BleakChesneyWold

                                              A catastrophe novel from 1885  I finally caught up with local folk band Bird in the Belly at The Ropetackle, Shoreham by Sea, on 24th January 2025: The band specialise in finding obscure ballads, along with pursing the histories of lesser known subjects. The first blogpost of 'Bleak Chesney Wold'  - There Was No Hope In this World -was inspired by the Bird in the Belly song  45 George Street . And the last CD by the band 'After The City' (2022), has led to another post, this time looking at a work by Richard Jefferies. 'After London or Wild England' by Richard Jefferies (1848- 1887), published in 1885, is a most disturbing read. Sometimes classed as 'dystopian' but is probably closer to catastrophe fiction.  Opening with an unnamed narrator reports on a calamity that occurred forty years previously : Somethin...

                             Sensation fiction moving into the 20th century                                   Decided to have a blog post about the 20th century for a change.                   The British Library 'Weird Tales' collection features 13 short stories by E.F (Edward Frederick ) Benson ( 1867-1940) . Only two tales  were  published before 1900 ( Dummy on a Dahabeah 1896 and A Winters Morning 1893) and all have been previously published in collections or magazine with a reasonable circulation apart from Billy Comes Through . These exceptions are the weaker contributions. E. F. Benson, famous son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and from a literary family is most known for his Mapp and Lucia series, waspish and camp humour set in Rye, East Sussex, (light...