The Wine-Dark Sea - Softcover

Aickman, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571244270 ISBN 13: 9780571244270

Publisher: Faber, 2008

Synopsis

Peter Straub called Robert Aickman 'this century's most profound writer of what we call horror stories'. Aickman's 'strange stories' (his preferred term for them) are a subtle exploration of psychological displacement and paranoia. His characters are ordinary people that are gradually drawn into the darker recesses of their own minds. First published in the USA in 1988 and in the UK in 1990 The Wine-Dark Sea contains eight stories that will leave the reader unsettled as the protagonists' fears and desires, at once illogical and terrifying, culminate in a disturbing yet enigmatic ending. For fans of the horror genre Robert Aickman is a must read. As Peter Straub notes in his introduction 'Aickman's originality was rooted in need - he had to write these stories, and that is why they are worth reading and rereading'. 'Superb tales of suspenseful unease . . . a contemporary master of the genre.' Publishers Weekly 'Aickman's effects are so concentrated you'll be well advised not to read more than one story at a time.' Books

About this title

About the Author

Robert Fordyce Aickman was born in 1914 in London. He was married to Edith Ray Gregorson from 1941 to 1957. In 1946 the couple, along with Tom and Angela Rolt, set up the Inland Waterways Association to preserve the canals of Britain. It was in 1951 that Aickman, in collaboration with Elizabeth Jane Howard, published his first ghost stories in a volume entitled We Are for the Dark. Aickman went on to publish seven more volumes of 'strange stories' as well as two novels and two volumes of autobiography. He also edited the first eight volumes of The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories. He died in February 1981.

From Publishers Weekly

Since his death several years ago, British writer Aickman's reputation has continued to grow among connoisseurs of the horror story. Unlike much of the current form, full of blood, monsters and melodrama, Aickman's stories achieve a quieter, more subtle and, in several ways, more lasting sense of disquiet. His lucid, finely tuned prose moves imperceptibly from the small crises and celebrations of ordinary life into another sphere. In these 11 stories, the occasion may be a walking tour of Northern England, a birthday present of a Victorian dollhouse or a stay at a Swedish sanatorium for insomniacs, but it simultaneously traps the characters with dread and opens them up to a new awareness of a greater, deeper and more dangerous world. A remarkable collection by an author who deserves to be better known.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Faber
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0571244270
• ISBN 13: 9780571244270
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352