividly told.
I think setting them in the 1800s or earlier adds to the supernatural feel. The characters can’t just flick on an electric light or grab a mobile phone to ring the police. They have to deal with the unknown, usually in the dark.
Of the nine tales, only two disappointed me. “The Fair Hair of Ambrosine” lacked narrative engagement, and as it went on, the ending became predictable. “Mr John Proudie” has moments of intrigue, but I found the ending anticlimactic.
My favourite stories were “Florence Flannery” and “The Crown Derby Plate”. The latter has one of the most unexpected twists at the end.
“Florence Flannery” has brilliant atmospheric scenes, superb characterisation, and is engaging from start to finish. An aspect to this could’ve come across as laughable, but the author handles it so well that it’s creepy and – in a supernatural sense – believable. Setting it in 1800 makes it much more appealing.
A very good collection.
While there’s no full-blown horror here, we do have some quality tales filled with an eerie atmosphere and suspense. Most stories have a good twist and all are vividly told.
I think setting them in the 1800s or earlier adds to the supernatural feel. The characters can’t just flick on an electric light or grab a mobile phone to ring the police. They have to deal with the unknown, usually in the dark.
Of the nine tales, only two disappointed me. “The Fair Hair of Ambrosine” lacked narrative engagement, and as it went on, the ending became predictable. “Mr John Proudie” has moments of intrigue, but I found the ending anticlimactic.
My favourite stories were “Florence Flannery” and “The Crown Derby Plate”. The latter has one of the most unexpected twists at the end.
“Florence Flannery” has brilliant atmospheric scenes, superb characterisation, and is engaging from start to finish. An aspect to this could’ve come across as laughable, but the author handles it so well that it’s creepy and – in a supernatural sense – believable. Setting it in 1800 makes it much more appealing.
A very good collection.
July 14, 2024
Marjorie Bowen (1885-1952) spent the early part of her working life providing for a demanding and ungrateful family. We are lucky that she did so, since among the results were these short stories of rare quality. In their use of dreams, ancient anecdote, and ruined or dilapidated buildings ('Florence Flannery', 'The Fair Hair of Ambrosine') they are at times in the finest tradition of The Castle of Otranto and the Gothic revival which had chilled the blood of the British public a hundred and fifty years earlier. But her stories are more subtle in their construction, and often use simple materials ('The Crown Derby Plate', Elsie's Lonely Afternoon'), interweaving their terror and mystery with the commonplace of everyday life. Their mastery of detail, sureness of expression and acute reading of human nature give them a sinister force, which is realistic and unnerving, yet at the same time tinged with pity and compassion.
November 9, 2018
The nights are drawing in, the days are murky and grey and it's the time of the year for spooky stories. Marjorie Bowen, a prolific writer of short stories in the first half of the twentieth century is best known for her much-anthologised ghost story, The Crown Derby Plate (included in this collection). It is a masterpiece of economy and style, and its portrayal of a decaying old house in the middle of the muddy Essex marshes is creepy and distinctly disturbing. Not all the stories in this collection are ghost stories, but they all have a supernatural or other-worldly theme or atmosphere. The other stand-out stories are the title story and Kecksies, a shocking and violent tale of Regency rakes and a drunken practical joke that has appalling consequences.
January 2, 2022
Another excellent collection in the Monster, She Wrote series by Valancourt Books and it did not disappoint! A few stories were written in the ghost story for christmas tradition so it was great to read them just as 2021 was coming to an end. I loved the introduction by Melanie R. Anderson which was extremely informative and some of my favourite stories include: "The Fair Hair of Ambrosine", "The Crown Derby Plate" (actually bloody spooky!), "The Grey Chamber" and "Kecksies" which was quite shocking but so well written! I'm a huge fan of this series and hope Valancourt will continue to publish horror and ghost stories by amazing female writers.
