Wicked Uncles and Haunted Cellars

It is many years since I first read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and I still remember rolling about with laughter at the sketch of the gothic heroine’s adventures as painted by hero Henry Tilney. Curiously, I had not read any truly gothic narratives at that hour of my life. But as a creature of the film and television age, I recognised all of the motifs that storytellers and movie directors use to hook an audience, the uncertain young woman arriving at the unfamiliar house (or mansion or castle) – to work, to live, whatever – who happens upon an unspeakable secret and ends up fighting, possibly for her life and/or those of others. The genre had been initiated by Horace Walpole, who penned his seminal novel, The Castle of Otranto in 1764. This ignited an insatiable readership for tales of innocent maidens in peril, of mysterious documents begging to be deciphered, frantic journeys across unfamiliar terrain, coffins in the crypts and bats in the belfries of rambling, ruined castles. In the late 1700s, writers such as Ann Radcliffe and Clara Reeve seized upon the seed sown by Walpole and produced novels that were eagerly bought by a newly-literate female readership. Why did Walpole write his novel and what were the reasons for the proliferation of its successors? And why did Jane Austen pour such vitriol upon it? It is in an attempt to answer these and other questions that I wrote my book, Wicked Uncles and Haunted Cellars: What the Gothic Heroine Tells Us Today . It has just been published by Greenwich Exchange https://greenex.co.uk/home/p/wicked-uncles-and-haunted-cellars Over the coming months, I take an alternative look at gothic motifs, black cats, skeletons, etc. – or you can just read the book. In the meantime, check out this picture of the ghost of Horace as he works.

Shine on, Harvest Moon

What is it about the harvest moon? What is it about the cosmic body that rolls perpetually about the earth, reflecting the light of the sun and causing the tides to swell and recede? Whatever it is, it always seems more potent at this time of year. It is partly geological, of course. It seems that at or near the eqinoxes, the moon appears larger in the sky because day and night are supposedly of equal length. No, I don’t understand why either. But I recognise a glorious beacon of light when I see one. But why has the spring moon, the one of six months’ earlier, not risen to the occasion and inspired not one but two great songs titled Springtime Moon, as in Harvest Moon?
The delectable later Harvest Moon, released by Neil Young in 1998 is still routinely played at weddings. The lyrics of the earlier version, redolent of ragtime bands and crooning vocalists “snow time is no time to go outside and spoon” seem rather odd today. But the song is ever evocative of lazy, sleepy late summer and early autumn. Before the advent of artificial lighting, the harvest moon may indeed have seemed magical, enabling workers to toil late into the evening, taking home those final stooks of grain before the autumnal rains set in. What with granaries groaning and barns bursting with food for the forthcoming winter, it was time to feast and dance, to hang out and make love, to reflect the heat and warmth absorbed in the days of the now-dying summer. From that point of view, the spring moon, though it is the same beacon that shines, does not have the same potency. Whenever, I’ll be out to greet the harvest moon when she arrives. So, shine on, harvest moon, oh shine on...