Claude Askew (1865–1917)

A really terrible book. Written in the Edwardian era it is a collection of club tales about various spirits. The Vance of the title is a sort of sensitive for those passed beyond and his sidekick Dexter is the chronicler. Vance is not really a psychic detective like Carnacki by William Hope Hodgson, but just an aristocratic guy who sees ghosts all the time. His ghosts are rarely malignant and the fact that they exist is taken for granted by just about everyone. It seems that people were more credulous in the Edwardian era.

Anyway, the thing is a sort of novella parceled out as a string of loosely connected stories. Vance is just recalling old experiences in the first half but then asks Dexter to come along for the ride as new experiences arise. The stories themselves are truly bad, full of hackneyed plot devices and various genre tropes, however the whole has a certain quaint by the fireplace charm.

Nobody, including toddlers, would be frightened by any of this, as the stories read more like Edwardian fairy stories with the sprites replaced by spooks. There is some thickly veiled moral ambiguity that wouldn’t be present in most Victorian tales of this kind.

I actually didn’t hate it like I should have.… (mais)

I’ve been picking up all the books in this series as they show up in the used bookstore near my home. So, I bought this one as well. I started reading it shortly after purchasing it, because it sounded like it would be a bit like Sherlock Holmes investigates supernatural cases. At the time that concept sounded appealing. However, it just didn’t pan out. The stories in this collection were mildly interesting at best. They did little to capture the imagination and for short stories they sure did seem to drag on.

That said, I did find the final story (The Fear) well worth the rest of the book. “The Fear” was a great little ghost story which made my hair stand on end a couple of times while reading it. It was good at building suspense and keeping it going for the entire story until near the end. Sadly even this story had a large fault. The ending didn’t live up to the rest of the story. But even with that problem this one story was really good. I can’t say I’d recommend this book to anyone, but I would recommend the story “The Fear”.… (mais)