The Swan River Press

	*Chapbooks*
	Quis Separabit by Brian J. Showers, illustrations by Jeffrey C. Roche Printings: December 2007 (300) Style: A7, hand-sewn soft cover chapbook with ribbon bookmark Length: 48 pages Postscript "Shortly after crossing La Touche Bridge and proceeding south along Rathmines Road, you will notice a nondescript and ultimately dead end lane stretching to the west. This is tiny Blackberry Lane, as evidenced by a sign bolted to the adjacent terrace, and in days past it was literally neither here nor there. This east-west lane was once a narrow and much lengthier bohreen beat through the dense foliage between the Earl of Meath's lands to the south and the old Farm of St. Sepulchre to the north. It should arouse no curiosity that neither estate claimed this stretch of ground, as for countless generations it was primarily utilised by the dead. Until 1850, the lane served as a corpse road--a path used not only by funeral processions, but also, according to belief, by souls of the deceased."
	No. 70 Merrion Square, Parts One & Two by Brian J. Showers, illustrations by Duane Spurlock Printings: Oct. 2006 (300) / Dec. 2006 (300) Style: A7, hand-sewn soft cover chapbook with ribbon bookmark Length: 48 pages x 2 Postscript "Anyone familiar with Brian J. Showers' supernatural stories, presented in the delightful miniature chapbooks of Swan River Press, so tastefully illustrated by Duane Spurlock and Meggan Kehrli, will not be disappointed by his latest publication: No. 70 Merrion Square. Aficionados will recognise the address of the Dublin house where the great Sheridan Le Fanu wrote some of his finest tales and spent the last lonely decades of his life. Showers has cleverly engaged with the motif of Le Fanu by writing a story in which the protagonist, a horror author seeking renewed inspiration, settles in the house and encounters troubling experiences. "Inter-textual references, to classic and contemporary supernatural writers, constantly inform the narrative, making it great fun for the connoisseur; and it is threaded with a vein of wry humour, tastefully and effectively juxtaposed against the horror, never an easy task. Throughout, the narrative displays the author's lucid prose style and easy pace, a hallmark of all his previous work: in a phrase, Showers is a damned good story-teller, as well as a master of atmosphere and a shrewdly informed practitioner of the ghostly tale. Working closely within established genre conventions--haunted house, ghostly possession, numinous dreams, the angry dead, the inspiration and alienation of the artist, and the borderland between insanity and the supernatural-- Showers has written a superb tribute to Victorian Gothic set within 21st Century Dublin. Few modern writers can be as versed in the supernatural heritage of that atmospheric city, with its strange mix of glitzy economic miracle and elegantly sombre past." More... -Peter Bell, ghost story writer

	Tigh an Bhreithimh by Brian J. Showers, illustrations by Duane Spurlock Printings: Oct. 2005 (300), March 2007 (150) Style: A7, hand-sewn soft cover chapbook with ribbon bookmark Length: 48 pages Postscript A struggling writer travels to a remote cottage in western Ireland for the solitude and inspiration he needs to finish writing his first novel. But when the forgotten secrets of the desolate landscape want to be remembered, he learns a lesson in fear, one more terrifying than any tale he could ever write. In the tradition of M.R. James and J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Brian J. Showers's Tigh an Bhreithimh is a tale that is sure to please fans of the traditional ghost story. "I really enjoyed Tigh an Bhreithimh, which is a nicely written ghost story set in a small town in Ireland. The atmosphere--puzzle and horror--is very well handled, and the folkways are interesting. The story is conveyed in a small, attractive chapbook with good line illustrations by Duane Spurlock." -E.F. Bleiler, editor
	The Snow Came Softly Down by Brian J. Showers, illustrations by Duane Spurlock and poetry courtesy of William Wordsworth Printings: Dec. 2004 (200), Sept. 2005 (100), Feb. 2007 (150) Style: A7, hand-sewn soft cover chapbook with ribbon bookmark Length: 48 pages Postscript "Small but perfectly formed, The Snow Came Softly Down by Brian J. Showers is a delightfully-produced little chapbook with its own ribbon marker and simple but effective line drawings by Duane Spurlock, containing 'A Tale Concerning Ghosts'. You would expect from this, and from the old-fashioned typeface, that it is set in a more innocent era, and so it proves. M.R. James would probably disapprove of the decidedly benign spooks, but the tale cannot be faulted for atmosphere--especially the protagonist's scary walk through the freezing woods on Christmas Eve. If I call the tone of the story 'Dickensian' it is meant as a compliment, evoking as it does those semi-mythical White Yuletides depicted on a certain type of Christmas card... but with added creepiness. Wordsworth’s poem 'Lucy Gray', possibly an inspiration to the tale and certainly complementing it, rounds off this charming book." -Chico Kidd, All Hallows #42
	The Old Tailor and the Gaunt Man by Brian J. Showers, illustrations by Meggan Kehrli Printings: Oct. 2003 (150), March 2005 (100), June 2006 (150) Style: A7, hand-sewn soft cover chapbook with ribbon bookmark Length: 48 pages Postscript "Here is a small treat from The Swan River Press in Dublin, Ireland: an old-fashioned ghost story in a hand-sewn binding with soft covers and its own ribbon marker. Brian J. Showers, an expatriate American writer living in Dublin, reveals an expert hand at deploying the shadows and portents, ironic disclosures, and gradual accumulation of detail, which still make the masters of supernatural fiction so chillingly entertaining to this day. His tale of a lonely old tailor eking out a miserable existence who discovers 'there is still enough faith for dark things to walk the night' is a delightful folkloric ghost story in a gently facetious and slightly antique tone reminiscent of Charles Dickens and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. The text is complemented by Meggan Kehrli's arabesque cover design, six full-page illustrations, and an equal number of spot illustrations, all of which add to the work’s eerie charm. This is perfect fare for solitary reading on blustery autumn evenings or a group gathered round the holiday fireplace in expectation of a Winter’s Tale." -Jim Rockhill, All Hallows #40 'The Old Tailor & the Gaunt Man' was re-printed in Ash-Tree Press's 2004 collection, Acquainted With The Night.
