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Welcome
to SUNDIAL
SUPERNATURAL
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NEWS:14 June
The abrupt demise of our printers for seven years, Biddles, in tandem
with its parent company the MPG Printgroup, caused a serious delay with
the publication of
THE
ALABASTER HAND. We're now delighted to report that our new printers,
CPI, have confirmed delivery of this title is set for 24 June.
All
advance orders will be dispatched on that day by First Class Post within the UK and by
Airmail to destinations outside the UK. We are now concentrating on our next three supernatural titles plus Manhood's LIFE, BE STILL! Thank you for your patience. | | | | |  | |  | |  | | | Christopher Woodforde | | A.N.L. Munby | | W.J. Wintle | | | SUNDIAL | | SUNDIAL | | SUNDIAL | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  | | | Richmal Crompton | | Flora Mayor | | Rosemary Timperley | | | | | | | | SUNDIAL SUPERNAT
Individual
webpages for all six books and their authors are currently under construction - soon to be uploaded.
SUNDIAL
SUPERNATURAL
| | On the website of King’s
College, Cambridge: Librarian's ghost stories re-issued
Sundial Supernatural | |
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A PAD IN THE STRAW by CHRISTOPHER WOODFORDE |
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Something Amiss!
A
PAD IN THE STRAW was first published sixty-one years ago in 1952. Long out
of print, this new edition retains Lord David Cecil's Foreword to the
original volume but now includes a Preface specially written by the
author's son, Giles Woodforde, and an Afterword by Richard Dalby -
making it the definitive edition of this oft-admired collection of
'strange tales for the connoisseur'.
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SHOP |
A PAD
IN THE STRAW
CHRISTOPHER WOODFORDE
With a Preface by
Giles
Woodforde
Now
Available
Format:
Jacketed Hardback
Limited to 200 copies
ISBN:
978-1- 908274-09-0
Publication: 05
May 2012
Price: £17.50
Please
select UK or
OUTSIDE UK delivery |
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WITHIN UK DELIVERY
£17.50 |
OUTSIDE UK DELIVERY
£20.50 |
Or download an order form here
to print & post. |
“We soon discovered that Dr Woodforde had a
natural flair for
storytelling, especially weird and mysterious ones involving the
supernatural,
subtly different to the typical ghost story. So frightening were some
of these
stories that they found us burrowing even deeper into our beds. Before
we left
the school we implored him to write down the tales."
"It is now being
reissued
alongside its earlier ‘companion’ volume, W. J. Wintle’s Ghost
Gleams
which was similarly written and recited to a group of eight boys who
appreciated good spooky tales in the late evenings, a treat we all
relish!" (From Richard Dalby's Afterword updated from the original
article
"Writers in the James Tradition Number 11" in Ghosts
&
Scholars 14 but now updated.)
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A full-length
review of A PAD IN THE STRAW by David Harris in the current issue (March 2013)
of THE GHOSTS & SCHOLARS M.R. Newsletter (No: 23)
A review by Mario Guslandi of Sundial's A PAD IN THE STRAW posted
at THIRTEEN O'CLOCK.
Also reviewed by Mark Andresen at THE PAN REVIEW
(Both links will open in a separate window).
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"A recent review of A Pad in the Straw by Christopher
Woodforde (published by The Sundial Press) in Ghosts and Scholars resulted
in a rush of orders and only two hundred copies have been printed! I ordered my
copy via the website (www.sundialpress.co.uk) just after I returned from
Cambridge and it arrived first class the following day. How about that for
service?
It’s a handsome, well-produced, hard-backed volume (with an
illustrated dust-wrapper) exactly the same size as the current Sarob
publications. Yes, it is perfect bound but at £17.50 (p&p included within the UK) I’m not
going to complain about that. The book contains the same twenty stories and
prefatory note by Lord David Cecil as in the 1952 Dent original (lowest price
on Abebooks, £85) as well as a preface by the author’s son, Giles Woodforde,
and an afterword by Richard Dalby which is a most valuable addition. Thus I
discovered Christopher’s family connection to the famous eighteenth century
clerical diarist and his curacies in Lincolnshire and Norfolk, not far from my
current home.
Although written for and told to the choristers of New
College, Oxford, the tales are not childish and they have a distinctly
antiquarian, Jamesian character … "
An excerpt from
a review in the quarterly Newsletter issued (Oct/Nov 2012) by A Ghostly Company
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The
ebook of A PAD IN THE STRAW will be released and available to download
in July
"In
these stories, villains generally take the shape of devils.
