Book cover: "The Haunted Mountain" by Mollie Hunter

Sorry it's been so long between posts.¹

• Title: The Haunted Mountain
• Author: Mollie Hunter (1922-2012). Her full name was Maureen Mollie Hunter McIlwraith and she was known for her fantasy-tinged tales that are inspired by Scottish history or folklore. Her 2012 obituary in The Scotsman notes: "She produced most of her books from her home in Milton, a small village near Drumnadrochit in the Highlands, becoming totally immersed in her characters. ... Mollie spent a great deal of her time touring schools and libraries and was made particularly welcome in the United States."
• Illustrator and dust jacket designer: Trevor Ridley, who also illustrated at least one Ruth Manning-Sanders book (Stories from the English and Scottish Ballads).
• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
• Publication date: 1972 (my copy is the 1974 reprint edition)
• Pages: 127
• Format: Hardcover
• Dust jacket price: £2 net
• Provenance: This book once belonged to Mary Lou White and it has an inscription from the author: "For Mary Lou, Best wishes from Mollie Hunter. 11/7/78"
• Dust jacket excerpt: "There is no doubt that the mountain called Ben MacDui in the Highlands of Scotland is haunted, as this story of MacAllister tells. MacAllister lived long ago in those parts, and he was a very stubborn man. He ignored the Skeelie Woman's² warning not to defy the strange creatures that went by name of 'the Good People' — fairy people they would have been called in English, though they were not at all as fairies are sometimes imagined to be."
• Excerpt #1: MacAllister had a good distance to travel to Peigi-Ann's home — five or six hours riding altogether, in fact — for the track to it was by way of a lairig, as they call a mountain pass, and this lairig was a long one that cut right through the Cairngorm Mountains . The Lairig Ghru — the Gloomy Pass — it is called, for it is a wild and desolate lace and even in high summer that are stretches of it that never see the sun.
• Excerpt #2: "I want more of these!" the Skeelie Woman exclaimed, holding up her fist with the little store of cairngorms clenched in it. "Bring me more of them Fergus — bring me a great double handful of them! If I cannot be part of the world of the sidhe, I want some of the treasure that belongs to it."
• Excerpt #3: The heap of grey stone that was once An Ferla Mor is easy to see among the red granite rock of Ben MacDui, and the lost jewels still lie where they fell around it. The gleaming gold of them among the rocks is easy to see, too, and anyone who chooses may climb the mountain to gather them. However, it would have to be a very brave person indeed who did this ...
• Rating on Goodreads: 4.18 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review: In 2018, Bridgett Leslie wrote: "I read this as a child, and it struck me enough that I have remembered it over the years. It was fun to re-read it as an adult. It did not frighten me the way it did when I read it as a nine-year-old, but it was still enjoyable."
• Rating on Amazon: a sterling 4.9 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review excerpt #1: In 2009, Jo J wrote: "Was disappointed with the quality of books available for my kids ages 7 and 9 and looked for books I read as a child that were fun and clean. Was pleased to find Haunted Mountain for them. It has a great mix of adventure, fantasy, mystery, and fright that is perfect for kids."
• Amazon review excerpt #2: In 2004, Laura Day wrote: "Only true bibliophiles will understand when I ask: Do you remember those books that touched you when you were young? Those that simply spurred you to read further and become a genuine book lover? The Haunted Mountain was mine. It was a book that I read and promptly lost, and couldn't for the life of me remember the author's name or the title! It was a labor of love trying to discover this book for the second time! After countless internet searches I have finally found it! Mollie Hunter is amazing! ... There are elements of magic, love, lore, and sacrifice woven expertly throughout Hunter's novel. This book is an absolute jewel!"
• Another good review: Check out Nick Campbell, who calls it "a cosy novel for the autumn months."

Footnotes

1. In a nutshell, on top of work, I've spent the past month taking care of two dozen indoor cats (four of whom had/have health issues and multiple veterinarian visits), the outdoor feral cats who are trying to weather the 110-degree heat (Mamacita, Creamsicle, Splash, Yinzer, Meowmix and Marmalade), a fledgling raven named Poe who was blown here during a dust storm and now comes for daily snacks alongside the wary cats, a gaggle of baby skunks (one of whom jumped into the pool three times, requiring three rescues) and a raccoon the size of Godzilla. In good news, former outdoor-cat Gumball has made an excellent adjustment to living inside among the other cats. 

