Jesse’s Reviews > Collected Fiction Volume 1: 1888-1895 > Status Update

“The Inmost Light”

This story has some parallels with The Great God Pan. It’s kind of a rewrite. There’s this Doctor, see, and he has this lovely wife, except no one has seen her for months. A dude named Dyson heard this local gossip and decided to prowl around the house and he sees Miss Agnesinside the house and very much alive, but she has the face of… a SATYR!!! No!! Anything but that!!

“Jocelyn’s Escape”

I’m not sure. Harry is the head of a law practice and he is expecting a special lady guest at his office. But—as the story’s revealed—he’s married. He writes a note for his lady caller when she arrives, but as we find out, his WIFE came to the office unexpectedly. Fortunately for Harry, his wife believed that the note was meant for her, and Harry breaks his adulterous intentions.

“An Underground Adventure”

Our MC is a jerk who reads the agony columns (the anonymous adverts in the paper) and shows up to see what happens when the proposed meetings take place. In this particular instance, in a case of mistaken identity, he gets quite a bit more than he bargained for. It’s hard to feel sorry for the guy, really, when he is such a human tourist.

“The Lost Club”

A bizarre story where two society gentleman decide to walk together only to take shelter during a downpour at a mysterious club, revealed to them by one of their acquaintances. The club gathers before the President, who has them open a book to random pages, one of which is black and which, if selected, will place the member at the dispensation of the club.

“A Wonderful Woman”

Villiers and Richardson meet for the first time in a long time. The latter has married and invites Villiers to visit his house. Villiers is astonished, however, to find that Richardson’s wife is an ex of his, one Mary Reynolds, who is not the least bit interested in rekindling their romance and jeopardizing her now very cushy existence. Not that Villiers was trying to.

“A Double Return”

Frank is on his way home and sees his double in a train going the opposite way. That’s weird! Then he gets home and his wife and maid think that he’d just left earlier that morning. It’s because his good friend, Kerr, came in late disguised as Frank and with this subterfuge bedded Frank’s wife. The motivations of this story don’t quite add up.

“The Autophone”

A now distinguished priest is drawn to metaphysical musings regarding the ephemeral nature of personalities. He is later presented with an invention called the “autophone” which appears to play back sounds that the user has heard. In Hammond’s case, it recalls him at the bar, getting teased over making it with a woman named Mary, and he doesn’t like this throwback to his youth.

“A Remarkable Coincidence”

Two literary-inclined flatmates sit around all day, smoking and eating and drinking. Then, one day, one of the two has a banger of an idea for a novel and pulls his friend in. They write the novel and submit it… but someone had just submitted a largely identical novel. Oh, shucks! Neither man questions whether some sort of creative theft has occurred.

“The Great God Pan”

This was more interesting on a second read, picking up details like how it is a deliberate and thorough inversion of the Jack the Ripper killings, and how Raymond is positioned in the piece a bit more thoroughly insofar as the archetypes he and his charge, Mary, inhabit within Gothic horror, and how this “union” bears out in the events of the story.