|
Lonely Vigils
''Lonely Vigils'' is a collection of fantasy, horror and mystery short stories by American author Manly Wade Wellman. It was released in 1981 by Carcosa in an edition of 1,548 copies, of which the 566 pre-ordered copies were signed by the author and artist. The stories feature Wellman's supernatural detective characters, Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant, Professor Nathan Enderby, and John Thunstone. The story "Vigil" first appeared in the magazine ''Strange Stories''. The remaining stories originally appeared in the magazine ''Weird Tales ''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printe ...''. Contents * Foreword * "The Hairy Ones Shall Dance" * "The Black Drama" * "The Dreadful Rabbits" * "The Half-Haunted" * "Vigil" * "The Third Cry to Legba" * "The Golden Goblins" * "Hoofs" * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manly Wade Wellman
Manly Wade Wellman (May 21, 1903 – April 5, 1986) was an American writer. While his science fiction and fantasy stories appeared in such pulps as '' Astounding Stories'', '' Startling Stories'', ''Unknown'' and '' Strange Stories'', Wellman is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary '' Weird Tales'' and for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains, which draw on the native folklore of that region. Karl Edward Wagner referred to him as "the dean of fantasy writers." Wellman also wrote in a wide variety of other genres, including historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction, and non-fiction. Wellman was a long-time resident of North Carolina. Schweitzer, Darrell. "Wellman, Manly Wade", in ''St. James Guide To Fantasy Writers'', ed. David Pringle, London, St. James Press, 1996, , (p. 596-98). He received many awards, including the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award. In 2013, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Evans (comics)
George R. EvansGeorge R. Evans at the Social Security Death Index. Retrieved August 19, 2012 (February 5, 1920 – June 22, 2001)George Evans at the Lambiek Comiclopedia was an American cartoonist and illustrator who worked in both comic books and comic strips. His lifelong fascination with airplanes and the pioneers of early aviation was a constant theme in his art and stories. Early life Born in Harwood, Pennsylvania, Harwood, Pennsylvania, Evans studied art from a correspondence course. He was still in his teens when he made his first sales, both illustrations and writing, to pulp magazines. Early in World War II, Evans was an aircraft mec ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fantasy Fiction
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, which later became fantasy literature, fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century onward, it has expanded into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animation, and video games. The expression ''fantastic literature'' is often used for this genre by Anglophone literary critics. An archaic spelling for the term is ''phantasy''. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror fiction, horror by an absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these can occur in fantasy. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that reflect the actual Earth, but with some sense of otherness. Characteristics Many works of fantasy use magic (paranorma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Fiction
Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society. History Before 1000 The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic, and the principle of the thing embodied in the person. These manifested in stories of beings such as demons, witches, vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Some early European horror-fiction were the Ancient Greeks and Ancie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mystery Fiction
Mystery is a genre fiction, fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains wiktionary:mysterious, mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character is often a detective (such as Sherlock Holmes), who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Some mystery books are non-fiction. Mystery fiction can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism. Mystery fiction can involve a supernatural mystery in which the solution does not have to be logical and even in which there is no crime involved. This usage was common in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carcosa
Carcosa is a fictional city in Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886). The ancient and mysterious city is barely described and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there. American writer Robert W. Chambers borrowed the name "Carcosa" for several of his short stories featured in the 1895 book ''The King in Yellow'', inspiring generations of authors to similarly use Carcosa in their own works. ''The King in Yellow'' The city was later used more extensively in Robert W. Chambers' book of short stories published in 1895, titled ''The King in Yellow''. Chambers had read Bierce's work and borrowed a few additional names from his work, including #Associated names, Hali and Hastur. In Chambers' stories, and within the apocryphal play titled ''The King in Yellow'', which is mentioned several times within them, the city of Carcosa is a mysterious, ancient, and possibly cursed place. The most precise description of its lo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
