MACABRE:
A Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears
Edited by Angela Challis and Dr Marty Young
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E-book edition published 2011 by Brimstone Press.
(Print edition published 2010 by Brimstone Press. ISBN: 978-0-9805677-4-8)
Anthology copyright © Angela Challis & Dr Marty Young 2010
All stories copyright © their respective authors.
Stories in the Classics and Modern Masters sections are reprinted with the permission of the authors or their estates (where copyright is applicable).
Stories in the New Era section are original to this anthology with the exception of “Her Collection of Intimacy” by Paul Haines, which first appeared in Black: Australian Dark Culture Magazine #2, 2008, and “Take the Free Tour” by Bob Franklin, which first appeared in Under Stones, 2010. Both stories are reprinted with permission.
Layout and cover design by Shane Jiraiya Cummings.
All rights reserved.
All characters in this book are fictitious.
No reference to any living person is intended.
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To our spouses,
Tanya Young and Shane Jiraiya Cummings ...
... without whose support and encouragement this dark project would have never seen the light.
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Australia’s Horror Short Story: An Introduction – Dr Marty Young
CLASSICS (1836 – 1979)
Fisher’s Ghost: A Legend of Campbelltown – John Lang
The White Maniac: A Doctor’s Tale – Waif Wander
The Devil of the Marsh – H. B. Marriott-Watson
The Red Cap Spectre of the Robertson: A Tale of the Gilbert Diggings – E. Downs
The Old Portrait – Hume Nisbet
The Ghostly Door – Henry Lawson
The Chosen Vessel – Barbara Baynton
The Land of the Unseen – Ernest Favenc
A Strange Goldfield – Guy Boothby
Yara Ma Tha Who – David Unaipon
And Not in Peace – George Whitley
The Evil Sickness – Wolfe Herscholt
Blinded They Fly – Vol Molesworth
MODERN MASTERS (1980 – 2000)
The Bullet that Grows in the Gun – Terry Dowling
Passing the Bone – Sean Williams
Never Seen by Waking Eyes – Stephen Dedman
THE NEW ERA (2000 –)
All the Clowns in Clowntown – Andrew J. McKiernan
Her Collection of Intimacy – Paul Haines
Obituary Park – Nathan Burrage
Schubert by Candlelight – Matthew Chrulew
Take the Free Tour – Bob Franklin
Dark Heart Alley (An Urban Fable) – Shane Jiraiya Cummings
Monsters Among Us – Kirstyn McDermott
Here Be Monsters – Susan Wardle
Can’t Stop Killing You – Russell B. Farr
Erina Hearn and the Gods of Death – Kyla Ward
Sweet as Decay – David Witteveen & David Conyers
Appendix 1: Australian Horror Fiction Timeline
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Australia’s Horror Short Story:
An Introduction
Dr Marty Young
“What is the dominant note of Australian Scenery? That which is the dominant note of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry—Weird Melancholy.”
– Marcus Clarke, Australian Tales (1896)
The first published short story in Australia was “Marawatanne and Dingomatte. A Sentimental Tale.” It was published in the short-lived Howe’s Weekly Commercial Express in 1825. The first supernatural tale was published only a decade later in 1836, indicating that while the European history of short fiction in Australia is a little more than 175 years old, dark fiction—or horror, for want of a better word—has been an integral part of that history from the earliest times.
Australia was seen as a land of opportunity for the colonists, a last chance for those in trouble with the law. The eight-month voyage of the First Fleet from Portsmouth to Botany Bay in 1788 no doubt drove home the point of how far removed they were from the world they had known, and the land they found proved to be far more horrifying than what they had expected.
Colonisation was a struggle; in the beginning, Sydney Cove was a penal colony comprising convicts, marines and the marines’ wives. Many people were illiterate. Food was scarce. The land was soon found to be unfertile. Convict discipline was harsh. There were rebellions, escapes, murders and terrible revenge in this desolate, hot wasteland. They had sailed across the oceans to reach this, the end of the world. What’s more, in the shadows lurked strange animals (beasts larger than a man but with the head of a mouse) and frightening natives, with stories of cannibalism and violent midnight murders abound. It was a unique world that did not want them there.
“The very animal life of these frowning hills is either grotesque or ghostly. Great gray kangaroos hop noiselessly over the coarse grass. Flights of white cockatoos stream out shrieking like evil souls. The sun suddenly sinks, and the mopokes burst out into horrible peals of semi-human laughter. The natives aver that when night comes, from out the bottomless depths of some lagoon the Bunyip rises, and in form like a monstrous sea-calf, drags his loathsome length from out the ooze. From a corner of the silent forest rises a dismal chant, and around a fire, dance natives painted like skeletons.”
– Marcus Clarke, Australian Tales (1896)
With such rich scenery, it is little wonder that there is an abundance of colonial dark fiction stories presenting Australia as a grim and dangerous world. Ghost stories rose to prominence by the mid to late-19th century, and Australia, for such a desolate place, was surprisingly filled with frightful apparitions. But it was not only ghosts thrilling readers in colonial ‘sensational’ tales. Murder and madness were to be found in equal abundance, as too were tales of revenge.
The first Australian supernatural story was “Fisher’s Ghost: A Legend of Campbelltown”, originally published by an anonymous author in Tegg’s Magazine vol.1 (no. 1) in March 1836, but later credited to John Lang through the research of Victor Crittenden. John George Lang (1816–1864) was the first Australian-born novelist and the first Australian crime writer. His story “Fisher’s Ghost” was the first fictional retelling of a real-life (and now famous) murder case that happened in Sydney in 1826, in which the ghost of a farmer called Frederick Fisher helped guide authorities to his body and reveal his killer. Lang is considered the creator of the ghost in this otherwise true tale that is now part of Australian folklore, although the first appearance of his ghost was in his poem, “The Sprite of the Creek!” (also known as “The Spirit of the Creek!”), in 1832. In total, Lang published five versions of Fisher’s Ghost, with the most well known one being “The Ghost upon the Rail”, published in Household Words in 1853.