2. "Skeelie wife" is an old Scottish term for a woman credited with great or supernatural ability to cure ailments. Their duties often involved assisting in the delivery of babies. And the skeelie wives themselves were often thought to be half-human/half-fairy.

Snapshot & memories: Down the shore

I'm estimating that this photo is from 1978 or 1979. My sister Adriane and I are at the Stone Harbor, New Jersey, beach house of our friends from Delaware County, the Mancills. We look very spiffy in our matching sweaters, which tell us that this wasn't taken in the middle of the summer. I don't know if I can say anything nice about either of our pants, though.

I have three specific down-the-shore memories that involve crabs:

1. When I was very young and at the beach, I would dig holes all afternoon and be fascinated by the sand crabs (aka mole crabs) that I uncovered. They were about the size of marbles and quite harmless; I remember they'd tickle your hands if you let them squiggle through.

2. The Mancills' house was along a large inlet and you could lower crab traps off the backyard retaining wall during high tide. We'd catch all sorts of things, not just crabs. Definitely a few flounder. And I think a starfish or two, though my memory is hazier on that. One time we caught a small "regular" crab and it escaped the trap when we brought it up and started to scamper along the ground. I got too close and its claw grabbed my finger, which caused a mini meltdown on my part. Mom loved telling that story.

3. But the major meltdown on my part came the first time we pulled up the trap and there was a horseshoe crab inside. I was not prepared. I had never heard of horseshoe crabs. I had never seen a horseshoe crab. And then suddenly this thing with no face and a spike protruding from the back was in the cage. I screamed and cried, leading to me getting teased about the incident for decades thereafter, even long after I learned what amazing and harmless creatures they truly are. 

Other snapshots and memories          

• Adorable little me on Mulberry Street
• Kitchen at Willow Street house in Montoursville
• Me and Pop-Pop in the kitchen
• Commodore 64 corner
• (Missing) snapshot & memories: Thanksgiving
• Me & Cyrano
• Me in a Star Trek shirt
• All kids do these days is play video games
• Posing with a Saturn V in 1982
• The Phillies are hot, and so was I
• Relocated fire engine in Montoursville
• Family outfits of 1972
• Our little bookstore
• Well-dressed for first day of nursery school
• At the Penn State computer lab

Monetizing liberty (1911 postcard)

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness — sure.

But the most truly American thing of all is the pursuit of making a buck.

This looks like a nice postcard that's patriotically highlighting the Liberty Bell, one of the foremost symbols of the United States' struggle for independence. Upon closer examination, the text of the front of the card states: 

"Proclaimed liberty throughout the world. The ENTERPRISE Meat and Food Chopper proclaimed to housewives liberty from the old fashing chopping bowl."

It's an advertisement, y'all. The postcard was published by Souvenir Post Card Company and printed in New York. This one was postmarked on October 24, 1911 — 115 years ago, a few years before World War I — and mailed to Mr. William Bixler of Lickdale, Pennsylvania with a one-cent Benjamin Franklin stamp. Maybe William was considering buying an Enterprise Meat and Food Chopper for his wife as a Christmas present. You know, to give his wife the gift of some "liberty."

The text on the back states:

"There will be a greater profit from pork products this Fall than from hogs on the hoof. Equip now with an ENTERPRISE Sausage Stuffer and Lard Press. Longest service — more profitable all the time. Air cannot enter the casing. 

"Enterprise Meat and Food Chopper. Retains all the juices, because it does not mangle the material, but cuts like shears. Come in and let us show them to you.

"George Krause Hdwe. Co.

Lebanon, Pa."

Having outlived their use to capitalism, Enterprise's choppers and grinders and stuffers are now just offered on the resale market as antiques. Well, I guess that's capitalism, too. Folks trying to make a buck off pieces of the past. Maybe the Liberty Bell will end up in an auction some day, too. (Don't mind me, I'm just grumpy as I write this.)

