William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul
1789/94 (collected 1794) / Ebook / 56 pages / UK
****
I was too innocent and inexperienced to really appreciate Blake's classic double album when required to study it for A-level, but he still left more of an impression than any of the poets I studied at university, Milton aside. Maybe it was the pretty pictures.
I get it now. Admittedly, some of the Songs of Innocence are overly infantile, dependent and Bible-thumping, but others paint mournfully nostalgic scenes before Experience comes stomping in with the weight of years. It's the fearful symmetry that makes it.
Sarban, Ringstones
1951 / Ebook / 139 pages / UK
A latecomer to the Machen/Blackwood tradition of folk horror before the '70s brought its infatuation with techno-henges, this slow-burning novella is filled with pleasant Northumberland scenery, encyclopaedic digressions and ominous foreboding.
It's quite rare for these nerdy folkloric tales to be female-led, but with its oblivious and inept protagonist and bridled women pulling chariots, it's not exactly a step forward.
Thomas Tryon, Harvest Home1973 / Ebook / 401 pages / USA
**
More Twin Peaks than an American Wicker Man, this pastoral soap opera takes its sweet time getting to the horror and a point. If you're daydreaming of a rustic escape, you might not mind that as much as I did.
Manly Wade Wellman, What Dreams May Come
1983 / Ebook / 175 pages / USA***
I haven't read any of Wellman's other John Thunstone stories, and the fairly generic occult investigator hasn't charmed me into seeking out more.
A distinctly retro tale by this point, I preferred to imagine it was the novelisation to the non-existent '70s BBC serial I'd rather be watching, shot on low quality film stock with a Dudley Simpson soundtrack.
A distinctly retro tale by this point, I preferred to imagine it was the novelisation to the non-existent '70s BBC serial I'd rather be watching, shot on low quality film stock with a Dudley Simpson soundtrack.
Andrew Michael Hurley, Devil's Day
2017 / Ebook / 368 pages / UK
That's more like it. Hurley's popular debut novel was a superb Gothic revival fringed by a bleak coastline, but this follow-up ventures deeper into the unforgiving landscape and is one of the scariest books I've read in memory.
A Devil isn't required to explain the various atrocities and general grim hopelessness, but the option's there if you prefer the comfort of laying the blame on the Owd Feller to the alternative. Full of nature and seasonal symbolism to keep lapsed English lit students happy, while crying.
