Stephen Carver – författare

Selected and introduced by Stephen Carver'Of living creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch, few if any can hope to equal the versatile Arthur Machen.’ – H.P. Lovecraft.There upon the floor was a dark and putrid mass, seething with corruption and hideous rottenness, neither liquid nor solid, but melting and changing before our eyes, and bubbling with unctuous oily bubbles like boiling pitch. And out of the midst of it shone two burning points like eyes…A mysterious beauty leaves a trail of suicides in her wake; an innocent child is indoctrinated into witchcraft and depravity; the bowmen of Agincourt come to the aid of the British Expeditionary Force; animals inexplicably start killing people; and a fragment of Paradise randomly manifests in a London suburb… Welcome to the weird world of Arthur Machen, a writer that H.P. Lovecraft hailed as a ‘Master of Horror.’ Machen fervently believed in a mystical and eternal reality hidden beyond the veil of ordinary existence, that could be glimpsed by those who knew how to look. Sometimes the revelation would be beautiful, sometimes terrible. Using the mediums of horror and weird fantasy, Machen set out to unlock these visions of ‘Sorcery and sanctity.’This collection comprises the majority of Machen’s short horror fiction, including his Decadent masterpiece The Great God Pan, his tales of the malevolent ‘Little People’ still living beneath the mountains and valleys of his native Wales, and the chilling novella The Terror.Full contents:Strange Story of a Red Jar The AutophoneA Double ReturnThe Lost ClubThe Great God PanThe Inmost LightThe Shining PyramidNovel of the Black SealNovel of the Iron MaidNovel of the White PowderThe Red Hand The White PeopleThe BowmenThe Soldiers’ Rest The Monstrance The Great Return Out of the Earth The Terror The Happy Children Ornaments in Jade: -The Rose Garden -The Turanians -The Idealist -Witchcraft -The Ceremony -Psychology -Torture -Midsummer -Nature -The Holy Things Opening the Door The Bright Boy The Children of the Pool The Exalted Omega Out of the Picture Change The Cosy Room N The Dover Road Ritual Appendix: Introduction to The Bowmen

From Marlon Brando’s brooding leather-clad rebel in The Wild One to the dusty apocalypse of Mad Max and Furiosa, biker movies have roared across the screen for over seventy years. Hell on Wheels: A History of Biker Movies is the first comprehensive cultural study of this wild, unruly, and often misunderstood genre.Covering almost 300 films, this book explores every aspect of biker cinema: the juvenile delinquent films of the 1950s, the outlaw exploitation cycle of the ’60s, British kitchen sink rocker dramas and mod revival movies, racing films, horror hybrids, and the post-apocalyptic madness of Maxploitation. Along the way, it argues that five landmark films—The Wild One, The Wild Angels, Easy Rider, Quadrophenia, and Mad Max 2—define the genre, with everything that followed riding in their slipstream. It closes as it begins with The Bikeriders, a hyper-real period piece that returns to the ethos of The Wild One.Unusually for film criticism, the book also identifies the motorcycles themselves whenever possible, offering enthusiasts a rare level of detail. With an encyclopedic scope, some films are closely analysed while others are briskly summarised, creating a fast-paced yet authoritative history.Illustrated with 125 rare colour and black and white stills, lobby cards, and posters, Hell on Wheels is both serious film history and an irreverent joyride through the underbelly of popular culture. It’s essential reading for lovers of mainstream and cult film, motorcycle riders and fans, and anyone fascinated by cinema’s long romance with life on two wheels.

William Harrison Ainsworth (1805 - 1882) is probably the most successful 19th Century writer that most people haven't heard of. Journalist, essayist, poet and, most of all, historical novelist, Ainsworth was a member of the early-Victorian publishing elite, and Charles Dickens's only serious commercial rival until the late-1840s, his novels Rookwood and Jack Shepherd beginning a fashion for tales of Georgian highwaymen and establishing the legend of Dick Turpin firmly in the National Myth. He was in the Dickens' circle before it was the Dickens' circle and counted among his friends the literary lions of his age: men like Charles Lamb, J.G. Lockhart, Leigh Hunt, W.M. Thackeray and, of course, Dickens; the publishers Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley; and the artists Sir John Gilbert, George Cruikshank, and 'Phiz' (Hablot K. Browne). He also owned and edited Bentley's Miscellany (whose editorship he assumed after Dickens), the New Monthly Magazine, and Ainsworth's Magazine. In his heyday, Ainsworth commanded a massive audience until a moral panic - the so-called 'Newgate Controversy' - about the supposedly pernicious effects on working class youth of the criminal romances on which his reputation was built effectively destroyed his reputation as a serious literary novelist.

He told more about it to the priest than to others. He certainly had a secret to tell. He might as well have divulged it frankly, for the neighbours all knew well enough that it was the face of dead Ellen Coleman that he had seen. – J.S. Le FanuI felt a strange creeping sensation as I looked up the vast black staircase, wide enough for a coach to drive down, and at the heavy darkness bending over it like a curse. – Rosa MulhollandOn and on he glided, like an evil shadow, the very darkness seeming to loathe him as he passed. – Oscar WildeTo walk through Irish history is to pass through a haunted landscape. Perhaps that’s why so many of Ireland’s finest writers found themselves drawn to the ghost story. This collection includes the work of canonical figures like Bram Stoker, J.S. Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde, and W.B. Yeats, but also a wealth of lesser-known authors like Charlotte Riddell and Rosa Mulholland who were once bestsellers but are now unjustly neglected, all with a keen sense of Ireland’s haunted character.Each story in this collection is presented with its original publication details, so readers can see exactly where and when it first appeared, and a brief biography of its author. Together, they offer a fascinating cross-section of Ireland’s literary relationship with the supernatural.