For The Blood Is The Life And Other Stories

This collection of F. Marion Crawford's blood-curdling short stories is well worth tracking down. Though all of the stories are worth great merrit, there are a few in particular that need to be highlighted. "For The Blood Is The Life" is one of the absolute best tales of the folkloric vampire of tradition - yet Crawford puts a unique and eerie Romantic spin on things, which enables the story to still strike contemporary readers. "The Dead Smile" dreadfully builds to a gruesome climax with the protagonist's unforgettable descent into an ancestral crypt - a purely horrorific physical description that foreshadowed the work of Lovecraft. "The Screaming Skull" is a spine-chilling tale of a man who innocently and unintentionally inspires his friend to murder his wife. But nightly, her vengeful frigid shrieking from beyond the grave reminds him of his folly. And finally, the strange happenings in an accursed room aboard a ship is the focus of "The Upper Berth," which was admirably praised by Lovecraft as "one of the most tremendous horror stories in all literature" and though not as haunting as the other works, it is definitely a great tale. Crawford's plots are well-structured, the writing is easy to digest and is demanding on the readers emotions and threshold for fear, rather than on their patience. His restrained style of seductive evil is classy and very effective, and is more akin to J.S. Le Fanu's subtle creeping terrors than to Lovecraft's more cosmic and direct approaches. Whatever the case, this is classic horror that will be treasured by casual enthusiasts and scholars of the genre alike.

Fans of ghost stories and horror fiction can't go wrong with this collection, which includes "The Upper Berth"--perhaps the best ghost story ever written. Crawford was one of the finest writers in this genre, and was tremendously popular in his day (though, ironically, not for his ghost stories--he wrote some 44 romantic/realist novels between 1890 and 1909.)There IS one huge flaw in this White Wolf edition, however. The final story, "The King's Messenger," is missing the ending--the last page to be exact. It's not Crawford's best by any stretch of the imagination, so you're not missing much, but it's still a nuisance. Still, you can't beat the price, which makes this collection more than worthwhile.

Surely, this compilation has to be a Victorian classic in the same vein as Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos. I found Crawford's style truly unique, which ranged from the blood-curdling of "The Upper Berth" and "Man Overboard!" to the moving of "The Ghost Doll". This was really enjoyable and fans of Gothic and Victorian certainly would not want to miss this.