Spectral Sounds Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird

From the ringing of a disconnected bell to footsteps in the halls of an abandoned house and the whisper of an unexplained voice in the ear, uncanny sounds are often the heralds of danger and terror in Gothic and supernatural fiction. Yet, when examining the range of stories which best manipulate our aural sense it is clear that there is more room to explore how significant sound is to our experience of fear.

This new collection presents tales in which ghosts interact with the corporeal world through noise, bodiless voices wander through the ether, and the objects whose sounds we trust, like the telephone, betray us. Featuring obscure pieces alongside some of the pioneers of the weird including B M Croker, Algernon Blackwood, H D Everett and Sheridan Le Fanu.

Manon Burz-Labrande is a researcher based at the University of Vienna who specializes in the content, history and literary influence of penny bloods and penny dreadfuls. Her research has also explored scientific romances and the crossover of literature with medicine, as well as a long-held interest in the role of sound in Gothic and strange fiction.

I. "I heard a noise, sure enough": Living with audible presences
1. The Invisible Tenants of Rushmere - Florence Marryat - 1883
2. The First Comer - Bithia Mary Croker - 1896
3. The Day of My Death - Elizabeth Stuart Phelps - 1868
 
II. "I had heard the words with painful distinctness": Perceiving ghostly voices
4. The Spirit's Whisper - Sheridan Le Fanu - 1896
5. A Case of Eavesdropping - Algernon Blackwood - 1906
6. A Speakin' Ghost - Annie Trumbull Slosson - 1890
7. The Whispering Wall - H. D. Everett - 1916
8. No Living Voice - Thomas Street Millington – 1872
 
III. "I jumped awake to the furious ringing of my bell": Sonorous objects and haunting technology
9. The Lady's Maid Bell - Edith Wharton - 1902
10. The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit - Barry Pain - 1901
11. Over the Wires - H. D. Everett - 1920
12. The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly - Rosa Mulholland - 1866
 
IV. Sounds and silence: Acoustic weird beyond the ghostly
13. Siope - A Fable - Edgar Allan Poe - 1837
14. The House of Sounds - M. P. Shiel - 1911