Review -E.F Benson ' The Outcast and Other Dark Tales'


                             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, (lightly disguised as 'Tilling'), during the interwar years. In fact the 'Friends of Tilling' organisation have a useful E F Benson biography

Elements of Victorian sensation. Characters suffer, often by being trapped in isolated buildings or remote landscapes by supernatural forces that they can't outwit. And Benson, coming from a famous  Anglican family was aware of the power of temptation, and those who stray into Spiritualism, such as featured in the story The Top Landing, tend to come harm. Though the tales make use of modern devices such as radios, omnibuses, and telephones (such as Billy Comes Through and The Dance) there is a strong conservative presence: Quite a number of the lead characters are young with some cheerful source of private income without needing to work, servants tend to be deferential and know their place. There are no apparent  references to radical politics, to those caught in the Great Depression, or those wounded and bereaved by World War 1. It is the ongoing darker side of human nature and a maleficent spirit world which pose the greatest threats. 

In the world of E F Benson there are seemingly stagnant pools where the events of the past are waiting to trap the present, and start to seethe again. The Outcast features a haunting instigated by two brothers divided and destroyed during the Elizabethan persecution in a country house.And this story slowly merges into a morbid vampire tale once the sea rejects a body, leaving it to be carried to the shoreline by a compelling tide. Quite a masterpiece with hints of medieval sorcery and earnest discussions about reincarnation. The Thing in the Hall is more standard posh boys encountering spooks in the middle of the night in a country house. 

In other stories the characters join the ranks of the ghost. Such as The Dance ,featuring an old goat of a husband whose much younger secretary takes a shine to his wife. The husband dies,leaving the widow and the younger chap to marry, only to be haunted by a bitter spectre. There are instances of possible time travel, with Pirates, about a Cornish childhood, with its fatalism reaching out in adult life. The Bath Chair features the present assailed by both a supernatural past and future. Between The Lights, features  Christmas ghost stories told in a snowbound country house, also deals with dream-trance visions of a hostile past, partly triggered by a chap getting lost on a misty moor in Sutherland. 

The Flint Knife is quite well known, similar to Between the Lights in which characters are entranced and taken back to a hostile heathen world. There is no benign Pagan revival, pre-Christian sacred ritual is depicted as something quite ghastly and best avoided,whilst existing on a psychic level that is not too distant from modern times.  

This collection also includes The Passenger and The Corner House which are best described as supernatural murder, and By The Sluice  which is more of a tragic tale enhanced by premonition and fatalism. Finally The Secret Garden,based on E F Benson's own strange experience in the walled garden at Lambs House in Rye is connected to The Flint Knife. 

Overall a helpful selection to introduce more readers to E. F. Benson's collection of short stories. Recommended. 

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