Saturday, October 12, 2024

Spooky frontispiece in an Edward Bulwer-Lytton omnibus

This is a perfect-for-October frontispiece from an omnibus edition of Edward Bulwer-Lytton supernatural fiction published by Hooper, Clarke & Co. of Chicago (year unknown, probably circa 1880-1890). The hardcover book is falling apart, with a fully detached spine. I picked it up super cheap in order to read the 1859 short story "The Haunted and the Haunters: Or, The House and the Brain," which H.P. Lovecraft praised as "one of the best short haunted-house tales ever written." There are modern collections that include "The Haunted and the Haunters," but if you'd rather just read a critical summary, here's one from Dark Worlds Quarterly.

The frontispiece, meanwhile, is from the novel A Strange Story, which leads off the omnibus. That novel, which was first published as a serial, deals with a physician who is staunchly on the side of science and rationalism, yet finds his worldview shaken as he confronts dark magic and supernatural forces. Some reviewers say it's a bit on the bloated side and filled with lengthy tangents in the footnotes, which is both par for the course for Bulwer-Lytton and makes sense if you're getting paid by the word for a serial novel. The woman standing beside the tree in the frontispiece is likely meant to be Lillian, the doctor's love interest in A Strange Story. Perhaps she's been mesmerized — not by the doctor, but by Evil ForcesTM.

The final Bulwer-Lytton offering in the omnibus is his 1842 novel Zanoni. It is also occult-themed, centered around Rosicrucians and the secret of eternal life. But, as one Goodreads reviewer notes, "This is most emphatically not a novel that treats the occult as something evil. The occult in this novel is rather a seeking for wisdom. On the very rare occasions on which Mejnour does interfere in the affairs of humanity it is always on the side of good. Zanoni frequently intervenes in human affairs, and again always on the side of good."

Here's LP, aka Licorice Pizza, aka Lady Samantha Penguin.

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Scholastic book: "Chilling Ghost Stories"

We must have at least one spooky Scholastic book from the olden days each October!
  • Title: Chilling Ghost Stories
  • Author: Bernhardt J. Hurwood (1926-1987). Another of his books was featured in this 2021 post.
  • Awesome cover illustration: Don Dyen. There's also one uncredited interior illustration of a skeleton standing at a child's bedside.
  • Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
  • Year: First published in 1973. This is a Scholastic reprint from the late 1980s or early 1990s, though there's no confirmation on the copyright page. The front cover is missing the TK 2167 that appears on the original editions.
  • Pages: 110
  • Format: Paperback. 
  • Dedication: "To Laura"
  • Some of the story titles: The House That Didn't Want Anyone to Live in It; What the Gravedigger Saw; The Pirate Ghost of Gombi Island; The Woman in Green Velvet; The Headless Princess; The Banshee Whose Feelings Were Hurt; and The Poltergeist with the Heart of a Genie.
  • Random excerpt from the middle #1: He was mean to his family and to his hired hands alike, so when he died no one was particularly sorry to see him go.
  • Random excerpt from the middle #2: Of course, everyone in the village tried to guess what it was that the ghost had told Tom, but he never would say anything more about it. 
  • Random excerpt from the middle #3: Moya loved to tell wild and hair-raising tales about ghosts and goblins and wolf-men and fairies.
  • Rating on Goodreads: 3.32 stars (out of 5)
  • Goodreads review: In 2020, Gary Sites wrote: "This is one of the first books I owned. I was 10 years old when I selected it from the Scholastic reader at school. What wonderful memories of going through that thing, choosing a few books. (They averaged about .75 cents) Then, in two or three weeks, we'd walk into the classroom one morning, and find stacks of new paperbacks that our teacher would pass out at lunch time. Do they still do this in schools? I hope so. This book of little ghost stories isn't very remarkable, but I loved it as a ten year old." (Yes! I remember walking into my classrooms and seeing the new books on the teacher's desk and/or along the long shelf under the window.)
  • Rating on Amazon: 3.8 stars (out of 5)
  • Amazon review excerpt: In 2013, Mark Geary wrote: "I was about eight years old when I bought this book from a Scholastic Book Fair, and it was probably my favorite book for the longest time. ... While there were other collections and anthologies put together over the years from Scholastic, 'Chilling Ghost Stories' still stands out as the best, at least, the best to me. I recently was able to get a copy and after 35+ years, I went back and read it. The book still holds up fairly well, and I look forward to sharing it with my Grandchildren."
  • Another view: Kristi Petersen Schoonover raved about this book on her blog in 2011, concluding "Even if you’re an adult, you’ll want to own this. I can guarantee a scare in under three minutes. And if you’re as busy as I am — well, then there’s a certain beauty in that, too." [Her blog is still going strong, too.]

What vintage Scholastic books most say
"October" or "Halloween" to you? 
Share your memories in the comments section.

I believe this is Socks' first photo appearance on Papergreat 

Sunday, October 6, 2024

Postcard: The haunted hotel that spooks Bryce Harper

This vintage Micro-Color postcard features the "friendly lobby" of The Pfister Hotel Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It opened in 1893, has the largest hotel collection of Victorian art in the world and has AAA Four Diamond standing.

And it's haunted.

According to HauntedUS.com, the list of paranormal occurrences at the Pfister include electronic devices, such as TVs and radios, turning on and off without warning; sounds of mysterious footsteps; apparition sightings in hallways; knockings that cannot be accounted for; and even objects moving around.

The hotel also spooks a lot of visiting Major League Baseball players when they stay in Milwaukee for games against the Brewers. Some players even refuse to stay there again.

In a Halloween 2021 article on MLB.com, Michael Clair details some of the stories that baseball players (by definition a superstitious lot) say they have experienced at the Pfister. You should go read the whole article. But, for an appetizer, here's the story about the Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper, from his days as a member of the Washington Nationals:
"While staying in the Pfister in 2012, Harper had laid out his shirt and pants on a table by the end of the bed before going to sleep for the night.

"'When I woke up in the morning — I swear on everything — the clothes were on the floor and the table was on the opposite side of the room against the wall, Harper said. "I was so flustered. I honestly thought there might be someone in my room. I had no idea what the hell just happened, so I actually looked around, and then I checked to see if the door was still latched, and it was.'

"Harper thought that perhaps it was a prank from a teammate, but no one came forward. The slugger then requested to be moved to a different room."
(Hopefully they didn't move him to 237 or 1408.)