Tartarus Press Coverley House, Carlton, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, DL8 4AY United Kingdom Telephone/Fax: +44 (0) 1969 640399 email Tartarus Press
Recommended Reading by Ray Russell Tartarus has only ever published books which Rosalie and/or I are passionate, and we would heartily recommend all of them in any edition you can find. Some books that we would love to publish, however, already have publishers, and they follow (although we publish mainly supernatural fiction, this list covers our full ange of interests): - Peter Ackroyd,
Dan Leno and the Limehouse
Golem,
Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994
- Ackroyd is a great writer when it comes to describing the London of the past, but his evocations of the modern metropolis can often be rather lame. The classic example is the oft-lauded Hawksmoor, in which the scenes set in the early eighteenth century are powerful and convincing, but those in the late twentieth century are decidedly pedestrian. Dan Leno, however, is set entirely in the past, and Ackroyd pulls it off with panache.
Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory, Macmillan, 1984 - A "coming of age" gothic horror novel. Best read as a teenager.
Park Barnitz, The Book of Jade, Doxey, 1901 - We all like our poets gloomy and droopy, and perhaps Stenbock is the granddaddy of the morbid aesthete, but poor old Park Barnitz didn't have the advantage of the vast fortune. However, he was still a doomed character. "Those whom the gods love . . . " Beautifully reprinted by David Tibet's Durtro Press.
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Newby, 1847, (pseud. Ellis and Acton Bell, 3 vols) - There is a reason why some books are considered classics . . . .
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Cripps, 1621 - An encyclopedia of every ailment of the heart. It should be consulted on a regular basis.
Arthur Calder-Marshall, The Magic of My Youth, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1951 - A wonderful evocation of youth, the Sussex Downs and Victor Neiburg.
Albert Camus, The Outsider, Hamish Hamilton, 1946 (translated by Stuart Gilbert) - The finest of all existential novels.
Joyce Carey, The Horse's Mouth, Joseph, 1944 - A novel written with unbelievable zest and gusto.
Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, Black Spring, 1989 - Everything you could ever want from a truly gothic novel -- death, sex, religion and very warped characters. Cave's use of language is wonderful.
Aleister Crowley, Moonchild, Mandrake Press, 1929 - A mad novel of magic with more of a sense of humour than Crowley is usually given credit for.
Ernest Dowson, Dilemmas, Elkin Matthews, 1895 - Truly sensitive and heart-rending stories. If only Mills and Boon had not given "romance" such a bad name people would realise that all the greatest books are romances.
Charles Finney, The Circus of Dr Lao, Viking, 1935 - All of the best fantasies are rooted in reality, and if you accept that Dr Lao really is exhibiting the fantastic creatures that he claims, then the result is all too realistic. The scene where the schoolteacher meets the satyr (who, being rather old, is balding and smelly) is wonderful.
Andre Gide, Isabelle, Cassell, 1931 (translated by Dorothy Bussy) - All of the best love stories are doomed ones, and Isabelle is no exception.
Alyse Gregory, The Cry of a Gull, Ark Press, 1973 - A very moving diary by the wife of Llewelyn Powys. He was a complete bastard to her, but she seems to have put up with his philandering. As her story moves toward her death it is very moving.
Edna Judd, A Moving Experience, Book Guild, 1995 - An updated version of George and Weedon Grosmith's book, this is an unintentional classic. The naive autobiography of a woman who does not quite do anything interesting.
Larkin, Philip, Collected Poems, Faber (London), 1988 - Considered an arch-miserablist, Larkin often exhibits a wonderfully dark sense of humour, and mocks himself. He is generally credited with a morbid fear of death, but his greatest worry appeared to be that he might be forced into marriage. His poetry is very direct and conversational.
William March, The Bad Seed, Hamish Hamilton, 1954 - Every parent's nightmare, a child without any conscience. Perhaps more palatable these days because it is a period piece, a contemporary re-write would probably cause it to be banned.
Rev. C.R. Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer, Constable, 1820 - An epic that meanders off into hundred-page digressions, few have the leisure these days to write or read such works.
Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood, Harcourt Brace & Co, 1952 - This book has all the ingredients of madness and religion, but it is the great brooding atmosphere which makes it so special.
Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Harrap, [1923] (expanded Harry Clarke edition) - Poe needs no recommendation from me, but if any artist catches his obsessive atmosphere of horror it is Clarke. In this edition you also get the wonderful colour plates that are missed from the cheap reprints.
Paul Jordan Smith, For the Love of Books, O.U.P., 1934 - Paul Jordan Smith manages to convey an enthusiasm for authors that is infectious.
A.J.A. Symons, The Quest For Corvo, Cassell, 1934 - A wonderfully disingenuous book, it deconstructs the biography by explaining how the story was discovered, and appears to be the more honest for this. The fact that it was put together with all the art of fiction does not detract from its fascination.
Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes, Chatto & Windus, 1926 A book of emancipation, both personal and sexual, it is also a great period novel with some great poetic touches reminiscent of Machen.
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited, Chapman & Hall, 1945 Although it is lightly written, Brideshead is the perfect novel of melancholy, being essentially about every aspect of loss imaginable.
Denton Welch, In Youth is Pleasure, Routledge, 1945 One of the most beautiful books ever written, Welch is an apparently naive and artless writer, which is far from the truth.
(It has been great to update this list over the years and delete books which we have finally been able to publish ourselves, including the short stories of Denton Welch, A.E. Coppard, and H.G. Wells, along with Frank Baker's Miss Hargreaves, Meyrink's The Golem and David Lindsay's The Haunted Woman.) Page updated 16th April 2007