Arizona's bicentennial meteor crater

While we're slouching toward the next month's semiquincentennial — 45.5% of respondents to an LNP | LancasterOnline poll said they were "indifferent" to America's 250th birthday as it undergoes what is arguably a slow civil war — the celebrations of the United States' bicentennial were much more robust in 1976. 

For example, Arizona's famous Meteor Crater had its own bicentennial-branded postcard 50 years ago. 

Published by Petley Studios¹ of Phoenix, printed by Dexter Press and with a photograph courtesy of American Airlines, the back of the postcard has a somewhat amusing caption:

"The world's best-preserved impact-collision crater pocks the earth about six miles south of U.S. No. 66 between Flagstaff and Winslow, Arizona. Energies released to form this crater (sixty stories deep and 4,150 feet in diameter) were greater than our nuclear blasts. Diamonds were formed instantly, limestone was popped like popcorn, and iron meteorite was vaporized."

Footnote

1. Anne L'Ecuyer's blog The Posted Past ("We trade loneliness for connection, one postcard at a time") has an excellent, detailed post about the history of Petley Studios. It begins: "Bob Petley launched Petley Studios in 1945 with twelve comic postcards. Then, he spent the next four decades photographing the mid-century Southwest from behind a windshield."

Related posts

• Hoping to see UFOs for 1976 bicentennial Independence Day
• Some Phillies Fever from the Bicentennial summer of 1976

Another George Manning-Sanders novel surfaces

I suspect I may be the only one keeping track of such things, but another novel by George Manning-Sanders (1880 or 1881 to 1953, when he died at age 72) for which there's no online record has popped up. (I had both his birth year and death wrong in previous Papergreat posts, by the way.)

I discovered Little Comfort via a listing on eBay. According to the photos and item description, it was published in 1932 by Grayson & Grayson of London. It must be exceedingly rare.

It joins 1930's The Third Day (also published as The Burnt Man) and 1929's Drum and Monkey as confirmed novels by George Manning-Sanders. These may very well be his only three published books, as he was more known as an artist.

The gorgeous dust jacket illustration of Little Comfort seems to promise a tale of life in a rural English town, but who knows? It's a little hard to tell given the level of resolution, but there is what appear to be the initials GM toward the lower right of the cover illustration. So perhaps it's by George himself?

Here's an excerpt from my copy of Drum and Monkey that I randomly turned to:

"Bickford Honey, aged seventeen years, the product of care and the source of contention, strolled in the evening of a summer day toward the home of Mr. Mason. In his trousers pocket there were a few pence, his hat set jauntily on the back of his head, he felt that life was good."

Related posts

• The jaw-dropping dust jackets of George Manning-Sanders' novels
• Jaw-dropping dust jackets of George Manning-Sanders' novels, Part 2
• George Manning-Sanders' short obituary from 1953
• Happy 130th birthday, Ruth Manning-Sanders

Saturday's hand-painted postcard

This colorful handmade postcard arrived this week from Benilde, a Postcrossing member in Spain who is a cook. She also enjoys stamp collecting, architecture, jazz and the restoration of antique furniture, all of which sound like wonderful hobbies that don't require staring at a handheld screen all day. We should all send more postcards, but especially handpainted ones like this. I need to up my art game! 

From 1976: computers & kindness

Browsing through this 1976 edition of Grolier's The New Book of Knowledge Annual, which I really do have to prune, along with a few other similar hefty-size tomes, I came across a few things worth sharing.

First up is an article about KIND, aka the Kindness Club. The Kindness Club, a humane organization, was founded in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1959. The Human Society of the United States took responsibility for the U.S. youth clubs and branded them KIND — Kindness In Nature's Defense.

"To carry out the club's program, members are encouraged to help fight against the abuse of animals. And members do more than speak out when they see evidence of cruelty to animals; they follow their words with actions," the Grolier's article states.

For an update, Wikipedia adds: "In 2009, the Kindness Club's 50th anniversary year, most of its members were in Canada. Continuing to base itself on [Albert] Schweitzer's reverence for life philosophy, the club promotes humane education for children and contributes to local initiatives including subsidized spay/neuter programs and donations of pet food to food banks."