“Fisher’s Ghost” was also reprinted in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (later simply called The Sydney Gazette) on 5 March 1836. The Sydney Gazette was Australia’s first newspaper, with its first issue printed on March 5, 1803. This weekly paper was heavily censored and focused mostly on colony regulations. It remained the only newspaper in Australia until government censorship was lifted in 1824, and only then did the newspaper industry begin to flourish; by 1886, there were nearly 50 daily papers being printed across Australia, many of them regularly publishing short stories.
The Australian magazine industry likewise saw a rapid growth after the debut of the Australian Magazine in 1821. In particular, the second half of the 19th century saw the publication of popular titles such as Melbourne Punch (1855–1925), The Australian Journal (1865–1962), and The Bulletin (1880–2008). The Australian Journal was Australia’s first literary weekly publication and the first Australian magazine to promote local talent (over 70% of its content was devoted to fiction).
Along with these more mainstream titles, many ‘smaller’ magazines also appeared, acting in much the same way today’s so-called Small Press does, by providing a voice for artistic culture to express itself. The rising demand for fiction was met in these outlets, initially by serialising the likes of Charles Dickens and Charles Lever, but later by publishing the works of Australian writers including Marcus Clarke, Mary Fortune, Lionel Sparrow, and James Skipp Borlase. Many of the stories being published were presenting an Australia filled with ghosts and monsters, evil terrors, the struggle for life, and violent deeds. It was a grim view of the first century of European occupation, but it was a view that reflected the fears and terrors relevant to the society of their time. These early ‘horror’ stories were uniquely Australian, perhaps more-so than any that have come since.
Mary Fortune (1833–1910), who also wrote under the pseudonyms “Waif Wander” and “W. W.” was the first Australian female writer of crime stories and one of the first female crime writers in the world. While she is principally remembered for her more than 500 detective stories published in The Australian Journal, she also wrote several tales in which supernatural or horrific events take place (for example, “The Dead Witness” in 1866 and “The Little Chap” in 1895).
“A fearful, dripping thing rose to the surface—a white, ghastly face followed—and then, up—up—waist high out of the water, rose the corpse of the murdered artist!”
– Mary Fortune, “The Dead Witness” (1866)
Fortune also wrote what could be considered the very first Australian ‘vampire’ story, “The White Maniac: A Doctor’s Tale”, which was published in The Australian Journal (1867). This story may push the boundaries of what a vampire might be, but by the late 19th century, there could be no doubt about the popularity of vampires in fiction, a trend that has continued right through to present day.
Two of the earliest Australian-penned and more traditional vampire stories were written by the Scottish-born artist, writer, and poet Hume Nisbet (1849–1923). “The Vampire Maid” and “The Old Portrait” both appeared in his collection Stories Weird and Wonderful (1900). In the “The Old Portrait”, a man unearths an old portrait of a vampire, only for it to come to life and seduce him. An earlier collection of his stories, The Haunted Station and Other Stories (FV White, London), was published in 1894 and included the popular macabre tales “The Haunted Station” and “The Demon Spell”, amongst others.
In 1899, Henry Brereton Marriott-Watson (1863–1921) published his novella “The Stone Chamber”, perhaps one of the more important vampire stories to emerge in the immediate wake of Dracula (1897). Marriott-Watson was a prolific writer, with more than forty books, including seventeen short story collections and a collection of essays, to his name. Better known for his swashbuckling adventure and historical romance stories, he also published a number of supernatural and horrific tales, including “The Devil of the Marsh” (1883), which details the account of a man who sets out to meet up with his loved one only to find himself face to face with a demonic being.
“Yara Ma Tha Who”, written by Australia’s first indigenous author David Unaipon (1872–1967), whose face graces the Australian $50 bill, was originally published under another’s name in the 1920s but later correctly reprinted in Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigine in 2001. It is an Aboriginal telling of the vampire tale. Arthur Bertram Chandler (1912–1984), the multi-award winning writer of science fiction and fantasy, wrote a number of horror tales including “And Not in Peace” (1946), a vampire story set during World War II. Stephen Dedman’s “Never Seen by Waking Eyes” (1996) presents a more modern vampire tale, but one still no less frightening than any of its many predecessors. Vampires have endured for more than a century in Australia’s literary history, and their popularity continues to grow.
Marcus Clarke (1846–1881) is regarded as the most important Australian writer of the 19th century. His seminal novel His Natural Life, first serialised in The Australian Journal between 1870–1872, printed as a novel in 1874 and reprinted as For The Term of His Natural Life in 1884, is considered the monumental Australian novel of that century and one that is still being published today. Clarke’s interest in spiritualism, hypnosis, drugs, and exotic religions is evident in his short fiction (for example, “Cannabis Indica” (1868), written under the influence of opium). He was a fan of Edgar Allan Poe and wrote many ‘sensational’ stories such as the well anthologised “Human Repetends” (1872) and “Holiday Peak” (1873). “Hunted Down” was originally published in The Australasian on 6 May 1871 and is frequently included in the best horror story anthologies under the name “The Haunted Author”. It tells the tale of a writer’s worst nightmare coming true, and although the idea has been used by countless writers over the intervening years, Clarke’s version is regarded as a classic of the genre.
Late 19th century Australian horror/dark fiction stories maintained their gothic focus on the harsh realities of life for the European immigrants in such a desolate, almost apocalyptic world. Much of the horror in these stories derived through the suffocating ‘bush’ and the isolation of the outback (eg, “The Conquering Bush” by Edward Dyson, 1898). Natural disasters such as bushfires (e.g. “On the Land” by Henry Fletcher, 1901) and drought (e.g. “Grear’s Dam” by Morley Roberts, 1904) were also common topics. The supernatural existed predominantly in the form of ghosts, spirits of the dead seeking retribution for some vile deed or wanting to be put to rest (e.g. “Spirit Led” by Ernest Favenc, 1890). Other stories focussed on the horror of more natural human emotions; revenge, lust, greed, and desire (e.g. “Hollis’s Debt: A Tale of the North-West Pacific” by Louis Becke, 1897; “The Chosen Vessel” by Barbara Baynton, 1902).
