Category Archives: horror

Dear Edgar 36 – The Masque of the Red Death

In the world of art there are many indisputable masterworks. True masterpieces that transcend the art world. Van Gothe’s Sunflowers. DeVince’s Mono Lisa. Vermeer’s Girl with a pearl earring. Goya’s The nude Maja, Giorgione’s The Sleeping Venus, that one by … Continue reading

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Researching Lovecraft

So here me, back up to my neck with old tentacle hugger, getting annoyed at him. Just like old times… thus here are a few ‘notables’ which will probably find the cutting room floor in the end but have amused me for one reason or another in the meantime. Continue reading

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It Watches…

I have no recollection of writing this, it is just a thing that exists in the scraps folder on my one drive. I know I wrote it but not when or why. Sometimes my mind is delightful… Others… Well, I … Continue reading

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Dear Edgar ~ 24 The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion

In 1831, some 8 years before dear Edgar put pen to paper to scribe this tale, Reverend William Miller predicted the world would end with the second coming of Christ within thirteen years, and thus founded his own religious movement Millerism. As the date of what he termed ‘The Second Advent’ approached his movement grew from a small obscure movement in the early 1830’s to becomes a large national movement of up to half a million people. While Miller himself refused to nail down the actual date most became convinced its would be mid April 1844. Continue reading

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Dear Edgar ~23 William Wilson

“In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see … how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.” William Wilson is a tale with more than one interpretation, which possibly accounts for the remarkable number of adaptions of a story which is … Continue reading

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Dear Edgar #22 The Fall of the House of Usher

The themes of three earlier stories in particular are each echoed in this story, those being Morella, Berenice and Ligeia. Which is not to say that Edgar was obsessed with putting female characters into soporific states that seem death like, decaying, and wasting away, but it is a theme that comes up time and time again in the early tales. What is odd is that these themes were so prevalent before the wasting disease that would take his wife from him not many years later was diagnosed. Equally the male characters in all these stories react to these tragedies with obsession and madness that echoes how the death of Victoria was to plunge him into a deep alcohol fuelled depression and began his own downward spiral to an early grave.

Occasionally life imitates art in dreadful ways. Continue reading

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The Cultist Prayer

I was raised in The Church of England and thus I learned The lords prayer by rote, as one does when your are sent off to Sunday school every Sunday to listen to bible stories and be taught about the great beard in the sky, my prospective salvation, hell and what not…

I am sure those raised in the Cult of Cthulhu experience much the same. Continue reading

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Dear Edgar #19 The Devil in the Belfry

Order is a wonderful thing, there is a genuine joy to waking up on a morning and knowing there will be breakfast in the cupboard, because there is always breakfast in the cupboard. There is a safety and some would … Continue reading

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Love, Death and Witchcraft

A couple of short reviews for sequels to books I have previously reviewed. That is the brief here. No waffling on about anything, just do the reviews… Have I ever mentioned I hate sequels. As a writer that is, not … Continue reading

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Hope is not eternal

All things end, some with a whimper, some with a bang, some too early, some too late, but all things end. The default state of the universe is entropy, and no story is complete until the final line. And so … Continue reading

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