Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination

Gothic literature fascinates millions of people, including me. Much of it is not too far distant from some types of crime fiction, and there's a Gothic influence on some of my short stories, as well as on some aspects of one or two of my novels - including my current work-in-progress, The Dungeon House. So it was with great delight that, last week, I had an opportunity to explore the British Library's fantastic exhibition Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination.

The exhibits are eclectic and comprehensive, and take us all the way from Horace Walpole and The Castle of Otranto, through the Brontes, Poe, Stoker and John Buchan's Witch Wood, to modern Goth festivals at Whitby, the atmospheric Yorkshire resort that is the setting for a story I wrote last year, "The Killiing of Captain Hastiings". There are rare handwritten manuscripts (Wilkie Collins' Basil among them) and also several melodramatic paintings, by Henry Fuseli and others. The key role of landscape and setting in Gothic fiction is brought home in vivid fashion.

A number of film clips - including extracts from Dead of Night and The Wicker Man, two of the finest of all horror films - can be watched, and there are some intriguing bits and pieces, including a vampire slayer's kit. Ghosts, vampires, demons and zombies abound. It was fitting that I timed my visit more or less to coincide with Hallowe'en. I recommend this exhibition unreservedly..  

The British Library has also teamed up with BBC Four, which has been showing an excellent documentary by Andrew Graham Dixon, The Art of the Gothic, which concludes this evening. The programme covers art, architecture and literature and I've found the first two episodes engrossing. The same can be said of last night's Frankenstein and The Vampyre, and  Dan Cruickshanks' excellent study for BBC Four of the Gilbert Scott family's influence on Gothic architecture, including Liverpool Cathedral, which I know well, and even little Stretton Church, just down the road from where I live. To this day, the Gothic influence is pervasive, and although I've been interested in the subject for a very long time, visiting the exhibition and watching the recent documentaries has given me more insight, as well as a good deal of pleasure.

Murder in Cornwall and the Lake District

I'm able to share some exciting news - well, exciting for me and, I hope, some of the Golden Age fans among you. In the new year, the British Library will be publishing two more rare Golden Age novels, and each book will include a new introduction, written by me. The novels are both written by John Bude, and were his first two published detective stories.

John who? Well, until a couple of years ago, I'd never heard of John Bude either. Then I visited a friend who has a wonderful collection of Golden Age books,and he told me that he thought Bude was very under-rated. He was even kind enough to give me a copy of one of Bude's later books, Death in Ambush. Before long, I discovered that Bude was actually a member of the small group that founded the Crime Writers' Association, exactly sixty years ago. But he died about four years later and his reputation soon died too.

A pity,because my friend is right - Bude writes both readably and entertainingly. His work may not have been stunning enough to belong with the greats, but there is a smoothness and accomplishment about even his first mystery, The Cornish Coast Murder, which you don't find in many debut mysteries. I was, naturally, fascinated to discover that his second book was set in the Lake District, and I felt he captured the atmosphere of the area rather more interestingly than the more acclaimed Newton Gayle, whose Sinister Crag I discussed here a while back.

The British Library has, I think, done a very good job with the artwork for the covers, and I'm really pleased to be associated with these revivals. Bude's two long lost novels are well worth reading - I wouldn't describe either as a complex whodunit, but the setting and characterisation is definitely a cut above what most of his contemporaries managed. And of course I hope that more Golden Age reprints will follow before long.