Tag Archives: horror

Dear Edgar ~23 William Wilson

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Mark Hayes

“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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Terrifying Joy from the Forests of Flanders

Posted on November 20, 2024 by Mark Hayes

Terrifying joys, and glimpses into Europe’s our collective cultural past. For while these are all Flemish tales, they are tales that are echoed throughout Europe. Which is only natural, as travels tell tales of their homelands and those tales get retold and made anew. A such this book is tales of the kind told around the camp fire, on the edge of the woods, with twilight all around. Told to frighten, and to warn. The woods are dark, the wise do not wander there.

But who wants to be wise… Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar #22 The Fall of the House of Usher

Posted on October 27, 2024 by Mark Hayes

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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Dear Edgar #17 Ligeia

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Mark Hayes

And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the … Continue reading →

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Books of the year 2023 Edition

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Mark Hayes

As with last year this may be slightly early, as there is a fair chance I’ll read a couple more before the end of the year. (in fact I know I will as there are a couple I am reading … Continue reading →

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Love, Death and Witchcraft

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Mark Hayes

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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Dear Edgar #12 King Pest

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Mark Hayes

King Pest is also a bit of an odd ball, even amongst other Poe stories. It reveals in description and the grotesque to a far greater extent than even Poe’s usual work. While the story is something akin to a nightmarish romp through a plague ridden London. Think of it as the literary equivalent of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Continue reading →

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Strange wonders

Posted on July 25, 2023 by Mark Hayes

Tales of Sanctimonious cults, another of a strange tower that do not want to be seen. A story of madness and elder gods returning in the Tees valley, a tale of a magician appointed to the court of Victoria Sax-Coberg. The strange statement of a life repeating in waves of twenty-seven, a tale of a wyrd in the western deserts cira 1850, a story with Sigmond Freud in a rowing boat and finally Hannibal Smyth, who is his as reliably honest as ever, while carrying and aspidistra. Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar #9 Morella

Posted on July 6, 2023 by Mark Hayes

Our own Dear Edgar is, as you are probably aware, much beloved by those who favour clothing themselves in black, wearing dark eye-shadow and catching moon moths while they dance to ‘This Corrosion’. Some might say this is because he and his story’s have a reputation for more than a fleeting obsession with tragedy, love and death. That and his poetry, obsessed with tragedy, love and death…

This is of course an unfair summing up of Poe’s body of work, in some stories no one comes to a tragic appalling end… Continue reading →

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Dear Edgar #8 Berenice

Posted on June 28, 2023 by Mark Hayes

 …she roaming carelessly through life with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice! — I call upon her name — Berenice! — and from the grey ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah! vividly is her image before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh! gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh! Sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! Continue reading →

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