A Quaint and Curious Volume Read online

  A QUAINT & CURIOUS VOLUME

  TALES AND POEMS OF THE GOTHIC

  Introduction

  by Sarah Perry

  Copyright

  William Collins

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com

  This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018

  Introduction copyright © Aldwinter Ltd 2019

  Cover design by Jo Walker

  Interior Images © Shutterstock/Digital N

  Sarah Perry asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the introduction

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

  Source ISBN: 9780008351823

  Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 9780008377137

  Version: 2019-09-04

  Epigraph

  There is something at work in my soul,

  which I do not understand.

  Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Introduction by Sarah Perry

  PART I: THE LOVERS

  ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe

  ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ by Robert Browning

  ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’ by William Butler Yeats

  ‘Berenice’ by Edgar Allan Poe

  ‘The Wedding-Knell’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne

  PART II: WHEEL OF FORTUNE

  ‘The Darkling Thrush’ by Thomas Hardy

  ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ by Elizabeth Gaskell

  PART III: THE TOWER

  Extract from The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

  ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Edgar Allen Poe

  Extract from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

  ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  PART IV: THE MAGICIAN

  Extract from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

  ‘The Body-Snatcher’ by Robert Louis Stevenson

  ‘The Dream Woman’ by Wilkie Collins

  PART V: THE DEVIL

  ‘Goblin Market’ by Christina Rossetti

  ‘The Tapestried Chamber’ by Sir Walter Scott

  ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allen Poe

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  In 1764, an astonishing and disturbing manuscript by a certain Canon Onuphrio Muralto was brought to light. Discovered in the library of an ancient Catholic family and first printed in Naples in 1529, it had been translated into English and published under the enticing title The Castle of Otranto.

  It was quite unlike any other narrative to hit the shelves of the British reading public. Revelling indecently in fear and transgression, it opened with a young prince crushed to death by an immense helmet on the morning of his wedding, after which his wicked father Manfred, fearing that the bloodline was cursed, pursued the bereaved bride. An instant sensation across Europe, it caused the poet Thomas Gray to write that it made ‘some of us cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o’nights’.

  It was not, however, an ancient document – but rather a novel by Horace Walpole, Member of Parliament for King’s Lynn, who had concealed his authorship out of concern that its reckless disregard for good taste and good morals would cause a scandal. Having observed its popularity, he hastily claimed ownership, stating that he had intended to ‘blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern’.

  Walpole subtitled his novel A Gothic Story, and in doing so instituted a genre whose subtle and irresistible grip on the public imagination has never quite been loosened. This was the first application of the word ‘Gothic’ to literature, and indicates Walpole’s understanding that he was dealing in an aesthetic and a mode of thought which has a very particular – and a very dangerous – power. The ‘Gothic’ until then had been a pejorative term, used by the Renaissance taste-maker Vasari to describe the effect that the immense Romanesque cathedrals of Europe had on his sensibilities. With their gargoyles, buttresses, pinnacles, crypts and hidden places, these edifices were – he felt – as barbarous as the Goths and Visigoths who had literally dismantled ‘civilisation’ at the Sack of Rome in 410 AD.

  Story, Walpole suggested, could have the same effects: visiting on the reader the destabilising sensation that everything which seems set in stone – morally, sexually, socially, politically – can be broken down and rebuilt, and that narrative can offer crypts and hiding-places where the reader’s desires may be concealed, and their fears delightfully and horribly encountered.

  In the years that followed, the Gothic has developed and altered, like a stone gargoyle acquiring moss and weathered by rain. Often it deals in the sublime, that aesthetic quality identified by Edmund Burke as something beyond the merely beautiful, but which operates in a manner analogous to terror … productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of.’ It is a sensation which operates at a deep psychological level, often trading on that uncanny feeling identified by Freud, in which everything which is known and familiar becomes strange, and ‘everything … that ought to have remained secret and hidden … has come to light.’ It is dangerous, because it refuses the ordinary binary of good versus evil, but rather presents the possibility of transgression deliciously, seductively: often, our sympathies are with the devil. It is political, allowing the exploration of notions of feminism, colonialism and the frail nature of the status quo, often finding its largest and most avid readership at times of national upheaval.

