THE ALABASTER HAND is now recognised as  a genuine cornerstone  of supernatural literature.

A. N. L. MUNBY  centenary conference  at King’s College, Cambridge, on 28-29 June 2013

A centenary conference ‘Floreat Bibliomania’ commemorating A. N. L. MUNBY’s life and work will take place at King’s College, Cambridge, on 28-29 June 2013. Actor Richard Heffer, formerly a star of the BBC’s Colditz series in which he played the part of Captain Tim Downing, will read an abridged version of The Tregannet Book Of Hours at the conference dinner in Hall . N.B. Should you wish to attend the section of the conference featuring the reading you are free to book only for the dinner, which will be held beneath a portrait of M.R. James.  For further information please visit the regularly updated conference website here (the link will open in a new window or tab).  On the website of King’s College, Cambridge: Librarian’s ghost stories re-issued l

I’m A. N. L. Munby, I am . . . An article on the upcoming Munby Conference in Cambridge on the TLS blog here. Here you can read Books that go bump in the night by Michael Caines on the TLS blog.

		NB We have completely SOLD OUT!
THE ALABASTER HAND by A.N.L MUNBY
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THE STORIES:

‘Herodes Redivivus’ — This story is horrifying but perhaps not potently supernatural, except for a prescient dream that haunts the schoolboy-narrator. A sadistic, paedophilic bookseller lures the schoolboy-narrator into his cellar.

‘The Inscription’ — A scholar spends the weekend with his friend, who is tearing down a ruined temple on a island belonging to his manor. The temple had been built by a wicked, reclusive ancestor. Soon the friend is being haunted by something he can only glimpse after dark.

‘The Alabaster Hand’ — A vicar presented to the living of Brandon St Giles, begins to wonder why no one is allowed to sit in a particular stall that is hard up against the tomb of a previous vicar.

‘The Topley Place Sale’ — The heir of Topley Place tries to sell off the furnishings of his new manor, including the relics of Admiral Topley, who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. However, the old Admiral had expressly stated that his relics should be preserved in his house.

‘The Tudor Chimney’ — A man remodelling his newly-purchased manor finds a lovely Tudor fireplace that had been bricked up and concealed behind a wall. Naturally, he decides to restore it, and is soon being haunted by a terrible smell.

‘A Christmas Game’ — My friends and I used to play this game at Halloween. We sat in a circle in the dark and passed around objects purported to be intestines, eyeballs, etc. In this story, the game becomes a bit more realistic.

‘The White Sack’ — A hiker in the mountains of Skye is making his way back to his lodgings when a mist delays his progress. Soon he is being stalked by something that resembles a white sack.

‘The Four-Poster’ — An archaeologist dies of a heart attack in an old four poster where he had been suffering from terrible nightmares of the adjoining graveyard.

‘The Negro’s Head’ — The black servant of a bookbinder is accused of being a jinx, and is murdered rather horribly by the bookbinder’s apprentices. His body is thrown into the Thames, where one of the apprentices later dies by drowning. The supernatural is not very obvious in this story, except perhaps, for the death of the apprentice.

‘The Tregannet Book of Hours’ — A man buys a medieval Book of Hours and is chagrined when his friend points out that the miniature illustrating the Burial Service is a modern forgery. Why was the original illustration of the Burial Service destroyed?

‘An Encounter in the Mist’ — Yet another hiker is lost in the mist, this time in Wales. He encounters a cheerful old man who gives him a detailed map of the area. There is only one small problem with the map.

‘The Lecturn’ — A soldier steals a lectern from an Irish village church and has it sent home to his father’s manor. It is placed in the family chapel, where the returning soldier soon dies a horrible death.

‘Number Seventy-nine’ — A collector wishes to purchase an item listed as #79 in a book catalogue, but discovers that the bookseller has burned the item he covets. But why?

‘The Devil’s Autograph’ — A thirteen-year-old orphan goes to live with his uncle, an elderly, reclusive invalid who was a church canon. His clergyman-uncle is subject to intense fits of depression whenever the subject of Satan is brought up.