These
are a light-hearted contradiction of
the popular theory that Evil is a disembodied myth; they are very real.
In
"Sacrilege at St. George's," for instance, a respectable church-going
spinster suddenly assumes beak and bristles and vanishes with a blast
of hot
air.
The
author does not intend his demons to
point a moral issue; they do not bear unrepentant sinners away. They
are simply
material facts, like tables and chairs, to be accepted with perfect
equanimity
by the characters. Some of the best stories have the compelling power
of a
dream. Whilst one is under their spell it seems to be quite in order
that a
child should turn into a stone statue and that a jar should inflict a
severe
bite upon its owner. It is, therefore, only on reflection that one
perceives
the author's power of fantasy, though as a distinguished antiquarian he
may
have borrowed some of his ideas from English folklore.
Further
originality is achieved by the
contrasting of old and new. In "The ‘Doom’ Window at Breckham" sundry
devils from a medieval scene of the Last Judgment cheerfully derail a
train and
are even snapped by an enthusiast's camera. There is a similar contrast
between
the somewhat old-fashioned style of narration and the liveliness of the
conversation." — Alcuin
[In
addition to A PAD IN THE STRAW Christopher Woodforde certainly wrote a
further five supernatural
stories. Alas, for the time being at least, those stories have
disappeared.
According
to the author's son, following
the original publication of
A PAD IN THE STRAW the
idea, it seems, was to publish a second selection, but that idea
foundered
because it would have needed at least ten more stories to produce a
viable
book.
Should these five ‘vanished’ stories ever come to light we will publish
them
in a slim, separate, limited edition volume.]
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2013
2013 |
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| We are considering issuing a new edition of Woodforde's non-supernatural novel RECORD OF JOHN in a limited edition. Please contact us to register your interest. | | | | 2013
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THE ALABASTER HAND by A. N. L. MUNBY
2013 | | | | | Alan Noel Latimer Munby (1913 - 1974) was a fellow of King's College,
Cambridge, and wrote these supernatural tales, many of which centre on
antiquarian books and manuscripts, sixty-four years ago while a prisoner of war in Germany during World
War Two. Munby is described by Michael Ashley in the Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction as "The one writer who
comes closest to inheriting the mantle of M. R. James." | 
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THE ALABASTER HAND
A. N. L. MUNBY
With
an Introduction
by António Monteiro
Format:
Jacketed Hardback
Limited NUMBERED Edition
Book Dimensions: 210 × 148 mm
Page Extent: 208
ISBN: 978-1-908274-12-0
Publication: 2013
Price:
£17.50 | | Herodes
Redivivus
The Inscription
The Alabaster Hand
The Topley Place Sale
The Tudor Chimney
A Christmas Game
The White Sack
The Four-Poster
The Negro's Head
The Tregannet Book Of Hours
An Encounter In The Mist
The Lectern
Number Seventy-Nine
The Devil's Autograph | "Centuries-old houses,
ancient leather volumes, illuminated manuscripts and long-revered traditions -
these are the stuff of which the most fearsome tales can be woven. The stories
in this book challenge comparisons with those of that master of the uncanny
tale, the author of Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary, to whom they are
dedicated".
THE ALABASTER HAND is recognised as a genuine cornerstone of supernatural literature. A
centenary conference commemorating A. N. L. MUNBY’s life and
work will take place at King’s College, Cambridge, on 28-29 June 2013. At
the conference dinner in Hall, a passage from a story from The
Alabaster Hand will
be read. For further infirmation please visit the regularly updated conference website here (the link will open in a new window or tab).
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GHOST GLEAMS by W. J. WINTLE
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GHOST GLEAMS
W. J. WINTLE
With
an Introduction
by Richard Dalby
Format:
Jacketed Hardback
Limited
to 200 copies
ISBN: 978-1-908274-10-6
Publication: 2013
Price:
£17.50
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“These tales make no claim to be anything
more than straightforward ghost stories. They were written in answer to
the
insistent demand, “Tell us a story!” from eight bright boys whose names
stand
on the dedicatory page; and they were told on Sunday nights to the
little group
crouching over a wood fire on a wind-swept island off the Western
shore.
They were so fortunate as
to meet with
approval from their rather critical audience. Truth to tell, the
gruesome ones
met with the best reception. Boys like highly flavoured dishes. But the
tales
are not all tragic—far from it!
