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Recommended Reading While we would recommend all of the books we have published, having selected those titles to publish because of our enthusiasm for them, here are a few additional reading suggestions. Peter Ackroyd, Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994 Ackroyd is a great writer when it comes to describing the London of the past, but his evocations of the modern metropolis are often pretty lame. The classic example is the oft-lauded Hawksmoor, in which the scenes set in the early eighteenth century are powerful and convincing, but those in the late twentieth century are decidedly pedestrian. Dan Leno, however, is set entirely in the past, and Acroyd pulls it off with panache. Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory, Macmillan, 1984 A "coming of age" gothic horror novel. Best read as a teenager. Park Barnitz, The Book of Jade, Doxey, 1901 We all like our poets gloomy and droopy, and perhaps Stenbock is the granddaddy of the morbid aesthete, but poor old Park Barnitz didn't have the advantage of the vast fortune. However, he was still a doomed character. "Those whom the gods love . . . " Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Newby, 1847, (pseud. Ellis and Acton Bell, 3 vols) There is a reason why some books are considered classics . . . . Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Cripps, 1621 An encyclopedia of every ailment of the heart. It should be consulted on a regular basis. Arthur Calder-Marshall, The Magic of My Youth, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1951 A wonderful evocation of youth, the Sussex Downs and Victor Neiburg. Albert Camus, The Outsider, Hamish Hamilton, 1946 (translated by Stuart Gilbert) The finest of all existential novels. Joyce Carey, The Horse's Mouth, Joseph, 1944 A novel written with unbelievable zest and gusto. Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, Black Spring, 1989 Everything you could ever want from a truly gothic novel - death, sex, religion and very warped charatcers. Cave's use of language is wonderful. Aleister Crowley, Moonchild, Mandrake Press, 1929 A mad novel of magic with more of a sense of humour than crowley is usually given credit for. Ernest Dowson, Dilemmas, Elkin Matthews, 1895 Truly sensitive and heart-rending stories. If only Mills and Boon had not given "romance" such a bad name people would realise that all the greatest books are romances. Charles Finney, The Circus of Dr Lao, Viking, 1935 All of the best fantasies are rooted in reality, and if you accept that Dr Lao really is exhibiting the fantastic creatures that he claims, then the result is all too realistic. The scene where the schoolteacher meets the satyr (who, being rather old, is balding and smelly) is wonderful. Andre Gide, Isabelle, Cassell, 1931 (translated by Dorothy Bussy) All of the best love stories are doomed ones, and Isabelle is no exception. Alyse Gregory, The Cry of a Gull, Ark Press, 1973 A very moving diary by the wife of Llewelyn Powys. He was a complete bastard to her, but she seems to have put up with his philandering. As her story moves toward her death it is very moving. Edna Judd, A Moving Experience, Book Guild, 1995 An updated version of George and Weedon Grosmith's book, this is an unintentional classic. The naive autobiography of a woman who does not quite do anything interesting. William March, The Bad Seed, Hamish Hamilton, 1954 Every parent's nightmare, a child without any conscience. Perhaps more platable these days because it is a period piece, a contemporary re-write would probably cause it to be banned. Rev. C.R. Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer, Constable, 1820 An epic that meanders off into hundred-page digressions, few have the leisure these days to write or read such works. Gustav Meyrink, The Golem, 1928 (translated by Pemberton) I came across The Golem after reading a lot of European literature by Hesse, Camus etc, and was also reading, as a completely different thread, Machen, Lovecraft et al. Both traditions seemed to fuse wonderfully in The Golem, and it left me wishing that at the height of twentieth century weird fiction in English, that there was not comparable writing available in a more continental European tradition. Perhaps there is, and it has not been translated? Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood, Harcourt Brace & Co, 1952 This book has all the ingredients of madness and religion, but it is the great brooding atmosphere which makes it so special. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Harrap, [1923] (expanded Harry Clarke edition) Poe needs no recommendation from me, but if any artist catches his obsessive atmosphere of horror it is Clarke. In thie edition you also get the wonderful colour plates that are missed from the cheap reprints. M.P. Shiel, The Purple Cloud, Chatto & Windus, 1901 Best read, as I did, as a teenager, The Purple Cloud informed my fantasies for the best part of a decade. Just what would you do, and how would you cope if you were the last person left on earth? Paul Jordan Smith, For the Love of Books, O.U.P., 1934 A biriany of a book, this is written with a great lust for the larger than life. A.J.A. Symons, The Quest For Corvo, Cassell, 1934 A wonderfully disingenuous book, it deconstructs the biography by explaining how the story was discovered, and appears to be the more honest for this. The fact that it was put together with all the art of fiction does not detract from its fascination. Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes, Chatto & Windus, 1926 A book of emancipation, both personal and sexual, it is also a great period novel with some great poetic touches reminiscent of Machen. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, Chapman & Hall, 1945 Although it is lightly written, Brideshead is the perfect novel of melancholy, being essentially about every aspect of loss imaginable. Denton Welch, In Youth is Pleasure, Routledge, 1945 One of the most beautiful books ever written, Welch is an apparently naive and artless writer, which is far from the truth. Page updated 1st October 2005