I have long been a fan of E. F. (Edward Frederick) Benson’s writing and have read everything I could get my hands on including his ghost stories. Fortunately my public library had them all: Visible and Invisible (1923), Spook Stories (1928) and More Spook Stories (1934).
In 1992, Carroll & Graf Publishers put out a paperback version of The Collected Ghost Stories of E. F. Benson. Fortunately it’s in the database and the volume contains all fifty-four ghost stories, plus an unpublished essay Benson wrote about the gruesome ritual murder and witch-burning of Bridget Cleary at Clonmel, Ireland in 1895.
I have been trying for over a year to find a way to write about this man. Epinions refuses to add his biography to the database, but they have most of the books he wrote listed. Go figure! I hereby dedicate this review to wordwalker, who made the brilliant suggestion that I combine the biography The Life of E. F. Benson by Brian Masters (Chatto & Windus, London, 1991, ISBN: 0-7011-3566-2) with the above book of ghost stories.
I think that the fact that Benson was homosexual has nothing to do with ghost stories, although you certainly can’t miss the gay and lesbian characters in some of his other works. He was a talented writer who happened to be gay; his lifestyle didn’t enter into it in the least. Benson “had his feet firmly planted in the Victorian era, when manners were important, and certain subjects [like sex] were not mentioned.“
His own thoughts on ghost stories get right to the point:
These stories have been written in the hopes of giving some pleasant qualms to their reader, so that, if by chance, anyone may be occupying in their perusal a leisure half-hour before he goes to bed when the night and house are still, he may perhaps cast an occasional glance into the dark corners of the room where he sits, to make sure that nothing unusual lurks in the shadow. For this is the avowed object of ghost stories and such tales as deal with the dim unseen forces which occasionally and perturbingly make themselves manifest. The author therefore fervently wishes his readers a few uncomfortable moments.
And, those stories are something; they range from vampires to homicidal ghosts and spectral worms and slugs to tales that poke fun at fake mediums and seances. They have a semi-autobiographical feeling in that they are all set in the cheerful and comfortable settings that Benson lived and played in. The narrators of his stories are most often unattached, middle-aged males named Jack or John or simply “I.” There are limping men lurking about in some of these stories and Benson indeed walked with two canes in later life.
Here are a few of my favorites.
The Room in the Tower:
The narrator tells of a recurring dream in which he is at the door of a big red-brick house of a school-chum named Jack Stone. He is introduced to Jack’s parents and assorted guests, all of whom remain silent. Before long Mrs. Stone breaks the silence by saying, “Jack will show you your room: I have given you the room in the tower.” The narrator says, “There was something awful about the room, and with the terror of nightmare growing swiftly and enveloping me, I awoke with a spasm of terror.”
Later on in this tale, he finds himself visiting the very house of his dream, but it is the home of his friend, John Clinton. Here, instead of silence, he meets a large crowd of exceedingly cheerful persons. Suddenly Mrs. Clinton turns and repeats the very phrase that Mrs. Stone had said to him in his dreams. Horror follows him up to the room where he discovers a life-sized oil painting of Mrs. Stone and a pencil drawing of Jack. He tells John of his dream and they remove the offending artworks . . . and here the fun begins. It involves a dog who reacts to something beyond the gate, “a large cat having Walpurgis Night all alone,” and a coffin full of blood. It’s the first story in the collection and you’ll love it.
The Dust Cloud:
This story involves an after dinner conversation about big cars. The host says he can scarcely believe that his new car is merely a machine. It seems to possess an independent life of its own, but it has an “excellent temper.” Not so Guy Elphinstone’s car; it’s a bad-tempered, brute of a car. It liked running over a chicken or a rabbit, but the narrator thought it might be more due to the owner’s ill temper than the car.
It seems Elphinstone ran over a child and smashed the car against his own park gates, killing himself instantly. Well, you can just tell the rest of this story is about a haunted car and driver. It’s quite eerie and very British in the details.
