Spectral Sounds – Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird
Spectral Sounds – Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird, edited by Manon Burz-Labrande / From the British Library’s “Tales of the Weird” series / ISBN 9780712354172 / 315-page paperback, published 2023
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From the ringing of a disconnected bell to footsteps in the halls of an abandoned house and the whisper of an unexplained voice in the ear, uncanny sounds are often the heralds of danger and terror in Gothic and supernatural fiction. Yet, when examining the range of stories which best manipulate our aural sense it is clear that there is more room to explore how significant sound is to our experience of fear.
This new collection presents tales in which ghosts interact with the corporeal world through noise, bodiless voices wander through the ether, and the objects whose sounds we trust, like the telephone, betray us. Featuring obscure pieces alongside some of the pioneers of the weird including B M Croker, Algernon Blackwood, H D Everett and Sheridan Le Fanu.
