Friday 31 October 2008

Halloween miscellany

Journal of a Sinister Bookreader brings you a horrible literary miscellany for October 31st. From La Petite Claudine: The Commonplace Book of HP Lovecraft: "ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction". Ghosts and Scholars: Rosemary and Darroll Pardoe's site featuring a compendium of material relating to their MR James newsletter, including its archive of contemporary fiction and commentary. Ruthless Rhymes: "A site dedicated to the poetry of Harry Graham and the myriad of morbid poets he inspired". From the macabrely comic Edward Gorey: The Gashlycrumb Tinies (a Harry Graham style A-Z ); The Beastly Baby; and at Geoff Klock's blog Remarkable, an appreciation of Gorey's The Curious Sofa that despite its designation "a pornographic work by Ogdred Weary" is completely inexplicit, naive yet intensely sinister. By HH Munro ('Saki'): the classic story Sredni Vashtar, one of a number of this author's short stories (see Project Gutenberg) with a distinctly macabre turn. From Neil Gaiman's official site: Cool Stuff, various free content including the short story, A Study in Emerald (PDF), a dark inversion of the Sherlock Holmes mythos. Finally, from YouTube: Franz Kafka's "It's A Wonderful Life" (part 1 / part 2 / part 3) in which Kafka, played by Richard E Grant, attempts to find inspiration for Metamorphosis while the sinister Woland the Knifeman lurks at his door.

- Ray

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