They now go forth to face
a wider audience: they
will be fortunate if they find a kinder one.”
From the Foreword by W. J. Wintle.
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 Future
Supernatural titles (all
with new introductions) due in 2013:
THE
ALABASTER HAND by A.N.L. MUNBY
THE
NIGHT WIND HOWLS by FREDERICK COWLES
THE COMING OF THE FRIARS by AUGUSTUS JESSOP
THE ROOM OPPOSITE by FLORA MAYOR
MIST and Other Ghost Stories by Richmal Crompton
THE COLLECTED
GHOST STORIES OF ROSEMARY TIMPERLEY |
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Flora Mayor & RichTHE ROOM OPPOSITE by FLORA MAYOR | | | First published in 1935, Flora Mayor’s THE ROOM OPPOSITE and Other Tales of
Mystery and Imagination is impossibly scarce to find and thus commands a
high price when tracked down. Excellent traditional ghost stories after the
manner of M. R. James, who opined that those pieces "which introduce the
supernatural commend themselves to me very strongly." James did not hand
out such compliments freely. Sundial’s new edition will feature a highly informative Introduction by Richard Dalby. | |
MIST & Other Ghost Stories by RICHMAL CROMPTON |
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Best known for her ‘Just William’ books,
Richmal Crompton published MIST and Other Ghost Stories in 1928. Never reprinted, these
wide-ranging and compelling suspense stories for adults are atmospherically
charged with murder, moonshine and murkiness. They are often rooted in
domesticity or in someone’s oppressive fascination with an old house or garden.
The ghosts are perhaps surprisingly grisly.
Contains: 'The Bronze Statuette'., 'The Spanish Comb', 'Marlowes', 'The House
Behind the Woods', 'Harry Lorimer', 'The Haunting of Greenways', 'The Oak
Tree', 'Hands', 'The Sisters', 'Mist', and others.
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mal
Crompto
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| FROM ANOTHER WORLD
The
Collected Ghost Stories of
ROSEMARY
TIMPERLEY |
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FROM ANOTHER WORLD
& other Ghost Stories
by ROSEMARY
TIMPERLEY
Edited
with an Introduction by
Richard
Dalby
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Contents:
From Another World, Harry, The Private Torture Chamber, The Mistress
in Black, The
Man With the Flute, Unknown Territory, Sister
Varden, Walk on the Water, Out of Sight Out of Life, Rachel and Simon,
Masks
and Voices, No Living Man So Tall, Little Girl Lost, The Unknown
Caller, Supper With Martha, To Keep Him Company, Street of the Blind
Donkey,
The Power Cut, Mandragora, The Thug, Fire Trap, The Peg-Doll, Little
Boy Haunted,
Hell on Both Sides of the Gate, A Backwards Shadow, Christmas Meeting …
and more
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A
CAGE FOR THE NIGHTINGALE by PHYLLIS PAUL
With an
Introduction by Glen Cavaliero
We’re elated by the response to the first of
several Sundial reprints of the little-known 'supernatural' novels of Phyllis
Paul which have some affinity with the work of Charles Williams. A Cage for the Nightingale is a deeply absorbing work but requires
the meticulous attention of the reader who otherwise might soon become lost in its
shadows. As Mark Valentine has written in his review of this edition, “… at its
heart a young woman's hesitant quest for the truth about a mysterious
death some years before, and the ambiguous roles and attitudes of those around
her in the country house where she is a paid companion.” Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote of “An almost medieval sense of good and
ill. One enters a different world — compelling, fearful, mysterious. The
characters live, the place has frightening reality … a kind of violent beauty.”
We were pleased to recently
read the following in an article in the December 2012 issue of ‘The American
Scholar’ (In Praise of Small
Presses):
“Sundial Press has produced an exceptionally attractive edition of Phyllis
Paul’s A Cage for the
Nightingale, likened to James’s The
Turn of the Screw in its power and artistry.”
Full
details of the book can be found here.
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GHOSTLY LINKS
(will open in a new window or tab)
GHOSTS
& SCHOLARS
The M.R. James Newsletter
A
goldmine of information about M.R. James, his life, times, tales and related
matters.
A GHOSTLY
COMPANY
A small, England-based, society devoted to
fictional ghost stories, which holds get-togethers — 'Black Pilgrimages' — in
various parts of the country, and publishes newsletters and an annual magazine The Silent Companion.
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