Barbara Baynton’s (1857–1929) successful collection of gothic stories, Bush Studies, was published in 1902 and is still discussed at university level today. This collection includes the popular—though savagely brutal—tales “A Dreamer”, “Squeaker’s Mate”, and “Scrammy ‘and”.
While Henry Lawson (1867–1922) and other writers of that time admitted to the harshness of the ‘bush’ (a colloquialism for the Australian outback) but wrote about characters with the ability to overcome such difficulties, Baynton’s stories did not present the same romanticism. Instead, her gothic tales displayed a grim realism of the terrible suffering of women in an inhospitable country. “The Chosen Vessel” (1902), first published in Bush Studies, is a morbid tale of what happens to a woman in the bush when her husband goes away for work for a week, leaving her alone with their young baby.
“She waited motionless, with her baby pressed tightly to her, though she knew that in another few minutes this man with the cruel eyes, lascivious mouth, and gleaming knife would enter.”
– Barbara Baynton, “The Chosen Vessel” (1902)
Lawson (1867–1922), who was born in a tent on the Grenfell goldfields, New South Wales, is regarded as one of the Australia’s finest practitioners of the short story. His most critically acclaimed works are his collection of short stories While the Billy Boils, and the poetry collection In the Days When the World was Wide (both published in 1894). In Lawson’s “The Drover’s Wife,” the wife endures the trials forced upon her in outback Australia and this marks the difference in view between Lawson and Baynton. Lawson had a romantic vision of the bush while Baynton saw it as a place of nightmares. However, Lawson was not adverse to writing darker stories, such as “The Bush Undertaker” (1892), “The Babies of the Bush”, and even “The Ghostly Door”. Both of the latter stories are from Joe Wilson and his Mates (1901).
The exploration of inland Australia provided another great source of inspiration for writers during the 19th century. When John Oxley found the first path through the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney in 1817, exploration began in earnest, culminating with the crossing of the western deserts by David Carnegie in 1896. Until then, those mountains had formed a formidable barrier to early explorers and people could only wonder what the interior of this continent might contain. An inland sea? Golden reefs and untold riches? Or more terrors?
Many lives were lost trying to pry loose the secrets of this mysterious country, the most famous being the explorers Burke and Wills and the German explorer and scientist Ludwig Leichhardt. How hopes must have been dashed when central Australia proved more barren, inhospitable, and deadly than the coastlines.
Ernest Favenc (1845–1908) was a famous Australian explorer who is remembered for The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888, published in 1888. The book was very successful and still remains a useful resource. Along with contributing fiction and poetry to the Sydney Mail, The Bulletin, The Queensland Punch and The Australasian, Favenc also wrote romances, children’s stories, and published a collection of short stories called The Last of Six: Tales of the Austral Tropics (1893). The collection includes the well-known ghost stories “Spirit Led” and “The Track of the Dead” as well as “A Haunt of the Jinkarras”, in which two explorers in Central Australia discover a strange race of human-like beings and other monstrosities in a cave deep beneath the ground.
Such ‘lost race’ stories were hugely popular during the late 19th to early 20th centuries, with Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) being one of the most popular. There were at least nine Australian lost race (or Lemurian) novels during this period, with the best known being Phosphor; an Ischian mystery (1888) by J. Filmore Sherry, The Secret of the Australian Desert (1895) by Ernest Favenc, George Firth Scott’s The Last Lemurian (1898), and Rosa Praed’s Fugitive Anne: A Romance of the Unexplored Bush (1902). The appeal of lost race stories in a ‘new’ country like Australia was likely that they provided a history beyond the colonial experience, a fictional history, but one that gave a sense of depth to the country that otherwise didn’t exist.
Exploration and discovery are prominent themes for Favenc’s story re-published here in Macabre, only it is the exploration of the invisible world. “The Land of the Unseen” was first published in Phil May’s Annual (Winter) 14, in 1902. It is the frightening tale of two men who have discovered the means of seeing the invisible beings that live all around them in everyday existence. “The Land of the Unseen” has similarities with J. S. le Fanu’s “Green Tea” (1886), in which the protagonist can see a phantom monkey that no one else can see and questions the existence of an invisible world—or his sanity.
With the discovery of silver and lead in South Australia in the 1840’s, mining boomed across the country, leading to the export of ore and the immigration of skilled workers. Copper and gold became valuable commodities, with the gold rush of the 1850s having a lasting impact on Australia. But colonial era mining was a dangerous employment with a high mortality rate.
Many stories depicting this life-style were printed in the journals and newspapers in the late 1800s, including tales of cave-ins and ensuing madness (e.g. “After the Accident” (1898) by Edward Dyson) and the ghosts of long dead miners. Guy Boothby’s “A Strange Goldfield” (from The Lady of the Island, 1904) is one such tale, in which a gold mine being worked by ghosts is discovered deep in the outback.
Guy Boothby (1867–1905) was the successful author of more than 50 books, and although he is better remembered for his crime and mystery stories, several of his novels contained elements of the supernatural or occult. Such examples include Pharos the Egyptian (1899), The Lady of the Island (1904), and his five-book series of Dr. Nikola novels (1895–1902).
Aborigine content does not feature prominently in colonial dark fiction/horror stories. There are a couple of tales whereby the native Australians are presented as uneducated brutes and savages of the bush, but the earliest story to feature the ghost of an Aborigine is “The Red Cap Spectre of the Robertson” (1896) by the unknown writer E. Downs. “King Rum Tum’s Ghost” (1867) by James Skipp Borlase featured two rascals who hid behind the superstitious fears of townsfolk, one of who pretended to be the ghost of Kim Rum Tum, the king of a local Aboriginal tribe, but their devious ways were soon found out.
