Лучшие книги Эймиаса Норткота

Brickett Bottom by Amyas Northcote is about a mysterious house deep in the woods that no one but lonely young girls can see. There is a dark secret to this house in the forest, as you will discover.

Amyas Northcote was the son of an English aristocratic family. This story was published in his one collection of ghost stories: "Ghostly Company". Though it was published in 1921, I think there is something genuinely eerie and even scary about the fate of the girl.

Ничем не примечательный добродушный джентльмен мистер Оливер Кармайкл стал видеть странные сны. Пробудившись, он не мог вспомнить их суть, но это были явно тревожные сновидения... К тому же, зайдя по дороге на работу в текстильную лавочку, он увидел там девицу, которая произвела на него неизгладимое впечатление...И отнюдь не романтическое...

Amyas Northcote (1864-1923) was an English writer and contemporary of M. R. James who was best known for his ghost stories.

'The Downs' is a classic ghost story which demonstrates Northcote's understated genius. The story starts out as a regular tale, but with a few understated clues as to the nature of the horror that is to come - perfectly setting the atmosphere of creepy tension: 'I was perfectly confident in my ability to find my way back over the down to Branksome at night, as the path was very familiar to us, and I expected to be aided by the light of the moon, which would rise about 10 o'clock.'

Sure enough, the journey back over the downs reveals a terrifying horror...and our hero is lucky to escape with his life.

Собранные в этой книге мистические истории британских и американских писателей созданы в XIX – начале XX века – в эпоху расцвета жанра страшного рассказа в литературе Старого и Нового Света. Продолжая традиции европейского готического романа, представленные в сборнике авторы (среди которых такие мастера, как Джозеф Шеридан Ле Фаню, Вернон Ли, Монтегю Родс Джеймс, Эдвард Фредерик Бенсон) создают на страницах своих произведений завораживающую атмосферу Страха и Тайны, приоткрывают двери в потусторонние и инфернальные измерения бытия, вовлекают героев и читателей в область метафизических и психологических загадок. Призраки невинно убиенных и опасные фейри, зловещие места и смертоносные артефакты из прошлого подтверждают старинную гамлетовскую истину: «есть многое на небе и земле», что не снилось скептической философии и рационалистической науке Нового времени.

A strange happening when a business arrangement goes awry.

From In Ghostly Company, published 1921.

Although it carries faint but definite echoes of Henry James’s famous novella The Turn of the Screw which was first published in 1898, ‘The Governess’s Story’ has its own
atmosphere and effect. The haunting which Miss Hosmer, the governess of the title, investigates is low key and undramatic, and yet, for that very reason, curiously melancholic and memorable.

A grey cloud formed on the summit of the altar, diminishing, thickening and turning into a Shape, a shape of evil and fear. The silent group by the fire once more broke forth into wild gesticulations and cries, Stella prostrated herself, the Form on the altar grew clearer and with a cry of horror Mr Fowke turned away and rushed madly across the moor'. Amyas Northcote's In Ghostly Company is a rare and splendid collection of strange and disturbing tales from the golden age of ghost stories. His style is akin to that of the master of the genre M.R. James: it is measured and insidiously suggestive, producing unnerving chills rather than shocks and gasps. Northcote's tales make the reader unsettled and uneasy. This is partly due to the fact that the hauntings or strange occurrences take place in natural or mundane surroundings - surroundings familiar to the reader but never before thought of as unusual or threatening. Long out of print, this book remains an enthralling and chilling read.

Сборник рассказов и повестей о призраках