The Travelling Grave and Other Stories
by L. P. Hartley
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Though best known for his classic novel of Edwardian childhood The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley was also a master of supernatural and macabre fiction, the best of which is collected in The Travelling Grave and Other Stories. This volume demonstrates Hartley's versatility, ranging from traditional ghost stories like 'Feet Foremost' and 'The Cotillon' to the wickedly black humour of the horror masterpieces 'The Travelling Grave' and 'The Killing Bottle'. Originally published in 1948 and long out show more of print, this collection features twelve of Hartley's finest tales, presented in this edition with a new introduction by John Howard. show lessTags
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Outstanding little collection of macabre stories that should be generally rated higher than it is. Hartley is a highly accomplished writer who wrote the classic non-supernatural [b:The Go-Between|258079|The Go-Between|L.P. Hartley|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320480023s/258079.jpg|1553524] as well as many other novels and stories outside the outr�� genres. Every story in this book is a classic tale and Hartley's macabre stories deserve to be better known and anthologized. My favorite is "A Visitor from Down Under" with it's punning title (the protagonist has just returned from Australia). Hartley mixes a wry gallows humor in with the truly horrifying, without the humor blunting the edge of the tale.
I read a lot of stories and show more after decades I can often not remember the details of a particular story, but I can remember the Travelling Grave, Feet Foremost, and Three or Four, for Dinner like I read them yesterday. I like Hartley so much I invested in the expensive Tartarus Press collection despite owning this Arkham House collection. show less
I read a lot of stories and show more after decades I can often not remember the details of a particular story, but I can remember the Travelling Grave, Feet Foremost, and Three or Four, for Dinner like I read them yesterday. I like Hartley so much I invested in the expensive Tartarus Press collection despite owning this Arkham House collection. show less
I very much enjoyed this collection of Gothic and creepy stories originally released in the 1940's. I generally prefer short tales that pack a punch, and these are definitely not that. However, they often have a good deal of humor and that sense of atmosphere in which I love to wallow.
The standouts to me were:
A VISITOR FROM DOWN UNDER was, for me, a beautifully told ghost story/tale of revenge.
PODOLO A nice little day trip to the island of Podolo takes a nasty turn. This one reminded me that feral cats may not be worth the effort.
THE TRAVELLING GRAVE was quite the funny story involving a misunderstanding involving perambulators. (Is that word even used anymore? It's a shame if it's not because it's a word that rolls nicely off the show more tongue.) Anyway, the humor of the situation quickly changed to horror at the gruesome ending. Always be careful playing hide & seek!
CONRAD AND THE DRAGON I wasn't sure what to make of this fairy tale like...tale. It didn't have the usual fairy tale ending, but I found it to be totally charming.
THREE OR FOUR, FOR DINNER was another tale involving some humor and a practical joke gone wrong.
This was my first experience with L.P. Hartley and I'm so glad I gave this collection a try! Recommended!
*Thank you to Valancourt Books for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is it.* show less
The standouts to me were:
A VISITOR FROM DOWN UNDER was, for me, a beautifully told ghost story/tale of revenge.
PODOLO A nice little day trip to the island of Podolo takes a nasty turn. This one reminded me that feral cats may not be worth the effort.
THE TRAVELLING GRAVE was quite the funny story involving a misunderstanding involving perambulators. (Is that word even used anymore? It's a shame if it's not because it's a word that rolls nicely off the show more tongue.) Anyway, the humor of the situation quickly changed to horror at the gruesome ending. Always be careful playing hide & seek!
CONRAD AND THE DRAGON I wasn't sure what to make of this fairy tale like...tale. It didn't have the usual fairy tale ending, but I found it to be totally charming.
THREE OR FOUR, FOR DINNER was another tale involving some humor and a practical joke gone wrong.
This was my first experience with L.P. Hartley and I'm so glad I gave this collection a try! Recommended!
*Thank you to Valancourt Books for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is it.* show less
An excellent collection of supernatural and quiet horror. Almost every story works perfectly to reach the right pitch and deliver a clever twist or reveal to sum up the whole experience. I think anglophiles and fans of classic ghost stories will enjoy this collection a great deal.
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Author Information
47+ Works 4,357 Members
Novelist, short-story writer, and literary critic, L. P. Hartley won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1947 for Eustace and Hilda. Part of a trilogy that offers a penetrating and disturbing psychological study of what Hartley called "sisteritis" in an upper-middle-class family, the three books were described by the London Times as "unique in show more modern writing...diverting and disturbing. Beneath a surface "almost overcivilized' the reviewer found "a hollow of horror."' One of Hartley's special interests is Henry James, with whom he has been compared. In The Tragic Comedians, James Hall devotes a chapter to Hartley, who is respected but not popular in Britain, read by few in America, but praised by discerning critics in both countries: "Along with Green and Powell, Hartley has changed the direction of the comic novel, raising even more seriously than they the question of whether it remains comic at all.... His freshness consists at first in simply changing the patterns of the naturalist novel from social insights to emotional ones; yet in doing so he departs from both the older solid way of conceiving character and the more recent fluid way of conceiving consciousness." David Cecil called The Go-Between (1953) "impressive," and wrote: "Hartley is for me the first of living novelists in certain important respects; beauty of style, lyrical quality of feeling and, above all, the power and originality of his imagination, which wonderfully mingles ironic comedy, whimsical fancy and a mysterious Hawthorne-like poetry." The Novelist's Responsibility is a collection of essays and letters. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1948
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Statistics
- Members
- 87
- Popularity
- 368,488
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.80)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 6
