posted on 27 Oct 2022

Small Shadows Creep, selected by Andre Norton

I was familiar with Andre Norton’s name as a US sci-fi writer, remembering a series of books that were immensely popular during the late-70s. What I didn’t know was that Andre Norton was a woman. She published prolifically from the mid-1930s onwards but before becoming established as a writer she trained to be a teacher, worked in the Cleveland library system for almost twenty years, was a cataloguer at the Library of Congress, worked in publishing and for a short time owned a bookshop. She died in 2005 aged 93.

Continuing our exploration of children’s books from the 1960s and 70s, I have been enjoying Small Shadows Creep, a collection of mostly rarely anthologised ghost stories drawn from roughly 1900 to 1949, chosen by Andre Norton. 

The unifying theme of these stories is that they all concern children or young people (as Norton explains) over whom the evil or twilight half-world is exerting an influence. This alone makes for an unusual anthology, but more notable, I think, is how few concessions Norton makes to a young audience. From Mrs Gaskell to M.R. James, from Margaret Lawrence, A.M. Burrage and H.R. Wakefield (all new names to me), to Hugh Walpole and E.F. Benson, these are literary stories, demanding in their language, sophistication, settings and historical backgrounds. There is no one here who writes down to a younger audience. And what for my money is the best story in the book, Herodes Redivivus, by A.N.L Munby – yet another writer I had previously never heard of – genuinely stands comparison with the master, M.R. James. 

As I read this collection I found myself wondering whether it would be published for young readers today. I suspect not; and the fact that it is out of print and as far as I can tell hasn’t been reprinted since its first appearance in 1979 tends to reinforce this view.

In her introduction, Norton says that ghosts – if they are to be convincing – need the right setting. “[T]he nineteenth century and the very early years of the present century,” she says, “brought us ghosts to the very best patterns. Certainly their like will never be seen again — for their haunts have become car parks and supermarkets — if not worse. We have destroyed the stages on which they appeared with the bulldozer and all the rest of modern clutter.” 

And so appropriately in this collection we have deserted country lanes, rambling old Tudor mansions, wind-scoured coastlines, gloomy, ill-lit alleys, and isolated country houses where locals won’t stay after dark. It is hugely rich in atmosphere.

Sadly, this Puffin title is likely to be quite hard to find — but it is worth tracking down if you can. As for the story I singled out for special mention, A.N.L. Munby’s Herodes Redivivus, this is available in a collection called The Haunted Library: Classic Ghost Stories, published by The British Library. Munby’s most famous collection, The Alabaster Hand & Other Stories, however, has been out of print for decades — although it seems that the Sundial Press may be issuing a paperback. Let’s hope so. 

This is one of those books that cries out to be read as winter approaches and the nights become darker, longer and more…chilling. Recommended. 

 

Alun Severn

October 2022

 

 

1960s and 70s children’s books elsewhere on Letterpress:

 

John Gordon, Dennis Hamley, Penelope Lively: More children’s fiction from the 1960s & 70s 

 

Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence

 

The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner

 

The Intruder by John Rowe Townsend

 

The Midwinter Violins by Sally Bicknell

 

A Pair of Jesus-Boots by Sylvia Sherry

 

The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively