The Outcast and Other Dark Tales

By: Mike Ashley - editor, E. F. Benson

Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe, John Telfer, David Thorpe

A grisly spirit turns travelling companion for the unwitting passenger of a London bus; a repulsive neighbour returns from the grave, rejected by the very earth; an innocuous back garden becomes the stage for a nightmare encounter with druidic sacrifice.

From deep in the British Library vaults emerges a new selection of E.F. Benson's most innovative, spine-tingling and satisfyingly dark 'spook stories'. Complete with an introduction exploring the fascinating story of Benson's life, and including the never-before-republished story 'Billy Comes Through', this volume hails the chilling return of an experimental master to whom writers of supernatural fiction have long been indebted.

©2020 Mike Ashley (Selection, introduction and notes) (P)2022 Isis Audio

A collection for pre-existing Benson fans.

The author of the stories in this collection was born in 1867 so it seems somewhat unfair of the previous reviewer to give the book one star for 19th century-style writing. E.F. Benson wrote like a late Victorian because... he was a late Victorian.

Benson was a son of an Archbishop of Canterbury and educated at Marlborough and then Cambridge, where his writing was influenced by M.R. James (b. 1862), perhaps the worst offender amongst these stuffy ghost story types. So naturally Benson was never going to develop the literary je ne sais quoi of a Stephen King or an R.L. Stine.

Despite these regrettable deficiencies, I am terribly fond of Benson, and for that reason I am baffled and dismayed by the editor's choice of stories, or at least, the order in which to present them. "Dummy on a Dahabeah" is a good ghost story but Benson's least approachable. He was a bridge and whist superfan, and half of the considerably long story consists of interminable technical descriptions of whist games which mean absolutely nothing to most of us now.

First time Benson readers/listeners should absolutely skip to the third story, "Between the Lights," which is much more typical of him, and is in the same vein as certain stories written by Arthur Machen, John Buchan, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Better yet, first timers should pick a more traditional Benson collection that features all his greatest hits.

-Five stars for the stories because it's E. F. Benson, who is the Kannon to M.R. James' Amida.
-Three to four stars for the narration (one narrator was great, one was good, and one was a little too enthusiastic).

19th Century Affectations

Writing as if you’re a 19th century author doesn’t make you scary —- just stuffy.