A brief survey of the short story: Robert Aickman

Written with real psychological depth, these enigmatic tales rise far beyond straightforward ghost stories, writes Chris Power

The lending history of my ex-library copy of The Attempted Rescue, one of two volumes of autobiography produced by the British horror writer Robert Aickman, tells a story of declining interest spanning 60 years. The book was checked out 13 times between 1966 and 1970, but just once in 1971, and once again in ‘72. After that it was ignored until 1981, the year of its author’s death, then ignored again for a further 22 years. As in Aickman’s own work, the dates tell their story by implication. Ultimately, it is up to us to discern the meaning that lies in the blank spaces between each blurred stamp.

After his death (from cancer, which he elected to treat homoeopathically), Aickman’s books were largely neglected. Like one of the abandoned houses or secluded dells of his fiction, they became places rarely visited, lying far from the thoroughfares of mainstream popularity. In recent years more attention has been paid to him, and much of his work has been reprinted, but aficionados must have found it hard to resist the selfish wish that he stay mostly forgotten: so many of his stories hinge on characters straying into, or being unwittingly drawn towards, mysterious spaces beyond everyday reality, that obscurity has suited him very well.

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