Benson, E F
Entry updated 20 November 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1867-1940) UK author, brother of A C Benson and Robert Hugh Benson, and by far the most prolific of the three as far as fiction is concerned, with dozens of attractive, realistic novels and romances to his credit, and a number of novels involving the supernatural. The most telling of these is perhaps his first in this mode, The Judgment Books (1895), which shows the influence of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (July 1890 Lippincott's Monthly; exp 1891). Benson's supernatural fantasy stories are well known, and some verge on sf: relevant collections published during the author's lifetime are The Room in the Tower and Other Stories (coll 1912), whose much-anthologized title story "The Room in the Tower" (January 1912 The Pall Mall Magazine) features haunting premonitions of an encounter with a Vampire; The Countess of Lowndes Square (coll 1920); Visible and Invisible (coll 1923); Spook Stories (coll 1928); and, last and perhaps weakest, More Spook Stories (coll 1934), which includes the spoofish Psi Powers tale "The Psychical Mallards" (1921 Pears' Annual). Of these, Visible and Invisible is of particular sf interest, containing "And the Dead Spake –" (October 1922 Hutchinson's Magazine), about electrically extracting memories of recent speech from newly dead brain tissue and playing them through a loudspeaker; "The Horror-Horn" (September 1922 Hutchinson's Magazine), involving dwarfish Yeti-like Monsters of retarded Evolution in the Alps; "In the Tube" (December 1922 Hutchinson's Magazine), where minatory astral images are sent back from the future; and "Machaon" (January 1923 Hutchinson's Magazine), in which the titular son of Asclepius from Greek Mythology advises via the usual spiritualist medium that an intractable tumour should be treated with X-Rays rather than surgery, thus saving a life.
In The Inheritor (1930), Pan and Dionysius cause conniptions in Cornwall. The Tale of an Empty House (coll 1986) is a convenient posthumous collection, while The Flint Knife (coll 1986) edited by Jack Adrian assembles mostly uncollected material, including "Sir Roger de Coverley" (December 1927 Woman), an sf tale which reflects the time theories of J W Dunne. [JC/DRL]
see also: Fantasy Entries.
Edward Frederick Benson
born Wokingham, Berkshire: 24 July 1867
died London: 29 February 1940
works (selected)
- The Judgment Books (New York: Harper and Row, 1895) [hb/]
- The Luck of the Vails (London: Heinemann, 1901) [hb/]
- The Valkyries (London: Dean and Son, 1903) [hb/nonpictorial jacket over illustrated boards]
- The Image in the Sand (London: Heinemann, 1905) [hb/]
- The Angel of Pain (Philadelphia: J B Lippincott, 1905) [hb/]
- The House of Defense (New York: Authors and Newspapers Association, 1906) [a 1906 Canadian edition is also reported: hb/]
- David Blaize and the Blue Door (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918) [hb/]
- Across the Stream (New York: George H Doran Company, 1919) [hb/]
- Colin (London: Hutchinson, 1923) [hb/]
- Colin II (London: Hutchinson, 1925) [hb/]
- The Inheritor (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1930) [hb/Peggy Morris]
- Ravens' Brood (London: Arthur Barker, 1934) [hb/]
collections
series
Collected Spook Stories
- The Terror by Night (Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 1998) [coll: edited by Jack Adrian: Collected Spook Stories: hb/Douglas Walters]
- The Passenger (Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 1999) [coll: edited by Jack Adrian: Collected Spook Stories: hb/Douglas Walters]
- Mrs Amworth (Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2001) [coll: edited by Jack Adrian: Collected Spook Stories: hb/Douglas Walters]
- The Face (Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2003) [coll: edited by Jack Adrian: Collected Spook Stories: hb/Douglas Walters]
- Sea Mist (Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2005) [coll: edited by Jack Adrian: Collected Spook Stories: hb/Douglas Walters]
individual titles
- The Room in the Tower and Other Stories (London: Mills and Boon, 1912) [coll: hb/]
- The Countess of Lowndes Square (London: Cassell and Company Ltd., 1920) [coll: contains three supernatural stories: hb/]
- Visible and Invisible (London: Hutchinson, 1923) [coll: hb/]
- "And the Dead Spake –" and The Horror-Horn (New York: George H Doran Company, 1923) [coll: chap: hb/]
- Spook Stories (London: Hutchinson, 1928) [coll: hb/]
- The Step (London: H V Marot, 1930) [story: chap: first published December 1926 Windsor Magazine: hb/]
- More Spook Stories (London: Hutchinson, 1934) [coll: hb/]
- The Horror Horn: The Best Horror Stories of E.F. Benson (London: Panther, 1974) [coll: edited by Alexis Lykiard: pb/Bruce Pennington]
- The Tale of an Empty House (London: Black Swan, 1986) [coll: pb/Julek Heller]
- The Flint Knife (Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Equation, 1988) [coll: edited by Jack Adrian: pb/]
- The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson (London: Robinson, 1992) [omni: edited by Richard Dalby: omitting The Flint Knife: pb/]
- Ghost Stories (New York: Random House Vintage Classics, 2017) [coll: cut vt of the above: pb/]
- The Outcast and Other Dark Tales (London: British Library, 2020) [coll: edited by Mike Ashley: in the publisher's Tales of the Weird series: pb/]
links
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