Cold Hand in Mine – Robert Aickman
Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman / ISBN 9780571311743 / 356-page paperback from Faber & Faber
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Cold Hand in Mine was first published in the U.K. in 1975 and in the U.S. in 1977. The story ‘Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal’ won the Aickman World Fantasy Award in 1975. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1973 before appearing in this collection.
Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman’s best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a ‘strange story’ writer to the full, being more ambiguous than standard ghost stories. Throughout the stories the reader is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story (‘Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal’) but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.
Robert Aickman (1914–1981) was the grandson of Richard Marsh, a leading Victorian novelist of the occult. Though his chief occupation in life was first as a conservationist of England’s canals he eventually turned his talents to writing what he called ‘strange stories.’ Dark Entries (1964) was his first full collection, the debut in a body of work that would inspire Peter Straub to hail Aickman as ‘this century’s most profound writer of what we call horror stories.’
