Product Description

Edited with an Introduction by David Stuart Davies 'I saw something terrible rising up through the middle of the 'defence'. It rose with a steady movement. I saw it pale and huge through the whirling funnel of cloud - a monstrous pallid snout rising out of that unknowable abyss. It rose higher and higher. Through a thinning of the cloud I saw one small eye... a pig's eye with a sort of vile understanding shining at the back of it. Thomas Carnacki is a ghost finder, an Edwardian psychic detective, investigating a wide range of terrifying hauntings presented in the nine stories in this complete collection of his adventures. Encountering such spine-chilling phenomena as 'The Whistling Room', the life-threatening dangers of the phantom steed in 'The Horse of the Invisible' and the demons from the outside world in 'The Hog', Carnacki is constantly challenged by spiritual forces beyond our knowledge. To complicate matters, he encounters human skullduggery also. Armed with a camera, his Electric Pentacle and various ancient tomes on magic, Carnacki faces the various dangers his supernatural investigations present with great courage. These exciting and frightening stories have long been out of print. Now readers can thrill to them again in this new Wordsworth series.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #147020 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

SHOULD BE MADE INTO MOVIES
WHAT A GREAT CHARACTER ! CARNAKI THE GHOST FINDER IS RICHLY DESERVING OF RE-DISCOVERY . . I WAS ACTUALLY HESITANT TO ROAM THE HOUSE AT NIGHT, AFTER READING THESE "GEMS" . . ALL WERE EXCELLENT STORIES, "THE HOG" I FOUND ESPECIALLY UN-NERVING. THESE STORIES WOULD LEND THEMSELVES WELL TO BEING MADE INTO FILMS . . AN EXCELLENT READ ! GET IT.

Good collection!
Hodgsen's career as a novelist of the supernatural include at least one story that invokes existential trauma - The House on the Borderland. I'm pleased to say there is nothing of that style in this collection, though his allusion to a great hog in the final story provides some connection. This is, instead, a rather routine bedside book, the stories resting on the simple plot device of one Carnacki, professional ghost finder, recounting his adventures. There is suspense, drama, and uncertainty -- some of Carnacki's adversaries enact their hauntings from realms beyond, others are merely human scalliwags and cut-throats weaving webs of deception. Carnacki, of course, does not tell us which until the end of his adventures.

Overall, a fun read and brief enough that his standard plot device, the recounted story, does not wear too thin.

Master of the Supernatural
As a 13-year-old, I stumbled across one of Hodgson's Carnacki stories ("The Whistling Room") in a collection of horror/fantasy/mystery stories, and was immediately enthralled: it was the first time I had ever read anything that sent chills up and down my spine, and I was amazed by his ability to create atmosphere that seemed to bring the supernatural realm into terrifying reality. Afterwards, I looked for anything I could find by him, but his stories were hard to come by. Consequently I was thrilled to find this book, which collects the tales of Carnacki, a man who has spent a great deal of time studying various arcane texts pertaining to the supernatural, and is therefor called upon to investigate situations which escape natural explanation. The strength of these stories is the mood Hodgson creates: Carnacki is always fully aware of the weirdness and danger of the situations he finds himself in, and, because his own fear and loathing is expertly conveyed by Hodgson's writing, it transfers directly to the reader. At their best, these stories are wonderfully creepy and even stand up to repeated reading. Highly recommended for the fans of M.R. James and J.S. Lefanu, or anyone who enjoys a good, old-fashioned scary story.