  As with sensations like hunger or desire: the reader knows when they encounter the Gothic, but it is difficult to account for it, since its power does not lie in the deployment of certain motifs, but in the irresistible evocation of a certain kind of feeling. The Hound of the Baskervilles, for example, may give to the reader any number of moors, candles, beasts and curses, but it is not Gothic: one never fully encounters that feeling of delicious unease, because it is compromised by the presence of Sherlock Holmes, the embodiment of reason. Hilary Mantel’s novel Beyond Black, on the other hand, may begin prosaically enough with a rush-hour traffic jam in North London, but before long its subtle operation of unease begins to give off the Gothic sensation like a faint mist rising from the pages. The Gothic is at its truest when the reader begins to feel as if a cold hand is reaching out, grasping theirs and tugging them in – as if they, too, are entering Castle Dracula with a packet of legal documents, or waking to find the Woman in Black standing in a gust of sea-fret at the foot of the bed.

  The reader who opens A Quaint and Curious Volume holds the key to a cabinet of Gothic curiosities. Here they will encounter that irresistible sensation which invites them to meet transgression with fear and delight in equal measure, and to bring to light all the strange concealed turns of their own psychology. There is a very particular pleasure in store – though it may be that, like Thomas Gray, they find themselves ‘afraid to go to bed o’nights’.

  Sarah Perry, 2019

  PART I

  THE LOVERS

  THE RAVEN

/>   BY

  EDGAR ALLEN POE

  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

  Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

  While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

  As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

  “’T is some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

  Only this, and nothing more.”

  Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

  And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

  Eagerly I wished the morrow:—vainly I had sought to borrow

  From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

  For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

  Nameless here for evermore.

  And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

  Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

  So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

  “’T is some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door

  Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

  This it is, and nothing more.”

  Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

  “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

  But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

  And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

  That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

  Darkness there, and nothing more.

  Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

  Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

  But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,

  And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!”

  This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”

  Merely this and nothing more.

  Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

  Soon again I heard a tapping, somewhat louder than before.

  “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

  Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

  Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

  ’T is the wind and nothing more!”

  Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

  In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.

  Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

  But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

  Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

  Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

  Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

  By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

  “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

  Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore,—

  Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

  Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

  Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

  Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

  For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

  Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

  Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

  With such name as “Nevermore.”

  But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

  That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

  Nothing further then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—

  Till I scarcely more than muttered, “Other friends have flown before—

  On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”

  Then the bird said, “Nevermore.”

  Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

  “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,

  Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

  Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

  Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

  Of ‘Never—nevermore.’”

  But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,

  Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;

  Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

  Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

  What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore

  Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

  This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

  To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

  This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

  On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er,

  But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er

  She shall press, ah, nevermore!

  Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

  Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

  “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

  Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

  Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!”

  Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

  “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

  Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

  Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

  On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

  Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

  Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

  “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil—prophet still, if bird or devil!

  By that Heaven that bends above, us—by that God we both adore—

  Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

  It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

  Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

  Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

  “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

  “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

  Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

  Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

  Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

  Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

  And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

  On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

  And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

  And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

  And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

  Shall be lifted—nevermore!

  PORPHYRIA’S LOVER

  BY

  ROBERT BROWNING

  The rain set early in to-night,

  The sullen wind was soon awake,

  It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

  And did its worst to vex the lake:

  I listened with heart fit to break.

  When glided in Porphyria; straight

  She shut the co
ld out and the storm,

  And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

  Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

  Which done, she rose, and from her form

  Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

  And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

  Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

  And, last, she sat down by my side

  And called me. When no voice replied,

  She put my arm about her waist,

  And made her smooth white shoulder bare,

  And all her yellow hair displaced,

  And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

  And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,

  Murmuring how she loved me — she

  Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour,

  To set its struggling passion free

  From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

  And give herself to me for ever.

  But passion sometimes would prevail,

  Nor could to-night’s gay feast restrain

  A sudden thought of one so pale

  For love of her, and all in vain:

  So, she was come through wind and rain.

  Be sure I looked up at her eyes

  Happy and proud; at last I knew

  Porphyria worshipped me; surprise

  Made my heart swell, and still it grew

  While I debated what to do.

  That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

  Perfectly pure and good: I found

  A thing to do, and all her hair

  In one long yellow string I wound

  Three times her little throat around,

  And strangled her. No pain felt she;

  I am quite sure she felt no pain.

  As a shut bud that holds a bee,

  I warily oped her lids: again

  Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

  And I untightened next the tress

  About her neck; her cheek once more

  Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

  I propped her head up as before,

  Only, this time my shoulder bore

  Her head, which droops upon it still:

  The smiling rosy little head,

  So glad it has its utmost will,