What Dreams May Come (1983 Novel)
''What Dreams May Come'' is a fantasy novel by American author Manly Wade Wellman. It is the second of three books featuring supernatural investigator John Thunstone. The book derives its title from a line in Hamlet's famous "To be, or not to be..." soliloquy. Background The character of John Thunstone had previously appeared in a series of short stories by Wellman. Originally published in popular pulp magazines of the day, several of them were collected and reprinted in an anthology, ''Lonely Vigils''. Wellman decided to follow the anthology with the character's first book-length adventure. In his introduction to the novel Wellman mistakenly states that, while many of the locations he mentions have real-life counterparts, Claines is an entirely fictional locale, and such a place has never existed in England. However, a small community named Claines exists, north of Worcester. Plot summary While visiting London, John Thunstone hears strange stories concerning the nearby hamlet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables, and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story remains problematic. A classic definition of a short story is that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1981 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1981. Events *May 31 – The burning of Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka is begun by a mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitaries. They destroy over 97,000 volumes in one of the worst examples of ethnic book burning in the modern era. *August – Sefer ve Sefel opens as an English used bookstore in Jerusalem. *''unknown dates'' ** John Gardner successfully revives the James Bond novel series originated by Ian Fleming with '' Licence Renewed'' (not counting a faux biography of Bond and a pair of film novelizations, the first original Bond novel since 1968's ''Colonel Sun''). The revived Bond book series will run uninterrupted until 2002. ** Colin MacCabe is denied tenure at the University of Cambridge, apparently because of a dispute within the English Faculty about the teaching of structuralism. **The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is given for the first time. New books Fiction * Er ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Occult Detective
Occult detective fiction is a subgenre of detective fiction that combines the tropes of the main genre with those of supernatural, fantasy and/or horror fiction. Unlike the traditional detective who investigates murder and other common crimes, the occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts, demons, curses, magic, vampires, undead, monsters and other supernatural elements. Some occult detectives are portrayed as being psychic or in possession of other paranormal or magical powers. History Literature Fitz James O’Brien’s character Harry Escott is a contender for first occult detective in fiction. A specialist in supernatural phenomena, Escott investigates a ghost in "The Pot of Tulips" (1855) and an invisible entity in "What Was It? A Mystery" (1859). The narrator of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novella "The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain" (1859) is another student of the supernatural who probes a mystery involving a culprit with paranorma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judge Pursuivant
Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant is a fictional character and a supporting character in a series of stories (1938–41) by American author Manly Wade Wellman (1903–1986). Pursuivant is a retired judge, author, and occult scholar who investigates mysterious supernatural events. Fictional character biography Pursuivant is more a mentor to and helper of characters who have become embroiled in occult adventures than a hero per se. He first appears in the short story "The Hairy Ones Shall Dance," first published in 1938 in the weird-fiction pulp magazine ''Weird Tales''. Pursuivant is described as a man of great height and girth, with bulbous eyes and nose and a drooping blonde moustache. He lives in a small town five hours from Washington, D.C., and is sufficiently wealthy to be attended by a manservant. He is intelligent and well-read in occult matters. A biography of Pursuivant is presented in the short story "The Black Drama," which presents him as having been born in 1891, reti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Thunstone
John Thunstone is a fictional character and the hero of a series of stories by author Manly Wade Wellman. Character biography Thunstone is a scholar and playboy who investigates mysterious supernatural events. He is physically large and strong, intelligent, handsome, and wealthy. He is also well-read in occult matters and has access to several weapons that are especially potent against vampires, werewolves and other supernatural creatures. Thunstone has a sword-cane with a silver blade said to have been forged by Saint Dunstan, patron saint of silversmiths and a noted opponent of the Devil. The blade is inscribed with a text from Judges chapter 5 in the Vulgate, "Sic pereant omnes inimici tui" — "thus perish all your enemies". The sword-cane had also been used by Wellman's earlier character, Judge Pursuivant, who passed it on to Thunstone when his advanced age made him too weak to effectively wield it. In addition to the ghosts and other traditional supernatural beings, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