Caterpillars:
The Villa Cascana in Italy, not far from the Riviera, is the setting for this tale about eerily glowing caterpillars. They are a foot or more in length and are found crawling all over the bed in an unoccupied bedroom on the main floor of the Villa. It’s all another of the author’s dream/nightmare stories.
The narrator (Benson again?) is the guest of Mrs. Stanley, who has leased the house for the season. Another guest, Arthur Inglis finds an unknown caterpillar on his window sill and puts it in a box. He names it Cancer Inglisensis for its crab-like pincers. The name he gives the squirmy thing has much to do with the climax of this tale. If you don’t like worms and slugs and squishy things, skip this one!
Mr. Tilly’s Séance:
Mr. Teddy Tilly slipped and fell at Hyde Park Corner and was flattened by the grooved wheels of a huge traction-engine. His last thought was, “Oh hear, oh dear! It will certainly crush me quite flat and I won’t be able to be at Mrs. Cumberbatch’s séance!” Wanna make a bet?
Mr. Tilly quickly finds himself in the spirit world as he views his remains saying, “Here I am, and yet that poor pressed flower of arms and legs is me--or rather I.” He finds that space and time have become nothing and while he ponders the fact that he has been killed, he discovers that he’s at the séance and the servants were talking over the news of his recent death. Benson has great fun debunking Mrs. Cumberbatch as Mr. Tilly’s spirit really does appear to her and lets her know what a cheat she is. This was great fun!
The Clonmel Witch Burning:
Bridget Cleary was systematically stabbed, burned and eventually murdered over a two-day period by a group of nine people that included her husband, her father and close friends and neighbors. This all happened after she suffered from a mild illness and delirium. The pagan beliefs of these uneducated country folk made them positive that some evil spirit or vampire had possessed her; they thought they were “saving her soul.”
“Benson realized that their beliefs were perfectly genuine and were identical to innumerable primitive tribes worldwide.” He studied all the aspects of the case and published his findings in a highly esteemed and influential journal. A Postscript tells us that soon after Benson’s article was published, “the Crown Prosecutor withdrew the charge of “murder and replaced it with “manslaughter.”
This brilliant bit of theorizing and true reportage is just as frightening as any of the ghost stories in this collection. The article shows us Benson’s “deep interest in witchcraft and ancient lore.” It also tells us “much about the reasons behind the universal and random persecution of innocent witches, women and men, throughout the ages.” This is the last piece in the book and is well worth finding. (Carroll & Graf, ISBN: 0-88184-587-3, $10.95).
The Life of E. F. Benson
Brian Masters has written a exceptional book on the life of E. F. (Edward Frederick) Benson, who was a chronicler of the eccentricities of English society and the creator of one of the most indomitable and fascinating characters in 20th century English writing. She is Mrs. Emaline Lucas, better known to all as Lucia, the queen of Riseholme’s and later, Tilling’s, High Society.
Lucia, her effeminate friend Georgie Pilson and the rest of the memorable characters were discussed in my review of Benson’s first novel in the series, Queen Lucia. http://www.epinions.com/content_6880333444.
Lucia’s archrival in all things is Miss Elizabeth Mapp of the invented town of Tilling. Benson lived and wrote the Lucia stories in Rye, a town he identified as Tilling in his books. When Nancy Mitford visited, Fred Benson welcomed her with, ”This is Miss Mapp’s House, this is Miss Mapp’s Garden Room and I am Miss Mapp.”
I don’t find it strange that he may, indeed, have been his own source for that character. He wouldn’t be the first author to use his feminine side as the basis for a fictional personality. Earlier, while he lived in London, he had been given the nickname Dodo by his friends who took the name from the female title character in one of his first books
It doesn’t seem strange to me to find out that Benson’s Lucia character is based on the real-life personage of Marie Corelli. Incidentally, the author of this biography has also written the definitive book on Benson’s fellow author and oddball celebrity about London.