Given that I took a break while putting this post together to take a bowl of food to a skunk on the back patio, I think I might qualify to be in the Kindness Club. 

Meanwhile, another page in this book from a half-century ago touts the emergence of a computer's "artistic skills." 

"This portrait is 'painted' by a computer," the caption states. "It is made up of about 200 separate squares, each in one of 16 shades of gray. The portrait is part of an experiment being carried out by Bell Laboratories 'to learn the least amount of visual information a picture may contain and still be recognizable.' Have someone hold the page about 15 feet (5 meters) away from you, and squint your eyes. Hint: the subject of the portrait was president of the United States during its most critical period."

Indeed, if you hold the computer portrait further away, you can imagine an extremely low-res Abraham Lincoln. 

While the short caption doesn't mention it, the computer programmer for this Lincoln 'portrait' was Leon Harmon. And the image inspired Salvador Dalí to create a famous lithograph (though that's not quite the right description) that has been much-counterfeited. 

I couldn't help but think of how all of this relates to one of the most contentious ideas of our modern moment: generative AI taking the work of human writers and artists and creating "new" content that is just a facsimile of human originality. AI slop barreling toward model collapse.

I saw Backrooms with Ashar a couple days ago, and afterward I struck by this insight about the horror movie from writer Bianca Michelle Parker on Bluesky: "Saw Backrooms. Pretty hard not to read it as an allegory for AI. The Backrooms seem massive and fascinating at a cursory glance, but ultimately just regurgitate stuff at random. They have no meaning, insight or significance and are only of continued interest to those who have no capacity for growth."

I think that's just one of many interesting angles to touch upon regarding Kane Parsons' well-done film about eerie liminal spaces. I'm fascinated and invigorated by how millennials view and try to recreate the 1980s and 1990s. Why they are nostalgic for an era they didn't live through. What they view from those decades as the beginnings of what's gone sideways in the 21st century. And it goes hand in hand with the love some millennials have for "old" physical media, from the world before the internet and smartphones. There's a lot more I hope to dig into.

To end on a completely different note, here's a cool photograph of Bobby Clarke of the 1975 Stanley Cup champion Philadelphia Flyers from the Grolier's book.

From the readers: Montoursville, Skyrim, Africa and much more

I have some catching up to do, because it's the first "From the readers" of 2026 and the first once since early November. Thank you, as always, for your comments and insights! 

Montoursville 2018: My schools (Part 3): Anonymous writes: "Hello Chris. Mr. Derr also showed me (us?) 'Chariots of the Gods' on reel to reel. lol. Hence starting my lifelong interest in UFO topic."

Thanks for commenting! That's pretty hilarious, the idea of a science teacher showing a film about Erich von Däniken's dubious theories regarding ancient astronauts — pseudoscientific theories that weren't even originally his! 

This also reminds me that I was a student at C.E. McCall Middle School in early 1982 when everyone was buzzing in the hallways about The Jupiter Effect — the idea that we were going to suffer great cataclysms on Earth when all of the planets "aligned" on March 10, 1982. As it turned out, we survived. But, hey, those two guys sold a lot of books about it.

Related posts:

• 1967 advertisement for a flying saucer lamp in Saucer News (which contains links to all of the other UFO posts)
• Sunday evening ramblings
• Vintage, foreboding religious tract: The Mark of the Beast

Friday nostalgia: Who remembers 1970s flip-it cartoon books? RickA writes: "Thank you for this post. The memory of this was vague. I couldn't recall what the main book was like — but I distinctly remember the 'flip-book' portion of these. You (and Google AI) helped answer that question and also helped me recall the fun I had with these. I know we had two of them. Now to search for more with your blog helping me start my journey."

You're welcome! I like to think of Papergreat the start of many internet journeys! 

Ringing in the holly-jolly month with a vintage Christmas postcard: Tom from Garage Sale Finds writes: "I have a few Christmas postcards postmarked late on Christmas Eve and I always think of that postman working late on Christmas Eve, stamping postcards (not sure if there was machine for that by then) and thinking how he'd like to wrap things up and get home."

Old postcard featuring Markleton Sanatorium in Somerset County, Pa.: Anonymous writes: "I live on the property where the building was and I know there isn't anything there."

