Edward Parnell

'A uniquely strange and wonderful work of literature' Philip Hoare 'An exciting new voice' Mark Cocker, author of Crow Country In his late thirties, Edward Parnell found himself trapped in the recurring nightmare of a family tragedy. For comfort, he turned to his bookshelves, back to the ghost stories that obsessed him as a boy, and to the writers through the ages who have attempted to confront what comes after death. In Ghostland, Parnell goes in search of the 'sequestered places' of the British Isles, our lonely moors, our moss-covered cemeteries, our stark shores and our folkloric woodlands. He explores how these landscapes conjured and shaped a kaleidoscopic spectrum of literature and cinema, from the ghost stories and weird fiction of M. R. James, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood to the children's fantasy novels of Alan Garner and Susan Cooper; from W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn and Graham Swift's Waterland to the archetypal 'folk horror' film The Wicker Man... Ghostland is Parnell's moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists - and what is haunting him. It is a unique and elegiac meditation on grief, memory and longing, and of the redemptive power of stories and nature. rom W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn and Graham Swift's Waterland to the archetypal 'folk horror' film The Wicker Man... Ghostland is Parnell's moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists - and what is haunting him. It is a unique and elegiac meditation on grief, memory and longing, and of the redemptive power of stories and nature.

In Search of a Haunted Country

Ghostland

Step right up to see the enchanted Ferris wheel whose magical gifts are to die for! Marvel at the man-eating menagerie and dreadful secrets of ‘Satan’s Circus’! Behold the nightmare waxworks of Mrs. Groby’s Chamber of Horrors! Carnivals and sideshows are settings closely entwined with the history of horror cinema, but in the realms of literature, there is a strain of uncanny fairground fiction with even deeper roots. Home to a sinister troupe of conjurers, puppeteers, beast tamers and crowds baying for blood beneath the Big Top, the performance spaces of these classic weird tales are borderlands where the unearthly meets the darker cravings of the human heart. Presenting sixteen sensational short stories, hailing from Edgar Allan Poe’s 1840s through to Robert Aickman’s 1960s, Edward Parnell invites you to enjoy a cavalcade of uneasy thrills courtesy of Gerald Kersh, Ray Bradbury, Margery Lawrence and many more.

British Library Tales of the Weird #66

All the Fear of the Fair: Uncanny Tales of Circus and Sideshow

A seaside honeymoon holiday is plagued by the mystery of bells which never stop ringing - and that which answers the call. Druidic rites and modernity spells disaster at a Norfolk golf course. An ancient relic found on the Suffolk coast summons a nightmarish entity to its discoverer. A land of mind-stretching expanses, wide, yawning skies and the disorientating landscapes of the tidal fens, East Anglia has inspired a wide range of writers in the field of weird and uncanny fiction. This new collection includes a wealth of tales from the past 130 years set in Norfolk, Essex, Suffolk and Cambridge by a host of authors including ghost tale luminaries M. R. James, Robert Aickman, E. F. Benson and Marjorie Bowen, alongside bright lights of modern weird writing. Insightful introduction and notes from Norfolk-based award-winning author Edward Parnell

Fearful Tales of Field and Fen

Eerie East Anglia

May 1940. Ghosts haunt the woods and fields of Norfolk, as Europe descends into full-blown warfare. William Abrehart, a strange, nature-loving boy who hasn't spoken since the mysterious death of his father, struggles to keep the promise he made to look after his withdrawn mother and older sisters. Rachel, the eldest, is waiting for news from France of her soldier sweetheart, while Kate has designs on an airman stationed nearby. Over the course of a momentous weekend, a complex family web of lies and self-deception will unravel, as the past and present dramatically collide. Drawing on the Gothic traditions of Walter de la Mare's poem of the same name, Edward Parnell's 'The Listeners' is a dark, elegiac tale about grief, love and loss, and how we try to make sense of existence through stories and memories.

Edward Parnell

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