Tales of Terror

I was about 12 when I was given the book Tales of Terror from the Black Ship by Chris Priestley. This wonderful collection of grim and grisly tales stuck with me over the years, and nearly fifteen years later I still keep it on my shelf. For Halloween this year, with a focus on family and children’s horror I thought I might revisit it and pick up the other two volumes in the series while I’m at it, see how it holds up.

It holds up. In fact it’s excellent. Written for the 8-12 age range, all three are set in Victorian England, and written with a decidedly gothic sensibility. All three are framed from the perspective of a child being told these tales by a spooky storyteller with a mystery around them.

I appreciated that Priestley clearly knows and respects the gothic tradition, dropping in references to Poe and many others for kids to look up later. Note that this does mean the language and style is potentially challenging for the younger ones, plus some of the stories are very gruesome (special mention goes to Nature from The Black Ship, which involves fairly graphic descriptions of people getting eaten alive by snails), so caution is very much advised. But we all know of one spooky or bloodthirsty kid (if you’re reader of this site, chances are you were one) for whom these books would make some fantastic reading.

Although Tales of Terror is a series, each book works as a standalone and so I’ve briefly reviewed each below.

Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror

The first installment in the series concerns Edgar, a young boy who, to escape from his dreary parents during the school holidays, often goes to visit his Uncle Montague. He and Uncle Montague take tea together, and they look over his collection of objects and oddities, for each object carries with it a grisly tale. As he listens, Edgar realises strange Uncle Montague with his strange dark house and his strange unseen butler may have a story of his own…

This one is a collection of classic cautionary tales, at first it appears less thematically coherent than the other two books, but they all come down to this is what happens to bad children. Personally, as an adult reader I found this had the least to offer me, but then this wasn’t written for me as an adult. If I’d found this at the right age I have no doubt I would have loved it. Out of the three, I would say this one is the most suited to slightly younger readers. The objects and stories are a bit of a jumble, and the setting of the mystery of Uncle Montague and Pity’s End is somewhat less sophisticated than the framing Priestley would develop for The Black Ship and The Tunnel’s Mouth.

Favourite stories: Climb Not, The Demon Bench-End, The Path

Tales of Terror from the Black Ship

Ethan and his sister Cathy are taken ill one stormy night and their father, though he had been distant and unkind since the death of their mother, ventures out promising to return with help. Their father has been gone for some time when a strange young man, in outdated Naval uniform, by the name of Jonah Thackeray arrives seeking shelter at their inn. Thackeray has sailed far and wide across the seven seas, and he’s picked up a few stories that might while away the night…

Here we have pirates, smugglers, salty seadogs, and all the strange things that can happen at sea. I’ll admit to being biased towards this one, as this is the only book in the series I read as a child, and I used my old copy for this review. Upon revisiting I am struck by Priestly having the courage to make this a sad story. I will refrain from spoiling the twist completely, but an adult reading this will soon realise - the children’s father isn’t coming back. I hesitate to say this makes this a “mature” sort of book, because this is for children, because Priestley knows that children can handle sad stories. Ethan and Cathy, along with Robert from The Tunnel’s Mouth, belong to the same strange and creepy world as the stories they are told. Edgar in Uncle Montague’s is a visitor to this world, a more detached listener, but Ethan and Cathy exist to show the reader this could be you.

Favourite stories: Pitch, The Boy in the Boat, The Black Ship

Tales of Terror from the Tunnel’s Mouth

Robert is catching the train by himself for the very first time. He’s going to London to see his grandfather, and he can’t wait to get going, despite his stepmother’s misgivings. Robert is a sensible boy, not given to any superstitions or flights of fancy, so he thinks nothing of hoarding the train. However, he awakes during his journey to find the train stopped at the mouth of a tunnel, his fellow travellers all fast asleep, and a mysterious woman wearing white sat opposite him. They’re stopped for a dreadfully long time, so the Woman in White tells him stories and urges him to sleep if he must, but something tells Robert that whatever he does, he must not fall asleep…

This one is interesting, as Robert is not a likeable protagonist. He’s arrogant and judgmental, dismissive towards women and confident in his superiority as an Englishman. The tales in this volume follow a similar theme to Uncle Montague’s but more vicious, because this time the Woman in White is not here to entertain the boy, but to teach him a lesson. This book gave me the shivers, there is an air of menace about the Woman in White that Uncle Montague and Thackeray do not possess. I honestly found this genuinely creepy at times, and while I could make a reasonable guess as to the twist in the first two books, I really couldn’t work out where this one was going and the truth took me by surprise. In my opinion, this is the best in the series.

Favourite stories: A New Governess, The Crotach Stone, Sister Veronica

Review by Dai Baddley

Twitter: @PrepareToDai