Reader submission: Amazing collection of vintage Cheerful Cards: Anonymous writes: "I remember selling these fondly. I had a suitcase full and sold individual cards as well as boxes. Walked or rode my bike around the neighborhood. Actually sold Cheerful and one other now national company. I still have my business cards from the early to mid 60’s. I am now 71 years old."

Thank you for sharing those memories! 

Holiday hanky from Peoples Laundry & Dry Cleaning: Anonymous writes: "My Father, John Paleczny, started Handy Hanky Inc. in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He expanded to the U.S with a shop in Niagara Falls, N.Y. He passed away in January 1962 and the family sold the business to Mr. Harry Hosey of Old Hickory, Tenn."

Thank you for sharing this information! I hope it helps anyone else who might be doing internet journeys into this topic.

Lost Corners: The Skyrim dog tale: Anonymous writes: "Thank you for this. I read the original a long time ago, and wanted to revisit it. Googling 'twitter skyrim adopt a dog' brought me right here."

You're welcome. And I'm glad for any opportunity to repost this image I made of Coby inside a video game.

Victorian trade card for Partridge & Richardson's Bee Hive: EC writes: "Thank you so much for this informative post! I was trying to learn about another trade card from this business; I thought the business itself was Bee Hive, lol!"

Intellivision's "Night Stalker," my first survival horror video game: Anonymous writes: "I can still hear the heartbeat ... playing under all the action and other sounds. Very thematic! So good after all these years ... they did a lot with so very little."

My grandmother's 1982 trip to Africa: Ray from the Along the Ray blog writes: "Talk about.a small world — back in the early 90s I typesetted Holbrook Travel's newsletters that were mailed to their customers. They are still around and rocking it. Thanks for sharing, I enjoy your posts and get them via your RSS feed in my RSS reader."

Oh wow! A small world indeed. This was certainly not a post I expected to connect with someone. Thank you for reading Papergreat! (Also, you and I are in the dwindling group of folks who know what typesetting is.)

Book cover: Ida Chittum's "Tales of Terror" (1975): Anonymous writes: "A fascinating and colorful look at the books, life and mind of an authentic writer and storyteller from a wild and lost world. Full of beauty and mystery."

Who wants to join me in buying a crumbling, haunted British estate? Henry Thompson asks: "Does anyone know who now owns Downe Court Manor? I lived there in the 1960s. The ghost photo through the trees was taken by my father. If you do know who owns the place these days? I have some 18th and 19th century documents relating to the house and the Selby-Smyth family, and these may be of interest to the owner. email: hodt11@gmail.com"

Old photo postcard of Brackenhurst Hall in Southwell: And here's another query: "My grandfather worked there as butler for Lord and Lady Hickling. My mother was born in one of estate cottages in 1920 and her two sisters several years later. I lived at No. 1 Home Farm and spent my childhood there.

My father was the head herdsman following WWII —1973. Or thereabouts. There were quite a few families living in the farm houses. The Millards, Paul Millard whom I played with in school holidays, the Thicketts, their daughter had polio and her father was a lecturer, Mr. & Mrs. Lythe, Farm Principle, Mr. & Mrs. Mee next door to Number 1 our house. Contact me at (apaws4chat@gmail.com) if you would like to chat more about Brackenhurst."

The (new) oddest stuff I've found tucked inside a book: Commenting on this 2012 post, Anonymous writes: "Thank you for your research. I found several skeins of embroidery floss at a thrift store from Cynthia Mills. I am so happy to know more about the Mill"

Luckyday buttons — the talk of the town: Anonymous writes: "I have 2 cards, both with the 6 buttons, strawberry blonde hair, red hat with white flower. Also have a Lady Washington Pearls, 6 blue men's shirt buttons. The man on this card has a white shirt, red tie, and is holding a golf club."

RIP Art Bell, of the Kingdom of Nye: This feels like a good one to bookend with the first comment in this roundup. Commenting on this 2018 post, Anonymous writes: "Listened to him as a kid laying down in the back seat of our car as my family drove home late night. Today I’m 65 years old and I listen to his podcasts nearly every light. Can’t get enough. Love ya Art!"