Haunted Histories and Peculiar Places

Above: "Blind Man's Box" by Reggie Oliver
Below: "Brutal Spirits" by Gary McMahon

HAUNTED HISTORIES AND PECULIAR PLACES

Edited and introduced by Brian J. Showers
Cover art and interior charcoal drawings by Tinka Bechert

"I truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory — the place, the past — speaks." -Peter Ackroyd

From the Introduction:

"I'm guessing somewhere in your neighbourhood, just as in my own, there is a Peculiar Place. Is it a dilapidated house where nobody lives? Perhaps it's an empty office block, its concrete exterior spraypainted in garish clown colours? Maybe it's an overgrown field avoided by cautious neighbourhood children who prefer always to play elsewhere? Or even a dim avenue that might lead you farther out of the way than you wish to go?

"I’m sure you know the places I mean. They’re not quite like other places. They’re different. They’re shadowy and secretive, quite often lonely, but always patiently waiting for the imaginative and fanciful to stray. Most passers by are happily oblivious and even complacent to these brooding spaces—maybe because they cannot or because they do not want to notice them. But we do. We notice. You and I know these places are haunted. They must be. Just look at their vacant facades, their cold exteriors. You know its true.

"The owners of these places—if indeed Peculiar Places can be termed 'owned' at all—erect signs, red letters slapped on weathered wood and staked into the ground: 'Keep Out! Private Property! No Tresspassing!' And yet something still attracts us. Peculiar Places often exude a sense of beckoning curiosity. Something compels us to investigate, to explore, to dig a little deeper. What harm could it do?

"Let me tell you about one of my own Peculiar Places . . ."

Haunted Histories and Peculiar Places collects the six Haunted History booklets, edited by Brian J. Showers and published by the Swan River Press between 2006-2008, plus eight new tales written especially for this collection. Each story will be accompanied by a charcoal drawing by Tinka Bechert (www.tinkabechert.com). Publication details may vary slightly between now and final publication.

Contents
Introduction by Brian J. Showers
"The Last House on Mullible Street" by Steve Duffy
"On the Apparitions of Gray's Court" by Peter Bell
"The Professor and the Mudman" by Stacey Hegarty
"The Seer of Trieste" by Mark Valentine
"Charles Urban's Brutal Spirits" by Gary McMahon
"The Gwyllgi of the Lost Lanes" by Quentin S. Crisp
"The Red House at Münstereifel" by Helen Grant
"The Dairy Barn" by Adam Golaski
"Blind Man’s Box" by Reggie Oliver
"A Contaminated Text" by Mark Samuels
"On the Banks of the River Jordan" by John Reppion
"The Nanri Papers" by Edward Crandall
"Ashcroft Manor" by Barbara Roden
"Keepsakes (from Obscurus #20)" by R.B. Russell
Biographical Notes

Reviews of the Swan River Press' Haunted Histories Series

"The Haunted History Series is an interesting addition to the relatively small genre . . . Confronted by such diverse examples of properly researched evidence, even a sceptic like myself can permit an occasional shudder and 'What if . . . ?' The facts as they presented themselves to the researchers are compelling, and we must leave it at that."
-David Longhorn, Supernatural Tales #15