|
Home Page
News
Titles In Print
Ordering
Information
Guide to 1st Ed.
Prices
Wormwood
Out Of Print
Titles
Bibliography
Tartarus Book
Design
Submissions
Links
|
 Morbid
Tales
-
- by Quentin S. Crisp
-
- With a Foreword by Mark
Samuels
-
- In these
eight immaculately realised strange stories, Quentin S.
Crisp delves deep into the decadence of contemporary
life. Springing from the beauties of love and despair,
the tales range from the melancholy betrayal of 'Autumn
Colours', to the elegiac love and violence of 'The
Tattooist'; from the seductive horror of 'Cousin X', to
the warped, heady eroticism of 'The Mermaid'; from the
wistful fantasy of 'Far-Off Things' to the more worldly
wish-fulfilment of 'The Two-Timer'; and from the
supernatural mystery of 'A Lake', to the paradoxical
perfection of 'Ageless'.
-
- The
fresh originality of the tales and their settings: an
English country garden in 'Cousin X'; contemporary Japan
in 'A Lake': is matched by the elegance of the writing.
They are unified, perhaps, by a yearning for the achingly
perfect, ecstatic moment. As Mark Samuels points out in
his Foreword, Crisp's fiction is '. . . too
multi-layered, too individual, to be labelled. One can
spot influences here and there, a dash of this and a
sprinkling of that, but the end result is much greater
than the sum of its parts.'
-
- Quentin
S. Crisp was born in North Devon, England. After school,
he worked for five years as an actor and stage manager,
and played bass guitar for the band, The Dead Bell. In
1996 he entered Durham University and as part of his
degree course spent a year in Japan. He then taught and
studied in Taiwan, and was awarded a scholarship to
research the works of Higuchi Ichiyou at Kyoto
University. Quentin now lives on the outskirts of London
and shares his life with his gardenia, Esmerelda, and his
Japanese ceramics. His first collection of short stories,
The Nightmare Exhibition, was published in
2001.
-
- To read
The
Tattooist from Morbid Tales right-click with
your mouse on the title and choose "Save target as". You
can then decide where to download the story onto your
computer. You will need Adobe Acrobat to be able to view
the story.
-
- Morbid Tales is a sewn hardback book of
226 pages.
-
- Limited
to 300 copies.
-
- Price
£27.50/$55 inc. p&p.
-
- ISBN 1
872621 83 X
-
- Reviews:
- I
don't recall being so impressed with a short story
collection by a new (to me) writer since I first read, in
my youth, the works of M.R. James and H.P. Lovecraft.
When I got my copy of Morbid Tales, except for the
intriguing title and the attractive book production by
Tartarus, I didn't know what to expect, knowing precious
little about its author. . . . I can't recommend this
book highly enough. Crisp will surprise and delight you
with his marvellous writing skill and the ability to
convey a profound sense of universal horror, cosmic
menace and spiritual desolation. - Mario Guslandi,
The Alien Online
-
- "Attempting to find a frozen moment,
description, or phenomena with which to express a breath
of cosmic fear and awe, Crisp acheives with this
collection a remarkable scrapbook of terrorr."
- William Simmons, Cemetery
Dance
-
- "The
power of the best stories here is in the way in which
Crisp has been able to use his influences to reflect deep
within himself and draw out something that is strikingly
new." - Douglas Campbell, All
Hallows
-
Page updated
23rd March 2008
|