Walpole, Hugh

THE FOURTH (4th) FONTANA BOOK OF GREAT GHOST STORIES (4) Four: The Accident; Not on the Passenger List; the Sphinx Without a Secret; When I Was Dead; The Queen of Spades; Pargiton and Harby; The Snow; Carlton's Father; A School Story

Average customer rating:

Good collection in a great series

THE FOURTH (4th) FONTANA BOOK OF GREAT GHOST STORIES (4) Four: The Accident; Not on the Passenger List; the Sphinx Without a Secret; When I Was Dead; The Queen of Spades; Pargiton and Harby; The Snow; Carlton's Father; A School Story
Robert (editor) (Ann Bridge; Barry Pain; Oscar Wilde; Vincent O'Sullivan; Alexander Pushkin; Desmond MacCarthy; Hugh Walpole; Eric Ambrose; M. R. James; Saki; William Wilkie Collins) Aickman
Manufacturer: Fontana Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Customer Reviews:

Good collection in a great series.......2006-10-15

Throughout the two decades from 1964 to 1984, Fontana published a remarkable skein of ghost story collections, piloted by R. Aikman and later by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, no mean supernatural authors themselves. Some of the paperbacks in this series, which winds its way up to the "20th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories" are now collectors' items and worth over a hundred dollars apiece.

For this fourth book in the series, Robert Aickman selected eleven supernatural tales, including Alexander Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades" which was also made into an opera--an unusual fate for a ghost story!

These are the tales in the 4th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories:

"The Accident" by Ann Bridge--Many great ghost stories are set in the Alps and this is one of them. A pair of climbers, brother and sister, come across a set of tracks that begin in an open snowfield, near the place where two other climbers had fallen to their deaths a month earlier. Then the sister begins to receive postcards from one of the dead climbers.

"Not on the Passenger List" by Barry Pain--A young widow takes passage on a ship to England, where she is to remarry. Her late husband appears in her cabin and tries to persuade her to drown herself.

"The Sphinx without a Secret" by Oscar Wilde--Aikman cheated by including this story, which has no ghost. A mysterious young woman is confronted by her fiancé, who breaks off their engagement.

"When I was Dead" by Vincent O'Sullivan--A young man witnesses his own funeral.

"The Queen of Spades" by Alexander Pushkin--An 87-year-old Countess dies before revealing her supposed secret for winning at cards. Her ghost appears to the man who frightened her to death, revealing the cards he needed to play in order to win a fortune. Would you trust the ghost of the woman you frightened to death?

"Pargiton and Harby" by Desmond MacCarthy-- Harby meets his old friend, Pargiton who seems to be making amends for an ill-spent life. Pargiton begs Harby to visit him, because he seems to bring out the best in the reformed evil-doer. Harby comes, but so does something else.

"The Snow" by Hugh Walpole--The two Mrs. Ryders, one of them dead, battle over their meek, inoffensive husband.

"Carlton's Father" by Eric Ambrose--I would classify this story as science fiction, since it involves a time warp, disguised as a room in Carlton's house, where no-one ages.

"A School Story" by M.R. James--Two men reminisce over the ghost stories that were told about their public schools. One of them concerns a master with a homicidal past.

"The Wolves of Cernogratz" by Saki--Wolves howl around the castle when one of the Cernogratz family dies.

"Mad Monkton" by William Wilkie Collins--Generations of the reclusive Monkton family suffered from hereditary insanity. Alfred, last of the Monkton line falls in love with the beautiful young Ada, but before he can propose to her, he must travel to Italy to recover the body of his Uncle Stephen, the black sheep of the Monkton family, who was killed in a duel. Everyone thinks Alfred is crazy for trying to recover the body, but an old family prophecy and the ghost of Uncle Stephen urge him onward.

