The House and the Brain, A Truly Terrifying Tale: Paranormal Parlor, A Weiser Books Collection

By Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Varla Ventura

Varla Ventura, Coast to Coast favorite, Weird News blogger on Huffington Post, and author of The Book of the Bizarre and Beyond Bizarre, introduces Weiser Books’ new Collection of forgotten occult classics. Paranormal Parlor is an eerie assemblage of affordable digital editions, curated with Varla’s sixth sense for tales of the weird and unusual.

An empty house, where no one dares live. A landlord who swears no one can make it through a single night. A brave, or foolish, young man with a scientific mind, who takes the challenge and locks himself in for a night he will never forget. And of course, it is a dark and stormy night... Apparitions, dark magic, floating objects, and paralyzing terror all wait any one who dares enter the doorway of this London haunted house. Written by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, most known for the classic horror intro "It was a dark and stormy night" Lytton takes his place in the archives of the most frightening fiction with The House and the Brain. Originally published in 1859 as The Haunters and the Haunted, or The House and the Brain this story will make even the most modern reader's blood curl.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser
• Release date: Oct 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781619400078

Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) was an English author of poetry, plays, and novels. He served under Queen Victoria as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1858-1859. He is famous for having written the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night" as well as "The pen is mightier than the sword" and "pursuit of the almighty dollar." Among his many works of fiction, he wrote The Coming Race which drew heavily on his interest in the Occult, contributing to the birth of the Science Fiction genre. His story The Haunters and the Haunted, or, The House and the Brain, was immensely popular in 1859, but was largely forgotten until the 1920's when H.P. Lovecraft made mention of it.

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The House and the Brain, A Truly Terrifying Tale

Nothing thrills a fan of the phantasmagoric like a good old-fashioned ghost story. Tales of the supernatural, the strange, the terrifying, and the true all have their place in my dusty library. And it isn't without purpose that when we think of the setting for a tale of terror, the words It was a dark and stormy night come to mind. Those words were first penned by Victorian novelist Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Though not as legendary as the gloriously gothic Edgar Allan Poe or the marvelously morbid H.P. Lovecraft, Lytton was a prolific novelist and occult scholar who was also responsible for the phrase The pen is mightier than the sword.

In The Haunters and the Haunted, or The House and the Brain (1859), Lytton—who worked on such diverse projects as operas, poems, plays, historical fiction, science fiction, and romance—demonstrates his deep understanding of the occult as well as his love of suspense. Lytton's later work Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (1871) is not only heavily steeped in occult secrets, it also contributed to the birth of the genre known as science fiction.

The House and the Brain is a heart-racing, bloodcurdling tale, one in which the reader is quickly dropped into a haunted house and all of its horrors. Shadow creatures lurk, real-world objects are stolen by ghoulish hands, phantom footsteps echo, and just when you think it is over, Lytton takes it to another level. For those of you who have never read the story I won't give away the ending, but I will say subterranean ritual magic and necromancy may or may not come into play. . . . There! I've said too much. You'll want to read this right away before more of the secrets sneak out. Keep a candle nearby should the power go out. You do not want to be alone in the dark with this story.

In freakitude,

Varla Ventura

San Francisco, 2011

A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and earnest—Fancy! since we last met, I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London.

Really haunted?—and by what?—ghosts?

Well, I can't answer these questions—all I know is this—six weeks ago I and my wife were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, ‘Apartments Furnished.’ The situation suited us: we entered the house—liked the rooms—engaged them by the week—and left them the third day. No power on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer, and I don't wonder at it.

What did you see?

"Excuse me—I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer—nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither saw nor heard anything. And the strangest marvel of all was, that for once in my life I agreed with my wife—silly woman though she be—and allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth morning, I summoned the woman who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said, dryly: ‘I know why; you have stayed longer than any other lodger; few ever stayed a second night; none before you, a third. But I take it they have been very kind to you.’

"‘They—who?’ I asked, affecting a smile.

