Tartarus Press Coverley House, Carlton, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, DL8 4AY United Kingdom Telephone/Fax: +44 (0) 1969 640399 email Tartarus Press
Black Spirits and
Whiteby Ralph Adams Cram With an Introduction to Black Spirits & White by Stefan Dziemianowicz, and an Introduction to the Uncollected Stories by Douglas A. Anderson - Black Spirits and White, a collection of six stories originally published in 1895, is regarded as a landmark of the nineteenth-century weird tale. H.P. Lovecraft singled out the story 'The Dead Valley' as one of the small percentage of American works deserving of high praise in his seminal essay 'Supernatural Horror in Literature'. In the decades since Cram's death in 1942, the book's reputation has only improved. The stories, researched during Cram's travels through Europe as a young man, are sublime renderings of the Gothic tradition.
- By 1900 Cram's career as one of America's leading architects had taken off, and he gave up writing fiction. What is less well known is that, amongst poetry and drama, he had also written and published two further stories: The Decadent; or, the Gospel of Inaction (1893), about an æsthete's retreat from the world into art, ripe with the influence of Oscar Wilde and a Decadent spirit that provoked public controversy, and 'How Jamie Rode for the King' (1897), an historical adventure set in the Scotland of the Jacobite rebellion. These two tales have never before been collected, and 'How Jamie Rode for the King' is reprinted here for the first time since its original magazine publication.
- In his new Introduction, Stefan Dziemianowicz provides a comprehensive summary of Cram's life and architectural career, and a critical appreciation of the stories of Black Spirits and White. Douglas A. Anderson explores the uncollected stories within the context of Cram's other literary work.
- Black Spirits and White will be a sewn hardback of 145+xxi pages. Limited to 300 copies. Price £30/$55 inc. p&p. ISBN 1872621880. Publication 30th November 2004.
- Reviews:
- ". . . beautifully produed, a pleasure to read and handle . . . Quite apart from it's intrinsic literary value, this book is a reminder to us British that the aesthetic movement in America did not begin and end with Oscar wilde declaring his genius to a New York customs official." - Reggie Oliver, All Hallows
- "All in all the volume -- gorgeously produced as it's always the case with Tartarus -- offers some superb supernatural stories . . . " - William Simmons, Infinity Plus
Page updated 8th November 2005