Victorian Nightmares

Description

Hardcover – Published in 1977 by W. H. Allen.

Outside in the streets, the fog swirls in the gaslight, while the horses’ hooves rattle past and fade into the distance. By the light of the dimming fire, you watch the hands of the clock reach midnight. Now. It is time to light the candle and settle down in the chair—to read Victorian Nightmares.

Following the highly successful Victorian Tales of Terror and Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror, this is Hugh Lamb’s third expedition into the uncharted depths of the Victorian era, from which he has returned with a wealth of strange and haunting tales. In this present collection, H. B. Marriott Watson tells of The Devil of the Marsh, while Frank Norris recounts the tale of The Ship that Saw a Ghost, and Morgan Robertson describes The Battle of the Monsters. Join Guy de Maupassant in The Tomb and Ambrose Bierce in A Bottomless Grave.

Here are twenty more of the best of the Victorian era’s macabre stories by famous writers from the United States, Britain, and France. These gaslit tales range from Australia to Alsace, and from the decks of a sailing ship to the heights of the Alps, but they’re all Victorian Nightmares—and soon they’ll be yours.

Editor’s Foreword – Hugh Lamb
The Devil of the Marsh – H. B. Marriott-Watson
A Tragic Honeymoon – G. R. Sims
The Battle of the Monsters – Morgan Robertson
The Return – R. Murray Gilchrist
The Corpse Light – Dick Donovan
The Ship That Saw a Ghost – Frank Norris
A Bottomless Grave – Ambrose Bierce
One Summer Night – Ambrose Bierce
Ghosts That Have Haunted Me – John Kendrick Bangs
Haunted by Spirits – George Manville Fenn
A Ghost Slayer – J. Keightley Snowden
The Tomb – Guy de Maupassant
The Man with the Nose – Rhoda Broughton
My Nightmare – Dorothea Gerard
A Life-Watch – Georgina C. Clark
The Haunted Chair – Richard Marsh
Coolies – W. Carlton Dawe
The Three Souls – Alexandre Chatrian and Émile Erckmann
A Strange Goldfield – Guy Boothby
An Alpine Divorce – Robert Barr
The Story of Baelbrow – E. Heron and H. Heron

Trivia

Victorian Nightmares was republished in 2001 as A Bottomless Grave and Other Victorian Tales of Terror by Dover.

In 1982 Swedish publisher B. Wahlströms Bokindustri published Victorian Nightmares in two parts, under the titles Djävulen i träsket and Gravskändaren.

Praise

“VICTORAN NIGHTMARES, edited by Hugh Lamb is a delightful collection of stories. These short pieces arc all from the Vicrorian era and, consequently, have more charm than modern-day counterparts. The refined, almost eloquent flavor of these tales makes for delightful reading.”

West Coast Review of Books
1977

“Hugh Lamb is the master collector of Victorian tales of terror and mystery. This, his third foray into the era’s rich lode of haunting fiction, is every bit as good as the first two, which set a high standard for anthologists of the macabre.

Readers familiar with Lamb’s previous Victorian anthologies need no further recommendation. Newcomers may be surprised at the quality of the 21 stories he has uncovered, most of them never before published in a collection.

Lamb refutes the long-held theory that good stories from this era have all been reprinted. In his introduction, he notes that the truth is that many deserving authors have been neglected by other anthologists. Readers can share his sense of discovery.

Among the authors of these ghost stories, monster tales, and accounts of dark and gruesome deeds are R. Murray Gilchrist, H.B. Marriott-Watson, Dorothea Gerard, Georgian C. Clark, and W. Carlton Dawe. The names may not strike a chord, but the reader of this book will remember them after the covers are shut.

On the more familiar side, the book also contains a pair of brilliant stories by Ambrose Bierce and one by Guy de Maupassant.“

Larry Powell
Savannah News
March 1978