"‘Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them; I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't care—I'm old, and must die soon, anyhow; and then I shall be with them, and in this house still.’ The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness, that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her farther. I paid for my week, and too happy were I and my wife to

Reviews for The House and the Brain, A Truly Terrifying Tale

[bnielsen_30 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Et forhekset hus i London.En meget jordnær mand, hans tro og frygtløse tjener og hans tro hund flytter ind i et forhekset hus for at undersøge det nærmere. Inden længe flygter tjeneren over hals og hovede og hunden ligger død i hjørnet med halsen vredet om.Manden kontakter ejeren af huset og de finder et skjult rum med effekter der tyder på at huset er forhekset. De finder også et billede af en mand, de har set før. Men billedet er to hundrede år gammelt og de har set manden i live. Fortælleren opsøger manden kun for at blive hypnotiseret og brugt til at forudsige mandens fremtid. Han vil leve i endnu mange hundrede år og til sidst starte en krig, der trods ødelæggelserne vil forny verden.Udmærket beskrivelse af hvordan angsten griber hovedpersonen og hvordan man kan forestille sig en ond person med næsten evigt liv

[jefware · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I believe this ghost story may be the first to convey the idea that belief is necessary to be harmed by apparitions.

[PrinceBertram · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bulwar-Lytton’s “The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain” (1859) is one of the absolute best classics in all of ghost story literature. I’m giving it 5 stars (really only for the first half of the book) i.e. “The House” part, which is one of the scariest haunted house tales there is, second in my opinion, only to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s “An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street.”

The second half of “The House in the Brain” i.e. “The Brain” part, completely jettisons the ghost story and reveals that the entire experience of the haunted house was an illusion created by a man identified by the sobriquet of “The Brain.“ My advice is to stop reading at the end of the haunted house story and seek a bright room with plenty of company. If you choose to continue, and finish the second half of the book, you will suffer through a lot of tedious 19th-century parapsychology speculation.

Bulwar-Lytton’s famous story, under the title “The Haunted and the Haunters, or the Pirates’ Curse“ was the second track on a 1962 LP called “Alfred Hitchcock Presents Ghost Stories for Young People.“ My long suffering parents had no idea what they were starting with their eldest six year old son when he was given this as a birthday present. It was after listening to this LP (in the dark of course!) that I became a rabid ghost story lover—a passionate interest I still hold at age 63.

The author Robert Arthur Jr.. was responsible for all the content of this LP (regardless of Alfred Hitchcock‘s name being on the cover.) Arthur wrote all the original stories on the LP (with the exception of “Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons” by Walter R. Brooks) and it was Arthur who wrote the adaptations of “The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The Pirates’ Curse” and the adaptation of “The Open Window“ by Saki, another unforgettable classic. Wisely, Arthur used only the haunted house narrative from Bulwer-Lytton’s story.

Arthur’s “The Haunted and the Haunters, or The Pirates’ Curse” from the LP scared me silly. But I loved it— isn’t that why we all love scaring ourselves to death with ghost stories— vicariously speaking of course. I had to gather all my courage to listen to the story alone in the dark. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do that too often since I had four other siblings I could share the fright with!

I’ll end this review by suggesting you investigate the writings of Robert Arthur Jr. As a child growing up in the 1960s, he provided me with endless entertainment. His mystery series for children and teens “The Three Investigators“ was so original and innovative it made “The Hardy Boys” seem like something suitable only for a backward six year old boy. Better yet, on the subject of ghosts, Arthur did not disappoint. He edited a number of short story anthologies for children, the best being “Alfred Hitchcock‘s Ghostly Gallery“ ( 1962) – which introduced me to the absolutely terrifying and horrible creepy ghost story – “The Upper Berth” by F. Marion Crawford. A story which one famous ghost story author, H. R. Wakefield said “Dr. Montague Rhodes James, wrote the best ghost stories in the English language – but not the very best one, which is ‘The Upper Birth. ‘”