November 19, 2023
4.2⭐
Introduction • essay by Hilary Long 3.5⭐
Biographical Note: Marjorie Bowen (1885—1952) ✔
Personal Note by Hilary Long ✔
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine • (1933) 5⭐
The Crown Derby Plate • (1933) 4⭐
The Housekeeper • (1949) 5⭐
Florence Flannery: An Ornament in Regency Paste • (1924) 4⭐
Elsie's Lonely Afternoon • (1933) 5⭐
The Bishop of Hell • (1925) 3.5⭐
The Grey Chamber • (1933) by H. Clauren (trans. of Die Graue Stube 1810) [as by Anonymous] 4.25⭐
The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie • (1949) 5⭐
The Scoured Silk • (1919) 5⭐
The Avenging of Ann Leete • (1923) 4⭐
Kecksies • (1925) 2.5⭐
Ann Mellor's Lover • (1949) 4⭐
Introduction • essay by Hilary Long 3.5⭐
Biographical Note: Marjorie Bowen (1885—1952) ✔
Personal Note by Hilary Long ✔
The Fair Hair of Ambrosine • (1933) 5⭐
The Crown Derby Plate • (1933) 4⭐
The Housekeeper • (1949) 5⭐
Florence Flannery: An Ornament in Regency Paste • (1924) 4⭐
Elsie's Lonely Afternoon • (1933) 5⭐
The Bishop of Hell • (1925) 3.5⭐
The Grey Chamber • (1933) by H. Clauren (trans. of Die Graue Stube 1810) [as by Anonymous] 4.25⭐
The Extraordinary Adventure of Mr. John Proudie • (1949) 5⭐
The Scoured Silk • (1919) 5⭐
The Avenging of Ann Leete • (1923) 4⭐
Kecksies • (1925) 2.5⭐
Ann Mellor's Lover • (1949) 4⭐
October 21, 2020
(Read in the Gutenberg Australia version, which has a number of typos.) Bowen's overflowing imagination makes this an entertaining and varied collection (though "The Crown Derby Plate" doesn't need to appear in every collection of stories by Bowen). "Kecksies" is quite disturbing and there are some nasty people in the stories (nobody in "Florence Flannery" comes out well). Still, good stories for Halloween month.
December 28, 2023
As with many story collections, some stories are simpler better than others, but all of them give a good indication of Bowen's style. While considered an author of ghost stories, some of the stories in the collection read more like early suspense (The Scoured Silk) or generally uncanny works (The Avenging of Ann Leete). By modern standards, none of the tales would be considered scary, but there are some well-executed plot twists. Horror historians, especially those looking for work by women, should consider reading this collection.
3/5
3/5
November 23, 2019
What can we say about Marjorie Bowen aside from the fact she was prolific and churned out work after work to support her family? She was a little twisted? She understood the underbelly of human nature? Certainly. This collection is pretty grim and startling. I enjoyed it, with classic gothic undertones, it pulls at the fear that lurks within as well as the fears that lurk without. Definitely stories are not frightening as such, but disturbing. Definitely recommend to gothic horror fans.
April 14, 2020
This is a fine collection of short stories by a prolific and accomplished writer. The stories are, as the series title says, of mystery and the supernatural. The plots are varied and Bowen skillfully sets the tales in various historical periods and locations. There are few surprises in the resolution of the stories but this does not detract from the quality of the writing and the way in which the writer engages the reader. Highly recommended.
December 11, 2018
A somewhat uneven collection of historical gothic stories, but the handful of ‘good’ stories that do not shy away from the supernatural are truly great: “The Crown Derby Plate,” “Florence Flannery,” “The Scoured Silk,” “Avenging of Ann Lette,” “Kecksies,” and the title story are excellent.
February 24, 2021
I really liked this book. I bought it because I read “Monster She Wrote” and wanted to check out these stories. I loved the writing and the old fashioned gothic horror feel. The stories weren’t shocking (I could see where things were going) but the atmosphere made it worthwhile.
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