Short stories that focused on the emotions of fear and/or horror continued to be published after the 1900s (eg. “Dr. Grahame’s Great Experiments” by Arthur Bayldon, 1910; “The Devil’s Ball” by Dulcie Deamer, 1923; “The Gland Men of the Island” by Max Afford, 1931), but the abundance that existed from the late 1800s to ~1910 was on the wane. The horror/supernatural short story experienced a slow but gradual demise in the new century as real life horror came to the fore, and it would remain an apparition of its previous self until the boom times of the 1980s.
Dark science fiction tales became more common than outright horror during the mid-20th century. Several giant ‘creature’ stories were published, no doubt reflecting the fears of the atomic and space age. “Foul Log” (1945) by Andrew Dunstan (aka Arthur Bertram Chandler) involved a giant monster from the deep; “Floral Hate” (1951) by Kent Lane (aka Gordon Clive Bleeck) was about giant carnivorous plants on a distant planet; “Insectant Invasion: a science fantasy” (1951) by G. C. Bleeck concerns giant ants of a man-made design; and “The Maralinga Monsters” (1958) by Ross Annabell was also about giant ants, this time set deep in the Australian outback.
Trade restrictions put in place because of a shortage of US dollars during World War II effectively banned unnecessary imports from reaching Australia from 1940 until the late 1950s. This embargo created a flourishing local pulp and comic book industry. Transport Publishing Co. (an imprint of Stanley Horwitz), Currawong Publishing Company (active between 1942 and 1951) and Cleveland (established by Jack Atkins in 1953) released a number of horror-related books during this period, but short stories were far less common.
Between 1948 to 1952, Horwitz published a series of “Scientific Thrillers” that mixed horror, mystery, and science fiction. Some of the covers would read ‘Thrilling! Science Crime!’ While most of the novellas were published under unidentified pseudonyms, writers such as Allan Yates (writing as Carter Brown) and Gordon Clive Bleeck (as Belli Luigi and Wolfe Herscholt) contributed to the series. “The Evil Sickness” (1949), by Wolfe Herscholt, appeared as an additional short story in a fifty page issue named after the main novella, “Lightning Crime” by Belli Luigi.
Gordon Clive Bleeck (1907–1971) began writing after a broken leg put him in hospital and laid him up for six months in the 1920s. While today he remains largely unknown, Bleeck was the most prominent Australian pulp fiction writer of the 1950s, with 500 stories (including more than 300 novels!) to his name and numerous pseudonyms. He wrote romance, westerns, detective stories, humour, scientific thrillers, sports stories, and action thrillers.
In 1943, Currawong Publishing Company published “Ape of God” (an Australian retelling of Frankenstein) and its sequel “Monster at Large,” both by Vol Molesworth (1924–1964). Molesworth was well known during the 1940s for his science fiction stories. Some of his work was strongly influenced by H. P. Lovecraft, in particular, “Blinded They Fly” (1951) and “Let There Be Monsters” (1952), both of which were published as chapbooks. “Blinded They Fly” is regarded as the first significant Lovecraft-inspired story by an Australian.
When the import embargo was finally abolished in late 1958, English multi-nationals such as Sphere, Corgi, and Futura moved back in and soon dominated the Australian market. This effectively put an end to the vibrant local speculative fiction era.
Although there were the occasional horror story being published in Australian science fiction fanzines/magazines (e.g. The Cygnus Chronicler and Futuristic Tales magazine) in the late 1970s to early 1980s, horror as a distinct genre did not begin to flourish until The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine (AH&FM; 1984-1986). AH&FM was Australia’s first semi-professional magazine devoted to horror/dark fiction, building upon the worldwide popularity of the genre courtesy of Stephen King. And while the Australian dark fiction scene since the publication of AH&FM has been a constantly changing landscape of more than 50 small-press publications—some of which have lasted little more than a year, the same as it was back in the 19th century—it is from publications like these that contemporary counterparts to the colonial writers can be found.
The New York Times best-selling and multi-award winning Australian writer Sean Williams was regularly published in small press magazines like Eidolon: the Journal of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy (1990-2000) and EOD Magazine (1989–1994) at the start of his career. Terry Dowling, Robert Hood, Stephen Dedman, Rick Kennett, Leanne Frahm, and Kaaron Warren, writers whose names are now synonymous with horror, were instrumental in helping the Australian genre gain international recognition during this time, with their award-winning stories being regularly reprinted in international Year’s Best collections. Dowling has won more than twenty national and international awards for his writing, and has had more stories reprinted in the international Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy during its twenty-year run (1988–2008) than any other writer in the world. Frahm has been reprinted in anthologies edited by the late great Charles L Grant, while Kennett has continued the tradition laid down by the colonial greats and gone on to become one of Australia’s premiere contemporary writers of ghost stories. His story “Due West” (first published in Eidolon in 1997) was one of the more traditional ghost stories from his 13: A Collection of Ghost Stories (2001), a collection that is sadly out of print.
But Australia in the 1980s–1990s was a far different world to that encountered by the colonists; the intervening years had seen Australia explored, mapped, and developed. The outback had become a tourist destination. The horrors of an unknown country had been replaced with the horrors of humanity, of life in the ever-growing cities. “Passing the Bone” (1996) by Sean Williams encapsulates this perfectly. Based in the outback mining town of Coober Pedy, a murdered man discovers all the men in his family have been cursed to die young and become undead. The man seeks revenge for his death but is also determined to travel across the country to Sydney in order to say goodbye to his young son. This journey from the outback to the city reflects the changing fears of a growing (and decaying?) society: it was no longer the country that was so terrifying. And while Australian horror might have lost part of its identity by taking away the background terror inspired by an unknown and inhospitable country, the horror of humanity is just as frightening as the horror of the unknown, if not more.
“Life ...” he said sadly, “... is the certainty of death.”
– Robert Hood, “Rough Trade” (1994)
The vibrancy of the horror genre began to wane as the 1990s crept towards the new millennium, reflecting the demise evident worldwide as a result of the marketplace being flooded by badly-written novels rehashing the same story ideas and plots. Horror was relegated to a bit part in the dominating fields of science fiction and fantasy, and the descriptor “horror” was soon regarded as a dirty word. But the genre clung on in ever-persistent small press magazines like Aurealis (1990–present), where those writers who had helped shape the genre over the past two decades continued to publish award winning stories.
Since the new millennium, there has once more been a steady increase in the genre’s popularity. Horror is again being published in all its forms and disguises—flash fiction, mainstream novels, crime stories, single-author collections, anthologies—although that word “horror” is often missing from many of the labels. The number of horror novels being released by mainstream publishers is on the rise, and Australian writers such as Richard Harland, Will Elliott, and Stephen M. Irwin are finding international success. The small press arena continues to be an ever-changing parade of short story publications, both online and in print, and as in the past, this is where new writers are being published and coming forth to represent the future of Australian dark fiction. This arena is a goldmine of cultural importance, and its place in Australia’s literary history should not be underestimated.
A horror tale is a story being told so the reader might experience one of the most primal emotions humans have—fear. Such stories give us a sense of adventure, an adrenaline rush, while in a controlled and completely safe environment. Whether this thrill helps us to relate to what our ancestors went through when confronted by danger (e.g. the flight or fight instinct), or is used simply as escapism from the state of society is open to discussion. Indeed, perhaps too much can be looked for to explain the genre’s popularity, when in actuality, escapism from an increasingly hectic and troubled world is the only answer required. What is obvious, however, is that ‘horror stories’ have entertained readers across the world for hundreds of years, and they are likely to continue to do so for many more.
The situation is no different here in Australia. Since John Lang’s very first supernatural short story, horror stories have been written and published by many of Australia’s literary greats: Marcus Clarke, Henry Lawson, Barbara Baynton, Mary Fortune—the list goes on. It is a genre that may not be liked by critics but it is one that cannot be ignored.
Macabre documents the evolution of the Australian horror short story from colonisation, through two world wars, and into the new millennium, from the first ever ghost story published in 1836 to modern stories never before published. It is a true Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears.
— Dr Marty Young
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CLASSICS
(1836 to 1979)
[Note: For historical accuracy, original spelling and punctuation has been retained in the stories in this section.]
John George Lang (1816–1864), born in Parramatta (NSW), was the first Australian-born novelist. He was educated in Sydney before moving to England where he received a law degree from Cambridge in 1841. With his wife Lucy Peterson, whom he married two years before, Lang returned to Sydney and was admitted as a barrister to the Supreme Court, but his convict ancestry made it difficult for him to pursue a career in Australia. Lang eventually left for India in 1942, where he continued to practice law and went on to master both Hindi and Persian languages. He died under ‘mysterious circumstances’ at Mussoorie, India, in 1864.
Lang’s first novel became an international bestseller in 1836, although it was published anonymously and Lang never claimed ownership. Lang went on to publish 20 novels, one travel book, numerous poems, and a collection of short stories for which he is best known. Botany Bay; or True Tales of Early Australia, was published in 1859 and contains “The Ghost Upon the Rail”, his most famous version of Fisher’s Ghost, Australia’s best known ‘true’ ghost story. However, prior to this, Lang wrote “The Sprite of the Creek” (1832), a poem which saw the actual ‘creation’ of Fisher’s Ghost. This poem, later refined and republished in several different short story versions, tells how the ghost of James Frederick Fisher helped lead to the arrest and execution of his murderer in 1826.
The version of Fisher’s Ghost that appears here was originally published anonymously in Tegg’s Magazine in 1836, and later credited to Lang through the research of Victor Crittenden. “Fisher’s Ghost: A Legend of Campbelltown” is the first ghost story written by an Australian.
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Fisher’s Ghost: A Legend of Campbelltown
(1836)
The incidents related in the following tale must be familiar to many of our readers, especially those in Campbelltown and its neighbourhood. We have trusted solely to memory in drawing up the statements, the inaccuracies (if there are any) can only be of minor importance; the principal portions of the tale may be relied on as strictly true. We leave others to solve the problem of the appearance of Fisher’s Ghost, contenting ourselves with simply telling the tale as it was told to us. Most of those concerned with the investigation of the affair are still alive, and can bear testimony of its truth.
Reader, have you ever paid a visit to the town or rather the village of Campbelltown? If you have not, we advise you to do so speedily. We recommend you do so the more willingly because we can speak from experience of the pleasure we have felt when domiciled in its comfortable little Inn, enjoying a few days relaxation from the bustle and dust of Sydney. If you have been there you can dispense with our description of its neat little church, its straggling appearance, and its pleasant situation, in short, of all the beauties which it presents to the toil-worn dust-blinded Cit on his first visit—and enable us to come at once to the subject matter of our tale.
The visitant to Campbelltown must have observed as he strolled through the village, a large unfinished brick building, fast mouldering to decay, which seems to have been intended at the time of its erection for a store; its appearance, however, shows that whatever may have been the intention in erecting it. Something must have intervened to prevent the accomplishment of the object. It is now rapidly falling into decay, and the freshness of the grass which covers the ground around it shows that whatever the cause may be the ruins are not much frequented by the inhabitants of the surrounding cottages. The unfinished building and the land which surrounds it were the property some years ago of a man named Frederick Fisher who occupied the adjoining cottage, of which scarcely a trace now remains.
Fisher had been originally a prisoner, he had served his time in the employ of a gentleman in the neighbourhood, and had removed to the town where he ontained his ticket of leave. Some years previous to the commencement of our tale he had received his certificate of freedom, having undergone the sentence which had been awarded to him by the laws of his country. He had also soon after he became free obtained a grant of a town allotment and had commenced the building referred to, intending on its completion to occupy one portion of it as a dwelling house, and to convert the remaining part into a store.
