Black Static

Today's contributor is Mark Harding, who edited the anthology Music For Another World, which is released by Mutation Press this month, with Aliette de Bodard, Vaughan Stanger, Jim Steel and Neil Williamson among the contributors, and there's a launch party in Edinburgh on the 14^th, so click the link below for details of that.

This is Mark's contribution to our 'Anthology Month':-

I have a theory that the books that shape your reading life are the ones you read between the ages of 8 and 18. The important book for me was A Century Of Creepy Stories, edited by - depending where on the web you look it up - Anonymous, or Sir Huge Walpole, or Lady Cynthia Asquith.

I lived with that book for years. At first it was kept in the attic because the image of the shrouded skeleton that was embossed on the hard cover was too frightening to have anywhere else in the house. I remember my pride when I felt grown up enough to bring the book downstairs and open it up. It was the biggest (certainly the thickest) book I'd ever handled. The pages were stained with age and smelt of dust and mildew. I assumed the book was at least 300 years old (it was probably 1940s). It felt like opening a portal into ancient secrets. It took me years to work through it. The book was a constant goad to improve my reading age.

I don't have a copy now. I haven't seen it for probably 35 years. When I look it up on the web there's an impressive list of contributors, including: Algernon Blackwood, Honore De Balzac, Ambrose Bierce, Charles Dickens, Arthur Machen, Elizabeth Bowen, J. M. Barrie. But more to the point, I still remember the stories. Ones like 'The Rocking Horse Winner', by D. H. Lawrence - my first realisation that psychodramas could exist between parents; H. G. Wells' 'The Country Of The Blind', L. P. Hartley's 'The Travelling Grave', M. R . James' 'Rats', the troubling (in more ways than one!) 'Amorous Ghost' of Enid Bagnold, and three Poe classics. Mind you, aren't all his stories classics?

Of course, this book was published before Arts Marketing invented genres. Is Wells' 'The Country Of The Blind' horror or science fiction? Is D. H. Lawrence's 'The Rocking Horse Winner' a ghost story or a satire on money?

It's only now that I recognise its influence on me - how I particularly enjoy horror stories that are also mixed with another form, such as a travelogue, or a study of a lifestyle that I'm not familiar with. (Joe Hill is my current favourite for this.)

I'm new to editing. My first project was the anthology Music For Another World (Mutation Press), 19 stories of science fiction and fantasy on the theme of music. Having thought about my desert island book, I see its (I hope) un-baleful influence on me as an editor. The fantasy stories selected are all 'creepy stories' - they all mix in horror and ghosts (including some of the SF ones) - and all of them mix in another type of story altogether.

Well, planning for the coming rise of the waters, I've ordered a second hand copy of A Century Of Creepy Stories from the web. I hope it has the right smell...