Average customer rating:

Katherine Christian A Novel
Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: Doubleday, Doran And Company, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000FNTI7I

Product Description

Hardcover book

Average customer rating:

The Killer and the Slain
Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: Book League 1942 NEW YORK
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GLEK2C

Average customer rating:

Above the dark circus,: An adventure
Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: MacMillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Average customer rating:

Judith Paris

Judith Paris
Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: Pan Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews:

Judith Paris.......2006-03-30

The second volume in the Herries Chronicle, it's the story of tempestuous Judith Herries, daughter of Rogue Herries. Both her parents die on the day she's born, and she's raised by her half brother David, who's 55 years older than she. She marries Georges Paris, a smuggler and gambler, and is unhappy with him. When Georges is violently killed by an avenging father, Judith goes to live with nephew Francis and his wife. A feud breaks out in the Herries household, which is carried over into the next novel in the Chronicle (THE FORTRESS). Judith has an affair with Warren Foster, leaves him, but has a child by him.

The story is a strong one, though saturated with violence (Judith's husband, nephew and lover all die in the story). The character portrayals are good, especially of Judith and Jennifer Cards, Francis's wife and initiator of the feud. The final quarter of the book is not as good as what came before; Judith's sudden delivery of her son is hard to believe, and the action from that point on drags. The book is set during the early years of the 18th century. Among the better of Walpole's novels.

Average customer rating:

Fortitude
Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: Grosset and Dunlap
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J6G9BY

Average customer rating:

The cathedral
Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: Grosset & Dunlap
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006D6MVW

Book Description

1922. Walpole wrote horror novels that tended more towards the psychological rather than supernatural, with a brooding underlying mysticism. The Cathedral's protagonists are feuding clergymen at the cathedral in Polchester. The book begins: Adam Brandon was born at Little Empton in Kent in 1839. He was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Ordained in 1863, he was first curate at St. Martin's, Portsmouth, then Chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester; in the year 1875 he accepted the living of Pomfret in Wiltshire and was there for twelve years. It was in 1887 that he came to our town; he was first Canon and afterwards Archdeacon. Ten years later he had, by personal influence and strength of character, acquired so striking a position amongst us that he was often alluded to as the King of Polchester. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Download Description

He could neither force nor falsify this emotion. If he did not feel it he did not feel it, and himself was the loser. But it sometimes occurred that the weather was bright, that his digestion was functioning admirably, that he liked his surroundings, that he had agreeable work, that his prospects were happy--then he literally beamed upon mankind and in his fancy showered upon the poor and humble largesse of glittering coin. In such a mood he loved every one, would pat children on the back, help old men along the road, listen to the long winnings of the reluctant poor. Utterly genuine he was; he meant every word that he spoke and every smile that he bestowed.

Average customer rating:

Jeremy
Sir Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: Adamant Media Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1402163088
Release Date: 2005-12-01

Book Description

This Elibron Classics edition is a facsimile reprint of a 1919 edition by George H. Doran Company, New York.

Average customer rating:

The Sea Tower
Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: Doubleday, Doran and Company, inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B00086WUKE

Average customer rating:

Fortitude
Hugh Walpole
Manufacturer: IndyPublish.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1404379185

Book Description

"Do you really want me, Peter?" He didn't speak but his whole body turned towards her, answering her question. "Because I am yours entirely. I became yours that day when your hand touched mine. I wasn't sure before-I knew then-" He looked at her. He saw her, he thought for the first time.... -from Fortitude

The first great success of one of the most popular novelists of the early 20th century, Fortitude (1913) is the author's own favorite work. A romantic novel with a fairy-tale air, it is the life story of Peter Wescott, "who very naïvely believed in almost everything," as Walpole himself described him.

As a quiet, polite child, Peter stoically endures horrific beatings from his father; as a dreamy young man, Peter finds himself swept away into reverie by the titles of books (he doesn't even need to read them) and escapes into his own fiction when grief and tragedy strike.

With early hints of the supernatural and the psychological suspense that would infuse Walpole's later work, this is an important formative work of a writer whose work deserves to be seen anew.

Download Description

The primrose path was, of course, open to Peter. He was popular enough, at the beginning of that Autumn term, to do anything, and, had he followed the "closed-eyes" policy of his predecessor, smiling pleasantly upon all crime and even gently with his own authority "lending a hand," all would have been well. There were boys with strangely simple names, simple for such criminals--Barton, Jerrard, Watson, West, Underbill--who were old-established hands at their own especial games, and they saw no reason at all for disturbance. "Young Westcott had better not come meddling here," they muttered darkly, having discerned already a tendency on his part to show disapproval.

Authors:

Authors

Authors