Fisher was but a boy at the time of the commission of the offence which had led to his transportation. His relatives, enraged at the disgrace he had subjected them to by his misconduct, had taken little notice of him after that period; and as he coult put no trust in those whom he saw around him placed in circumstances similar to his own, he had consequently formed no friendship which might have enabled him to pass his vacant time; his education, also, had been much neglected in his youth by those very relatives who were so liberal in ther censure after he had gone astray; it is not therefore, matter of surprise, that his time should have, occasionally, hung heavily on his hands. His own fireside presented few attractions to him; his conduct since his arrival in the colony, not having been such as to afford him much gratification in the retrospect; the resolutions of amendment he had made whilst in jail and on the passage out, had melted like snow when exposed to the demoralising influence of the example set by those around him. Fisher, like most of his class, flew the refuge from unpleasant recollections, to the society which the neighbouring taproom afforded, and sought for that which he found not at home, in quaffing the flowing bowl.
The necessary consequences of conduct such as this soon became apparent, his business, to which, on gaining his freedom, he had paid strict attention, was now neglected, but instead of endeavouring, by exertion, to extricate himself from the difficulties which began to surround him—he plunged yet deeper into a life of dissipation, frequenting the purlieus of the tap both night and day. His inevitable ruin became soon so apparent that his creditors resolved no longer to brook delay. He was accordingly arrested at the instance of one of their number, for a debt of £150.
Although Fisher had been weak enough to allow the bad example of others to lead him astray, he was yet far from having reached the pitch of depravity which many of his associated had attained although he had neglected his business, and spent in dissipation those means which ought have been applied to the liquidation of his debts. He had yet sufficient moral principle remaining, to shudder when one of his drunken associates, named Worral, suggested the expediency of entering into a scheme to defraud his creditors, by making over to him the whole of his property which yet remained; making at the same time a private engagement that it should be restored to him as soon as he was permitted to leave the jail. The persuasions of Worral, who represented to him the ease and safety with which he might thus revenge himself on his creditors and regain possession of his property, without any encumbrance, soon overcame his feelings of repugnance which he had at first felt, and he consented to make a transfer of all he possessed to Worral, under these conditions. Mr. P, at whose instance Fisher had been incarcerated, finding that he was not the owner of the property he had supposed, consented, after some time, to his liberation as the only means by which he was likely ever to recover the amount of his claim. Fisher, immediately on his release, returned to Campbelltown, exulting on the success of his scheme.
About a week after Fisher’s return, he left his house one evening with the intention, it was supposed, or resorting, according to his usual custom, to some of the neighbouring ginshops. Morning came, but his continued absence excited no surprise, as it was supposed that he had got so drunk the previous night as to be unable to return home. As the day wore on, and no signs of his appearance, a neighbour went to inquire at the various public-houses whether he had been there. He had not been at any of his usual haunts now had any person seen him since the previous evening. Many conjectures were made as to the cause of his protracted absence, but no feasible reason could be adducted until the afternoon, when Worral returned from Sydney, whither he said he had accompanied Fisher on the previous evening, who sailed early that morning for England, in order to avoid the importunities of his creditors, who had lately been rather troublesome to him, some of them having even threatened to lodge him again in jail. This was corroborated by the fact, that a vessel did sail for England on the day. Worral’s statements set completely at rest all the conjectures which had previously been afloat as to the cause of Fisher’s disappearance and he was allowed to take undisputed possession of the property, on producing Fisher’s conveyance. Time wore on, and Fisher’s name was almost forgotten or never alluded to, except by the deluded creditors, who consoled themselves for their loss, by venting imprecations and forming resolutions never again to be so easily gulled.
Almost six weeks after Fisher’s disappearance, Mr. Hurley, a respected settler in the vicinity of Campbelltown, was returning thence to his residence; he had long been acquainted with Fisher, and it was no doubt that his mind reverted to his sudden disappearance, when passing the place where he had so long resided; be that as it may, however, no doubt as to Worral’s statement ever entered his mind. It was about ten o’clock at night when he left Campbelltown; the moon had risen, but her brilliance had been hidden by clouds. After he had passed the residence of the late Fisher, about five to eight hundred yards, he observed the figure of a man sitting on the top of the fence on the same side of the road as the house. On approaching nearer, what was his surprise to recognise distinctly, the features of Fisher, whom he had supposed then far on his way to England. He approached the figure with the intention of assuring himself that he had not been deceived by a fancied resemblance. The ghastly appearance of the features presented to his view on his nearer approach, struck such a chill of terror to his heart, as chained him motionless to the spot.
The figure, as he gazed, rose from the fence, and waving his arms pointed in the direction of a small dry creek, which crossed the paddock at the place, and disappeared gradually from his view, apparently following the windings of the creek. The terror which overpowered the faculties of Hurley at this sight, defies all power of description; in a state of stupefaction he left the spot, and endeavoured to obtain an entrance into the nearest house. How he managed to find his way to the house he has no recollection, but jest as he approached it, his senses totally forsook him. The noise caused by his head striking the door as he fell, alarmed the inmates, who on opening it found him lying in a death-like swoon; he was carried into the house, where he lay for a whole week in a delirium of a brain fever. The frequent mention of the name of Fisher in his ravings, attracted the attention of those who attended him, and conjecture was soon busy at work to ascertain what had driven him into such a state; his known character for sobriety, as well as the testimony of those who had parted from him only a few minutes before, forbade the supposition that it had been caused by drunkenness; the rumour, with her thousand tongues, turned the villager’s heads with vain conjectures as to its probable cause.
On the morning of the ninth day of Hurley’s illness, he awoke after a long and refreshing sleep, in the full possession of his senses, and expressed a wish to those around him that the Police Magistrate should be sent for.
