This coming week is Christmas, and to celebrate I'll be posting a monster a day (including Christmas day) based on the works of E.F. Benson.
Benson was the author of mainly satire and romance novels. However, we're concerned with his short horror stories. They run the gamut from eerie chillers, comical farces and even truly Weird. His most popular horror story was The Bus-Conductor which was adapted for the British film Dead Of Night and also as a Twilight Zone episode. A repeated phrase "Room for one more" was even the basis for an urban legend and worked it's way into Oingo Boingo's song Dead Man's Party!
Lovecraft had high praise for Benson. In his book Supernatural Horror In Literature, he praised the Machen-influenced story The Man Who Went Too Far.
You may ask, why Christmas? What's the connection. Well Benson was not only a member of The Chitchat Society with M.R. James (where he witnessed him read his first two stories) and the Twice A Fortnight Group with him but the two were friends for over 50 years. So, seeing how James' ghost stories are so well loved on Christmas, I thought it only fitting to include his long time friend.
Benson was the author of mainly satire and romance novels. However, we're concerned with his short horror stories. They run the gamut from eerie chillers, comical farces and even truly Weird. His most popular horror story was The Bus-Conductor which was adapted for the British film Dead Of Night and also as a Twilight Zone episode. A repeated phrase "Room for one more" was even the basis for an urban legend and worked it's way into Oingo Boingo's song Dead Man's Party!
Lovecraft had high praise for Benson. In his book Supernatural Horror In Literature, he praised the Machen-influenced story The Man Who Went Too Far.
You may ask, why Christmas? What's the connection. Well Benson was not only a member of The Chitchat Society with M.R. James (where he witnessed him read his first two stories) and the Twice A Fortnight Group with him but the two were friends for over 50 years. So, seeing how James' ghost stories are so well loved on Christmas, I thought it only fitting to include his long time friend.
Above, I've included a picture of the Twice A Fortnight Group which included M.R. James, E.F. Benson and his brother R.H. Benson. Not only them but also J.K. Stephen who is a Jack the Ripper suspect (albeit a rather dubious one)!
Pure awesomeness. Have you tried Darkest Dungeon yet?
ReplyDeleteThanks! I had lost my (saved) copy of the group photo & have been discussing that recently on a Facebook group.
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