	Booklets
	Ghostly Rathmines: A Visitor's Guide Cover by Duane Spurlock & Anna-Lena Yngve Printings: March 2008 (125) Style: A5, staple-bound pamphlet Length: Ghostly Rathmines: A Visitor's Guide is a companion booklet limited to 125 numbered copies containing artefacts, images, and photographs from locations in the stories in The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories. The booklet was given away free with the first 125 copies of The Bleeding Horse sold through this website. Click here for details.
	Brutal Spirits: Some Notes on Strange Occurrences in a Car Park in Gateshead by Gary McMahon, illustrations by Meggan Kehrli Haunted History Series #4 Printings: February 2008 (150) Style: A5, staple-bound pamphlet Length: 18 pages Postscript "My friend and sometime mentor, Charles Edward Urban, died in March 2007. He was seventy years old. Unfortunately, Charles took his own life before I had the chance to ever meet him in the flesh, and our long-distance relationship remained sadly unresolved. I had been fortunate enough to conduct an informal correspondence with him (a loose friendship that took the form of letters and emails) in the few years before his untimely death, which was begun when I sent him a fan letter because a story of his ("The Red Yawn" ) affected me profoundly enough to cause me to re-examine my entire life. Charles named me in his will as sole executor of his estate. Going through his belongings, ostensibly in search of unpublished material for a proposed posthumous collection of his short fiction , I came across the following papers in the locked bottom drawer of a battered Victorian bureau. Whether they constitute notes for an unfinished tale, the ramblings of a suicidal and deeply unsettled mind, or accounts of genuine strange occurrences in the north east of England, I will leave you to decide. -Gary McMahon, editor"
	The Red House at Münstereifel by Helen Grant, illustrations by William Bond Haunted History Series #3 Printings: July 2007 (150) Style: A5, staple-bound pamphlet Length: 28 pages Postscript "Early in 2007, whilst researching an article about Steinfeld Abbey, I came across the collection of documents (originally in German) which comprise this booklet, in a forgotten folder bearing the name of Löher, a name closely connected with that infamous period in European history when witch-hunting was at its height. For reasons which will soon become clear upon perusal of the documents, I have chosen to publish them outside Germany. It is imperative that the facts relating to the history of the Red House in Münstereifel--in so far as they can be established--are put before those persons best equipped to take the appropriate action. The author of the original documents perished in a horrific incident which appears not unconnected with their compilation. Whether his fears and suspicions were justified is for you, the reader, to judge. -H. Grant, editor"
	Blind Man's Box: Some documents relating to the history of the Grand Pavilion Theatre, Seabourne by Reggie Oliver, illustrations by Meggan Kehrli Haunted History Series #2 Printings: June 2007 (150) Style: A5, staple-bound pamphlet Length: 20 pages Postscript "On the thirteenth of July this year, Dr. George Vilier, died suddenly at the age of fifty five. He was lecturer in Theatre Studies at Bath University, and a colleague and friend of mine, so I suppose it should have been no surprise to discover that he had made me his literary executor. Among his papers I found the almost complete MS of his long-awaited work, The Gothic Experience in Victorian Drama, which I hope will soon see publication. I also found a folder which contained the following documents and notes. I am sure that Vilier was intending to use them to form a single connected narrative, and I debated whether I should do the same. In the end I decided that I would serve his memory better if I arranged these papers in a moderately coherent order, secured the relevant copyright permissions and published them as they stood. I have added a short note at the end, but readers must decide for themselves whether what follows provides any clue to the mystery of his sudden and tragic death. -Reggie Oliver, editor"
	On the Apparitions at Gray's Court by Peter Bell, illustrations by Meggan Kehrli Haunted History Series #1 Printings: Dec. 2006 (150) Style: A5, staple-bound pamphlet Length: 16 pages Postscript "This intriguing pamphlet, handsomely produced by Swan River Press, is the first in a promised series of fake histories of real buildings. Peter Bell's fascinating On the Apparitions at Gray's Court leaves you eager for more. Taking the form of a reprinted academic paper, complete with footnotes, bibliographic references and the kind of entertainingly pernickety detail beloved of the local history enthusiast, we're very much in M. R. James territory, physically as well as stylistically--a medieval building in the cathedral precinct at York, which has played host at different times to clergy, academics and something altogether less reassuring. "By the end I was googling away to try and sort the truth from the fiction. It's a great idea and Dr. Bell pulls it off with ease and elegance. If anyone out there has a second hand copy of the author's Poltergeist over the Wolds: a Study of Paranormal Phenomena in the East Riding of Yorkshire, I'd be very interested in putting in an offer." -Robert Lloyd Parry, All Hallows #42