Fred Benson (as he was known) and other homosexual men in England lived a rather closeted life in the aftermath of the trials of Oscar Wilde. Like other gay men of the era he made yearly trips to Italy, especially the Isle of Capri, where the livin’ was easy and young men were readily available. Sexual mores weren’t questioned at all. Benson also had a penchant for uncouth uneducated dark-skinned youths as did many of the homosexual Englishmen who spent time in Africa and India.
His life in London may have been restrained, but not so much that he wasn’t identified in gay literary and social circles as Dodo, the lead character from his early society novel of the same name. That doesn’t sound too closeted to me, but it was further on into his life.
As for family history, we are told that one Christopher Benson established the Benson line in Yorkshire in the 1300’s. He had seven sons and the direct line to Fred Benson was another Edward who inherited a small fortune from a card-playing friend named Francis White. Edward demonstrated his gratitude by naming his son White. It was a name that stayed in the family until there were no more Bensons to bear it. Captain White Benson dribbled away his inheritance and his son was forced to turn his talents to experiments with chemistry to make money, of which he made plenty.
Edward Frederic Benson was the second youngest son of Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born in 1873 and had two older brothers, Martin and Arthur, two sisters, Nellie and Maggie and a younger brother, Hugh. Their father’s very presence made people weak-kneed and his children were frightened of him. One of the sons wrote, “I hate Papa” on a piece of paper and buried in the garden.
Mrs. Benson (Mary) suffered a nervous breakdown after Hugh’s birth; she had become tired of childbearing and found a need to assert her own individuality. She was distressed by her husband’s vision of a punishing, unyielding God and fled to Europe in the company of women friends. After her husband’s death she began calling herself Ben and lived the rest of her life with another woman.
Fred was born during a time of difficulty between his parents. By age five Fred was well aware of the perils of relating to others and cannot have failed to notice his mother’s unhappiness, which he would remember and reflect on as an adult when he took refuge in the smart drawing rooms of London and in romantic male friendships.
Mary Benson delighted in practical jokes and games with her children who responded in kind. She felt an affinity with her son Fred, which endured. She could be humorous with him. They lived in an age when letter writing was a daily pleasure. The Victorians viewed it as a form of self-expression and entertainment. No wonder most of the males turned out to be writers.
They all grew up in the nursery under the care of their nurse, the much-loved Beth, who had been nurse to Mrs. Benson and her brothers. Beth looked after her charges with a selfless devotion and all the children adored her, especially Fred, who cherished her “utterly beautiful life of selfless devotion.” ‘Beth” was the first word spoken by Master Fred who by age five was trying to read his first printed word. The children created a museum with bird’s eggs and plant specimens.
None of the Benson children ever married. Martin, the beloved first son, died at an early age. Arthur grew up to be the Master of Magdalen college. Hugh, (who was also homosexual) became a Roman Catholic Monsignor who was afraid of being buried alive. Arthur and Hugh also wrote. Nellie died young and Maggie had a fit of matricide and attacked he mother in her forties; after that she was kept under restraint. This wonderfully weird and brilliant family was rife with various phobias, depressions and suicidal madness. Daddy was a controlling monster.
It was only Fred who grew up to be kindly, sophisticated, and hard to know. Brian Masters says, “it is typical of the Benson style that they could conceal a crisis in a sentence which is bland, truthful, but completely locked against the inquisitive.” Nobody knew anything they didn’t want them to know. Go to your local library and check out the Benson name under subject and get any book you can find about them and read it. Most of all get E. F. (Fred) Benson’s books and treat yourself to some brilliant writing.
More Lucia Stuff:
E. F. Benson created six Lucia books in all and fortunately Crowell, a New York publisher, saw fit to combine all the stories into one volume titled Make Way For Lucia. The book is out of print but can be obtained at Web sites that cater to rare and hard-to-find books, like www.Alibris.com. In her Foreword, Mitford said that all of Benson’s characters remain “as fresh as paint,” after rereading the stories more than twenty years later.
Recommended:
