
Classic Ghost Stories
Tony Walker
Categories: Society & Culture
Listen to the last episode:
Anthony Boucher Anthony Boucher known as was the pen name of William Anthony Parker White and he was known at Tony. He was born in 1911 in Oakland California and died aged only 56 in Oakland of lung cancer. I guess he liked it there. He graduated from Pasadena High in 1928 and went to the University of Southern California and did his masters at University of California, Berkely. Boucher is to rhyme with Voucher rather than the French bouche. Boucher was close to his grandfather who had been a steel worker in Glasgow and got free passage to America after signing up to fight in the Civil War. He couldn’t have afforded the passage otherwise. It’s said that the grandfather who made a big impression on Boucher was a rake and a rogue. He was a sickly child with asthma and other illnesses and this made him a voracious reader and later writer. Boucher was a professional writer of fiction who wrote mystery novels, short stories, science fiction and radio dramas. His story Nine Times Nine was voted the best locked room master of all time. He edited anthologies of science fiction and was a translator from Spanish, being the first to translate Jorge Luis Borges (I must do one of his stories). Boucher founded the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and edited it from 1949 to 1958. He was a friend and mentor of Philip K. Dick. In addition to other things he was a keen poker player, a sports fan and a big fan of Sherlock Holmes. He collected records of early operatic singers. Apparently he was a friend of the occultist Jack Parsons who also lived in Pasadena His first story was published in 1927 in Weird Tales when he was 15. It was entitled “Ye Good Olde Ghost Storie”. They Bite This story was suggested by many many people. I watched a couple of videos on how to do Western accents, but I think I have not succeeded very well and hope that doesn’t detract from the story. This is a classic folk horror story albeit set in the American West, though it references Sweeny Bean a Gaelic cannibal from Galloway. Boucher’s grandfather was from Scotland. The story is similar to Samantha Hick’s story: Back Along The Old Track, though I don’t think Sam’s story was consciously modelled on this. The similarity is in the trope. Also similar is Lovecraft’s Dreams In The Witch House. It isn’t clear to me why Tallant is climbing the rocks all day or has come here at all. He makes notes of what he sees of the glider training school. Perhaps he is going to sell what he sees to the highest bidder – some sort of freelance spy. Some of the characters I don’t get. The old man who warns Tallant and whose dog is killed by the Carker. The young man with the beard who is a stranger, the Flight Sergeant on the pinball machine and the construction worker being fleeced at poker. I don’t get those, apart from Boucher’s real life love of poker. He only needs one Warner and the bartender really. He is planning blackmail but I don’t get how the Carker story will help that. I wasn’t surprised when he killed Morgan. I think the dream of him being a superman king narcissist type let me know he was not a bloody good bloke. But it is Morgan’s murder that leads to Tallant’s doom. It is his fiendish plan to attribute Morgan’s death the the Carkers that leads him inside their tumble down adobe. It has an unreliable narrator. Remember Boucher was a mystery writer and the unreliable narrator became a staple after Agatha Christie. There is no hint that Tallant is a blackmailer. In a sense he is like the Crakers who have come to Oasis opportunistically in search of prey — as has Morgan, a fellow blackmailer. There is a hint to Tallant’s shady past at the beginning, but no detail given so that when the twist comes it is satisfying. The end is a moral tale of the biter bit. We like stories that reinforces our ideas of good and bad and that bad needs go punished. The things themselves...
Previous episodes
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153 - They Bite by Anthony Boucher Fri, 20 May 2022 - 0h
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152 - The Crown Derby Plate by Marjorie Bowen Fri, 13 May 2022 - 0h
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151 - How Fear Departed The Long Gallery by E F Benson Fri, 06 May 2022 - 0h
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150 - The Hounds of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long Fri, 29 Apr 2022 - 0h
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149 - The Sandman by E T A Hoffman Fri, 22 Apr 2022
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148 - Out of the Deep by Walter de la Mare Fri, 15 Apr 2022
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147 - The Music of Erich Zann by H P Lovecraft Fri, 08 Apr 2022 - 0h
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146 - Thirteen At Table by Lord Dunsany Fri, 01 Apr 2022 - 0h
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145 - The Crowd by Ray Bradbury Fri, 25 Mar 2022 - 0h
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144 - SO311. The Man Whom The Trees Loved by Algernon Blackwood Fri, 18 Mar 2022
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143 - S03010 The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapters 16-20 Fri, 11 Mar 2022
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142 - S0309 The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapters 13-15 Fri, 04 Mar 2022
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141 - S0308 The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapters 10-12 Fri, 25 Feb 2022
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140 - S0307 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Chapters 7-9 Fri, 18 Feb 2022
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139 - S0306 A Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Chapters 4-6 Fri, 11 Feb 2022
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138 - S0305 A Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Chapters 1-3) Fri, 04 Feb 2022
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137 - S0304 Beyond The Door by J. Paul Suter Fri, 28 Jan 2022 - 0h
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136 - S0303 Number 13 by M R James Fri, 21 Jan 2022 - 0h
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135 - S0302 The Earlier Service by Margaret Irwin Fri, 14 Jan 2022 - 0h
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134 - S0301 The Fair Family by Tony Walker Fri, 07 Jan 2022 - 0h
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133 - S02E64 The Pleasure Pilgrims by Ella D'Arcy Fri, 31 Dec 2021
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132 - S02E61 The Piano by Tony Walker Sat, 25 Dec 2021 - 0h
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131 - S02E60 Surprise View by Tony Walker Fri, 24 Dec 2021 - 0h
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130 - S02E63 Thrawn Janet by Robert Louis Stevenson Mon, 13 Dec 2021 - 0h
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129 - S02E62 Sir Gawain & The Green Knight Mon, 06 Dec 2021
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128 - S02E59 Harry by Rosemary Timperley Mon, 29 Nov 2021 - 0h
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127 - S02E58 Taig O'Kane and The Corpse by Douglas Hyde Mon, 22 Nov 2021 - 0h
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126 - S02E57 Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo? by Gerald Kersh Mon, 15 Nov 2021
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125 - S02E56 The Beast of Blanchland by Rowan Bowman Mon, 08 Nov 2021
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124 - S02E55 The Haunting of Unit 409 by Tony Walker Sun, 31 Oct 2021 - 0h
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123 - S02E54 The Girl With The Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber Mon, 25 Oct 2021 - 0h
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122 - S02E53 Laura Silver Bell by J Sheridan Le Fanu Mon, 18 Oct 2021 - 0h
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121 - SO2E52 The Lottery by Shirley Jackson Mon, 11 Oct 2021 - 0h
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120 - S02E51 The Pomegranate Seed by Edith Wharton Mon, 04 Oct 2021
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119 - S0250 Dragoon by DeWayne Hayes Sat, 25 Sep 2021 - 0h
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118 - S02E49 The Night Wire by H F Arnold Sat, 18 Sep 2021 - 0h
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117 - The First Sheaf by H R Wakefield Sat, 11 Sep 2021 - 0h
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116 - S02E48 The Reluctant Bride by Iqbal Hussain Sat, 11 Sep 2021 - 0h
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115 - The Shining Pyramid by Arthur Machen Wed, 08 Sep 2021
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114 - S02E47 W S By L P Hartley Sat, 04 Sep 2021 - 0h
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113 - S02E46 The Lodgers by Joan Aiken Sat, 28 Aug 2021
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112 - S02E45 The Amorous Ghost by Enid Bagnold Sat, 21 Aug 2021 - 0h
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111 - S02E44 The Door In The Wall by H. G. Wells Sat, 14 Aug 2021 - 0h
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110 - S02E43 The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Gaskell Part Three. Sat, 07 Aug 2021
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109 - S02E42 The Grey Woman by Mrs Gaskell Part Two Sat, 31 Jul 2021 - 0h
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108 - S02E41 The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Gaskell Part One Sat, 24 Jul 2021
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107 - S02E40 The Lost Tragedy by Denis Mackail Sat, 17 Jul 2021 - 0h
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106 - S02E39 Oke of Oakhurst by Vernon Lee (Part 3) Sat, 10 Jul 2021 - 0h
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105 - S02E38 Oke of Oakhurst Part 2 Sat, 03 Jul 2021 - 0h
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104 - S02E37 Oke of Oakhurst by Vernon Lee Sat, 26 Jun 2021