MACHEN, and other more familiar names. His first
collection, They Return at Evening, appeared in
1928, although his two best-known are The Clock
Strikes Twelve (1939) and Strayers from Sheol
(1961). The most comprehensive sampling of his
work can be found in The Best Ghost Stories of H.
Russell Wakefield(1978).
The vast majority of Wakefield’s horrors were
ghosts, usually vengeful ones who had committed
suicide and were thus condemned to remain on
Earth. One of his best stories, “He Cometh and He
Passeth By” (1928) was clearly an imitation of the
classic “CASTING THE RUNES” (1911), by M. R.
James, in which a magician’s curse employs Orien-
tal sorcery. In “Professor Pownall’s Oversight”
(1928) the ghost of a murdered chess player re-
turns to finish his match with the rival responsible
for his death. “Old Man’s Beard” (1929) similarly
has a murder victim returning, this time to haunt
his killer’s wife. “Blind Man’s Bluff” (1929) and
“The Cairn” (1929) both involve protagonists who
disregard warnings to avoid bad places, with pre-
dictable consequences.
“The Frontier Guards” (1931) is an above-
average haunted house tale, and “Damp Sheets”
(1931) is a clever though formulaic story of ghostly
revenge. “Mr. Ash’s Studio” (1932) is an unusual
haunted house story variation involving oversized
ghostly moths. There is a were-hyena in “Death of
a Poacher” (1935), and “Jay Walkers” (1940) is a
very clever ghostly revenge variation in which jay-
walking ghosts precipitate automobile accidents.
“The Gorge of the Churels” (1951) is atypical of
Wakefield’s work, a lurid tale of creatures that
seize and kill children. “Immortal Bird” (1961) is a
story of psychological haunting with an ambiguous
ending. Although Wakefield never reached the
first rank of ghost story writers and often repeated
themes and situations, he had a powerful talent for
creating an atmosphere of quiet disturbance, and
scenes from his stories often linger in the reader’s
memory even long after the plot is forgotten.
Walton, Evangeline (1907–1996)
Although Evangeline Walton began writing quite
early, only a small amount of her fiction was actu-
ally published when it was first written, and some
of her short stories published during the 1970s
under her name were actually written 40 years ear-
lier. Her first fantasy novel was published as The
Virgin and the Swine(1936) and was marketed as an
historical novel, in which field she published two
more books during the 1950s. It was not until The
Virgin and the Swinewas reissued under the title
The Island of the Mightyin 1970 that she attracted
the attention of fantasy readers, which is surprising
since the novel is one of the very best retellings of
Welsh legends, organized into a consistent and
very effective narrative. The novel draws on the
fourth portion of the Mabinogion, the complex
cycle of Welsh myth, and describes the coming of
age of the children of a goddess.
Walton wrote a second book based on the
Mabinogion, which finally saw print in 1971. The
Children of Llyralso follows a group of children
caught up in a war between Britain and Ireland,
which claims the lives of most of them. Walton
then wrote two more books based on the remain-
ing two segments of the Mabinogion, The Song of
Rhiannon(1972) and Prince of Annwn(1974). The
first is an elaborate, romantic tale of magic and
personal loyalty, and the second is a straightfor-
ward quest story.
At the time of Walton’s death, she had finished
only the first volume of a new trilogy based on
Greek mythology. The Sword Is Forged(1984) is an
entertaining story but fails to measure up to her
Welsh stories, which have recently been collected in
an omnibus edition as The Mabinogion Tetralogy
(2002). Walton also published one horror novel,
Witch House(1945), in which rather typically a fam-
ily is compelled by the terms of a will to live in a
haunted house and hires an exorcist to rid the build-
ing of the resident malevolent spirits. Although rela-
tively unknown, it is one of the best of its type and
has now had editions from at least six different pub-
lishers. Her short fiction is generally of minor inter-
est, of which “Above Ker-Is” (1978) is the best.War for the OaksEmma Bull(1987)
Although Emma Bull has been writing fantasy for
more than two decades, she has produced a very
small body of work, only three fantasy novels, one
collaboratively, and a handful of uncollected short368 Walton, Evangeline