William Howe, Esq., of Glenlee, who then filled the situation of Superintendent of Police for Campbelltown and the surrounding districts, was sent for and came immediately on being made aware of the circumstances. To him Hurley disclosed what he had seen, and the suspicion of Fisher having met with foul play, which that sight had impressed on his mind. As soon as Hurley was able to leave his bed, Mr. Howe, accompanied by a few constables, among whom was a native black named Gilbert, went, conducted by Hurley to the place where the apparition had been seen. On closely examining the panel of fencing pointed out, Mr. Howe discovered spots of blood. An active search was commenced to discover further traces of the supposed murder, but nothing more was observed. It was thought advisable to trace the course of the creek, in the direction to which the apparition had pointed, and in which it had disappeared. Some small ponds of water remained in the creek, and these Black Gilbert was directed to explore with his spear; he carefully examined each as he approached it, but the shake of his head denoted his want of success. On approaching a larger pond than any of those he had beforehand searched, the standers by observed his eyes sparkle, as he exclaimed in a tone of triumph, while yet at some distance from the pond, ‘white man’s fat sit down here,’ as soon as he reached the bank of the pond he thrust his spear into the water, and after some search, he pointed to a particular spot in the water, saying ‘white man there.’ The constables were immediately set to work to clear away the water, which was soon effected—and in digging amount the sand the remains of a human being in an advanced stage of decomposition were discovered. It became now obvious to all that Fisher (if the remains which had been found were really his) had met with an untimely end. Suspicion alighted upon Worral who was the only person who had reaped any benefit from Fisher’s death; and it was remembered that he who had first propagated the story of Fisher’s return to England. Many circumstances corroborative of this suspicion flashed on the minds of the neighbours which had until now escaped their notice. Mr. Howe caused Worral to be arrested, and the suspicion being confirmed by a body of circumstantial evidence, he was committed to take his trial before the Supreme Court for the murder. The conviction that retributive justice was now about to overtake him had such an effect on his mind that he confessed his guilt. His reason for so barbarous a proceeding arose from the transaction mentioned in the former part of the narrative. Fisher overjoyed at the success of his scheme by which he had defrauded his creditors, forgot to regain his possession of the deed of conveyance by which he had made over his property to Worral. The thought occurred to Worral that id he could only get Fisher quietly out of the way, he would be able to claim possession of the property in the right of that conveyance. The project had repeatedly occurred to him while Fisher was in jail; and he had resolved even then either to regain the prospect whenever it might be, or to get rid of him entirely. Foiled in his scheme to gain possession of this document by Fisher’s unexpected liberation he formed the diabolical scheme which he ultimately accomplished. Under the mask of friendship he was Fisher’s companion during the day—and night after night he watched Fisher’s motions from the time of his return from jail, but had accidentally been foiled in every attempt he had made, until the one of which the murder was committed. On that night he was as usual prowling about Fisher’s cottage looking out for an opportunity to attain his ends, when Fisher, tempted by the beauty of the evening, left his house to take a walk, followed at some distance by Worral. At the place where the blood was afterwards discovered, Fisher stopped and leant against the fence, apparently wrapped in deep thought. The assassin now had before him the opportunity he had so long waited for, and taking up a broken panel of the fence, tole quietly behind him and with one blow of his weapon stretched him lifeless on the ground; he carried the dead from the scene of the murder to the place where it was afterwards discovered and buried it deep in the sand. A few weeks after he had made his confession he expiated his crime on the scaffold, imploring with his last breath the forgiveness of his Maker.
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[aka Mary Fortune]
Mary Fortune (1833–1910) was one of the first women detective writers in the world, and the first in Australia. Born Mary Helena Wilson in Belfast, Ireland, she spent her early years in Canada with her father. In 1851, she married Joseph Fortune but migrated to Australia four years later with her son to join her father, who was working in the goldfields. Fortune had a second son in 1856 and would later marry again (to Percy Brett) but that marriage did not last.
Fortune wrote poems, short stories and articles under the pseudonyms ‘Waif Wander’ and ‘W. W.’, which kept her anonymous to the reading public. In 1865, she began contributing to the newly founded The Australian Journal and would continue to do so for the next forty years. In that first year, Fortune teamed up with James Skipp Borlase to write The Detective’s Album, one of the first Australian detective series. Seven of her stories were later published together as The Detective’s Album: Tales of the Australian Police (1871). In total, Fortune published over 500 detective stories in The Australian Journal.
The Australian Journal guarded her privacy and kept even her death from the public (the exact date of which and the location of her grave remains unknown). The Journal, curiously, also paid for her funeral in another person’s grave. It was only through posthumous research in the 1950s by J. K. Moir that her real identity was discovered, and only then through the lucky discovery of a letter signed ‘M. H. Fortune.’
“The White Maniac: A Doctor’s Tale” was originally published in The Australian Journal v 2 (98) on the 13th of July, 1867. The story is arguably the first Australian ‘vampire’ story—arguably, because the antagonist is not representative of what we expect a vampire to be.
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The White Maniac: A Doctor’s Tale
(1867)
In the year 1858 I had established a flourishing practice in London; a practice which I owed a considerable portion of, not to my ability, I am afraid, but to the fact that I occupied the singular position of a man professional, who was entirely independent of his profession. Doubtless, had I been a poor man, struggling to earn a bare existence for wife and family, I might have been the cleverest physician that ever administered a bolus, yet have remained in my poverty to the end of time. But it was not so, you see. I was the second son of a nobleman, and had Honourable attached to my name; and I practiced the profession solely and entirely because I had become enamoured of it, and because I was disgusted at the useless existence of a fashionable and idle young man, and determined that I, at least, would not add another to their ranks.
And so I had a handsome establishment in a fashionable portion of the city, and my door was besieged with carriages, from one end of the week to the other. Many of the occupants were disappointed, however, for I would not demean myself by taking fees from some vapourish Miss or dissipated Dowager. Gout in vain came rolling to my door, even though it excruciated the leg of a Duke; I undertook none but cases that enlisted my sympathy, and after a time the fact became known and my levees were not so well attended.
