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Welcome
to SUNDIAL
SUPERNATURAL
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| Christopher Woodforde |
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A.N.L. Munby |
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W.J. Wintle |
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| SUNDIAL |
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SUNDIAL |
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SUNDIAL |
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SUNDIAL SUPERNAT NDIAL
SUPERNATURAL
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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-two 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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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
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“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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HARDBACK edition SOLD OUT
Paperback edition NOW AVAILABLE
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price includes dispatch by Airmail)
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A PAD IN THE
STRAW
by
C.
WOODFORDE
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Please
select
appropriate delivery button |
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WITHIN
UK DELIVERY
£17.50
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DELIVERY
IN EUROPE
£20.50
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ROW
DELIVERY
(USA, AUS, NZ, etc)
£22.50
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A
full-length
review of A PAD IN THE STRAW by David Harris in THE GHOSTS & SCHOLARS M.R. Newsletter (No: 23, March 2013)
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 (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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THE ALABASTER HAND by
A. N. L. MUNBY
2013
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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:
24 June 2013
Price:
£17.50 SOLD OUT
Softback edition due March 2021
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| Contents: 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
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“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 was held 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 was read.
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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: 2018
Price:
£17.50
SOLD OUT Now available in paperback |
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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 2020:
THE ROOM OPPOSITE by FLORA MAYOR
DREAD DWELLING by Richmal Crompton
GHOST STORIES OF ROSEMARY TIMPERLEY
Vol 2
THE
NIGHT WIND HOWLS by FREDERICK COWLES
WHAT
DREAMS MAY COME? by Cynthia Asquith
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Flora Mayor
& Rich
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THE ROOM OPPOSITE by FLORA MAYOR
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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.
Contents (sixteen
tales):
‘The
Room Opposite’, ‘The Kind Action of Mr. Robinson’, ‘Letters From Manningfield’,
‘Tales of Widow Weeks’, ‘Fifteen Charlotte Street’, ‘The Unquiet Grave’,
‘Christmas Night at Almira’, ‘In the Bus’, ‘Mother and Daughter’, ‘Innocent’s
Day’, ‘A Season at the Sceptre’, ‘The Lounge at the Royal’, ‘The Dead Lady’,
‘Miss De Mansaring of Asham’, ‘ ‘There Shall Be Lights at Thy Death’ ‘, ‘Le
Spectre de la Rose.’
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alCrom
pto
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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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