When I was compiling the poll of what may be E.F. 'Fred' Benson's best ghost stories, it occurred to me that there are rather a lot of them.If I included 'How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery' I could hardly exclude 'Caterpillars', and if 'The Face' is in there I could hardly leave out 'Mrs Amworth'. I put in 'The Bus-Conductor' mostly because it features in the film Dead of Night, and I could hardly leave out a much-anthologised tale like 'The Room in the Tower'.
So, there's your poll, and you've got just under a week to vote.
3 comments:
I do like the ghostly works of Benson (along with those of his brother, Arthur, but I am less keen on Robert), especially the stories where he uses more outré conceptions, such as those hideous sluggish elementals.
I tossed my votes in. Much as I like his ghost stories my favorite story is "The Horror-Horn". The tale of a man-like monster chasing someone unlucky enough to stumble across it is about as terrifying as a story can get. What makes it worse is that one can easily imagine, if one is out in the woods, being chased by a bigfoot type creature (if one is incline t believe in that sort of thing).
I'm really enjoying these polls. They are extremely entertaining and the best part is that there are lots of quality authors.
I agree about 'The Horror-Horn', which weirdly keeps cropping up in collections of EFB's ghost stories. It clearly isn't one. It's also unusual in that the creatures are seeking to mate with humans, not kill them, which perhaps reflects Benson's views on predatory females - something he articulated a bit more humorously in his Tilling novels.
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