A Haunting Beauty

by Charles Birkin

Charles Birkin was the acknowledged master of the conte cruel or psychological horror story. His first collection was published in the 1930s as part of the famous Creeps series. After a lapse of nearly 30 years he returned to the field at the urging of Dennis Wheatley, rapidly turning out remarkably powerful collections that have profoundly influenced the field of modern horror. This present collection was assembled by the author with the assistance of noted editor Mike Ashley and was intended as a retrospective sampling of the author's work. The elegant and cruel tales of Charles Birkin have been too long unavailable to the modern reader; hopefully this will not be the last volume collecting his best stories. Limited to 450 numbered copies. Edited by Mike Ashley.

Genres: Horror

252 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2000

About the author

Sir Charles Lloyd Birkin, 5th Baronet of Ruddington Grange (24 September 1907 – 1985) was an English author of horror short stories and the editor of the Creeps Library of anthologies. Mostly working under the pseudonym Charles Lloyd, Birkin's tales tended towards the contes cruels rather than supernatural fiction.

Reviews

[Alex Budris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thirteen cruel tales goosestepping one after another from an imagination as black as polished jackboots. Think Richard Laymon with Victorian sensibilities. The rather bland, refined tone of the narrative voice makes the sadism all the more stark. After the first couple stories, the reader realizes the inevitability of unpleasantness and the dread is incessant from the first sentence. In many of the stories the reader can see what is coming as is forced to watch helplessly as events culminate to the character's final doom. This predictability adds to the tension as the reader waits, waits, waits for (the terrible) 'it' to happen, wanting to get it over with.

All that being said I personally found these stories boring. Also a complaint I have with Laymon, I don't generally revel in sadism for sadisms sake, and it seems the entire point of some of these is as a set up for a morbid mishap. But, also like Laymon, the author definitely has talent and I am totally not saying there isn't merit to his work - It just isn't to my taste.

This is the first out of a projected multi volume set of this author's work, but unfortunately the publisher went defunct after just one more collection, The Harlem Horror.

[Benjamin Uminsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I would have rated Haunting Beauty (HB) a little higher but I felt that it was a comparable if not slightly weaker collection than Midnight House's other Birkin collection, "Harlem Horror"... which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Birkin employs a dark twisted horror with very little reliance at all on the supernatural (only Terror on the Tobit had any supernatural effect in the story, which very much was in the Lovecraftian vein). Ultimately, his exploration of evil in human beings is extremely effective and all the more haunting. Birkins message is: who needs ghouls, vampires, etc., when humans are the most horific monsters in the food chain.

Not all of the stories in HB worked for me though, but there were only a few duds. My favorite of this collection was "Fairy Dust", which has the deliciously cruel twist at the end that shocks and appalls the reader. To give you a sense of the horror, this story was about a step mother trying to bond with her 6 year old step-son through the reading of a children's story. Much of the story takes the pains of nicely developing the characters and the slowly burgeoning relationship between step mother and son. This mundane tale takes a turn for the horrific when this relationship unexpectantly culminates in step-mother coaxing step-son into doing-a-Peter-Pan off an 80-foot balcony. The passage describing how step mother seduces step son off the balcony is a very painful read. You can just see the horror unfolding in front of you but are powerless to pull your eyes off the pages.

This is a typical Birkin story... serrated dagger in the Readers' back with a malicious twist to ensure a lasting bite. Other "fun" stories to note from this collection are "Waiting for Trains", "King of the Castle", "The Mousehole," and others.

If you are looking for a nice collection of the conte cruel, you are in the right place with this collection. My thanks to John Pelan at Midnight House publishing for introducing me to Birkin. Enjoy!!