One day I was returning on horseback toward the city. I had been paying a visit to a patient in whom I was deeply interested, and for whom I had ordered the quiet and purer air of a suburban residence. I had reached a spot in the neighbourhood of Kensington, where the villas were enclosed in large gardens, and the road was marked for a considerable distance by the brick and stone walls that enclosed several of the gardens belonging to those mansions. On the opposite side of the road stood a small country-looking inn, which I had patronised before, and I pulled up my horse and alighted, for the purpose of having some rest and refreshment after my ride.
As I sat in a front room sipping my wine and water, my thoughts were fully occupied with a variety of personal concerns. I had received a letter from my mother that morning, and the condition of the patient I had recently left was precarious in the extreme.
It was fortunate that I was thought-occupied and not dependent upon outward objects to amuse them, for although the window at which I sat was open, it presented no view whatever, save the bare, blank, high brick wall belonging to a house at the opposite side of the road. That is to say, I presume, it enclosed some residence, for from where I say not even the top of a chimney was visible.
Presently, however, the sound of wheels attracted my eyes from the pattern of the wall-paper at which I had been unconsciously gazing, and I looked out to see a handsome, but very plain carriage drawn up at a small door that pierced the brick wall I have alluded to; and almost at the same moment the door opened and closed again behind two figures in a most singular attire. They were both of the male sex, and one of them was the servant; but it was the dress of these persons that most strangely interested me. They were attired in white from head to heel; coats, vests, trousers, hats, shoes, not to speak of shirts at all, all were white as white could be.
While I stared at this strange spectacle, the gentlemen stepped into the vehicle; but although he did so the coachman made no movement toward driving onward, nor did the attendant leave his post at the carriage door. At the expiration, however, of about a quarter of an hour, the servant closed the door and re-entered through the little gate, closing it, likewise, carefully behind him. Then the driver leisurely made a start, only, however, to stop suddenly again, when the door of the vehicle was burst open and a gentleman jumped out and rapped loudly at the gate.
He turned his face hurriedly around as he did so, hiding, it seemed to me, meanwhile, behind the wall so as not to be seen when it opened. Judge of my astonishment when I recognised in this gentleman the one who had but a few minutes before entered the carriage dressed in white, for he was now in garments of the hue of Erebus. While I wondered at this strange metamorphosis the door in the wall opened, and the gentleman, now attired in black, after giving some hasty instructions to the servant, sprang once more into the carriage and was driven rapidly toward London.
My curiosity was strangely excited; and as I stood at the door before mounting my horse, I asked the landlord who and what were the people who occupied the opposite dwelling.
“Well sir,” he replied, looking curiously at the dead wall over against him, “They’ve been there now a matter of six months, I dare say, and you’ve seen as much of them as I have. I believe the whole crew of them, servants and all, is foreigners, and we, the is the neighbours around, sir, calls them the ‘white mad people.’”
“What! do they always wear that singular dress?”
“Always, sir, saving as soon as ever the old gentleman goes outside and puts black on in the carriage, and as soon as he comes back takes it off again, and leaves it in the carriage.”
“And why in the name of gracious does he not dress himself inside?”
“Oh, that I can’t tell you, sir! only it’s just as you see, always. The driver or coachman never even goes inside the walls, or the horses of any one thing that isn’t white in colour, sir; and if the people aren’t mad after that, what else can it be?”
“It seems very like it, indeed; but do you mean to say that everything inside the garden wall is white? Surely you must be exaggerating a little?”
“Not a bit on it, sir! The coachman, who can’t speak much English, sir, comes here for a drink now and then. He don’t live in the house, you see, and is idle most of his time. Well, he told me himself, one day, that every article in the house was white, from the garret to the drawing-room, and that everything outside it is white I can swear, for I saw it myself, and a stranger sight surely no eye ever saw.”
“How did you manage to get into the enchanted castle, then?”
“I didn’t get in sir, I only saw it outside, and from a place where you can see for yourself too, if you have a mind. When first the people came to the place over there, you see, sir, old Mat the sexton and bell-ringer of the church there, began to talk of the strange goings on he had seen from the belfry; and so may curiosity took me there one day to look for myself. Blest if I ever heard of such a strange sight! no wonder they call them the white mad folk.”
“Well, you’ve roused my curiosity,” I said, as I got on my horse, “and I’ll certainly pay old Mat’s belfry a visit the very next time I pass this way, if I’m not hurried.”
It appeared unaccountable to even myself that these mysterious people should make such a singular impression on me; I thought of little else during the next two days. I attended to my duties in an absent manner, and my mind was ever recurring to the one subject—viz. an attempt to account for the strange employment of one hue only in the household of this foreign gentleman. Of whom did the household consist? Had he any family? and could one account for the eccentricity in any other way save by ascribing it to lunacy, as mine host of the inn had already done. As it happened, the study of brain diseases had been my hobby during my noviciate, and I was peculiarly interested in observing a new symptom of madness, if this was really one.
At length I escaped to pay my country patient his usual visit, and on my return alighted at the inn, and desired the landlord to have my horse put in the stable for a bit.
“I’m going to have a peep at your madhouse,” I said, “do you think I shall find old Mat about?”
“Yes, doctor; I saw him at work in the churchyard not half an hour ago, but at any rate he won’t be farther off than his cottage, and it lies just against the yard wall.”
The church was an old, ivy-wreathed structure, with a square Norman belfry, and a large surrounding of grey and grass-grown old headstones. It was essentially a country church, and a country churchyard; and one wondered to find it so close to the borders of a mighty city, until they remembered that the mighty city had crept into the country, year by year, until it had covered with stone and mortar the lowly site of many a cottage home, and swallowed up many an acre of green meadow and golden corn. Old Mat was sitting in the middle of the graves; one tombstone forming his seat, and he was engaged in scraping the moss from a headstone that seemed inclined to tumble over, the inscription on which was all but obliterated by a growth of green slimy-looking moss.