Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume III

M. Y. HalidomProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
341K words
Chapters
35

Tags

English Originals Folk and Supernatural Tales SupernaturalGothic AtmosphereAestheticismGrotesque ImaginationCuriosityNarrative PlayExotic CultureVictorian EraNight Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume III by M. Y. HalidomAuthor: Halidom, M. Y., 1838-1914,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jul 14, 2011

Editor's review

Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume III is the final volume of M. Y. Halidom's story collection, continuing the frame narrative in which club members take turns telling strange tales, with the flavor of late nineteenth-century popular fantasy and Gothic taste. Its strength lies in the linked-short-story structure: each tale stands relatively independent, yet the club setting lets them echo one another, making it suitable for reading in short sittings. As a public-domain ebook, it preserves the narrative pacing and diction of old popular fiction, offering some documentary value to readers studying late Victorian popular genres. Note that this is the third volume of a series, with characters and frame tied to the previous two; starting here directly may leave gaps in context, and its antiquarian weirdness may not satisfy readers expecting modern horror or rigorously built fantasy.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read Volumes I and II first if possible, or at least understand the club frame and its regular tellers before entering this volume.
  2. Read story by story, pausing briefly after each to notice how the frame narrative echoes the embedded tale.
  3. Mark passages with archaic wording or unclear period background, then look them up afterward rather than interrupting the reading rhythm.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35

FAQ

Can I start reading directly from Volume III? You can, but it is not ideal. The stories are relatively independent, yet the club frame, the tellers' identities, and some earlier echoes come from the first two volumes, so starting with Volume III leaves gaps in context. If you only want a taste, read a few stories; for full understanding, begin with Volume I.
What genre is this book? Is it horror? It is closer to a late nineteenth-century collection of popular weird and fantasy tales, framed by club members taking turns telling strange stories, with Gothic taste and an oral storytelling tradition rather than modern horror. Readers expecting intense thrills or gore may find it mild.
Is the original English difficult to read? The diction carries the old-fashioned tone of late Victorian popular fiction, with long sentences and some cultural background requiring lookup. Readers with university-level English who have read similar old fiction will adapt more easily; those with weaker English should first use a simplified or parallel translation to grasp the content.
What should I note when reading the electronic edition? Public-domain ebooks usually have plain formatting and may lack modern notes. Use a reader that supports bookmarks and search, and set bookmarks by story; look up unfamiliar words promptly and keep the series volume order in mind to avoid confusing plots with the previous volumes.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

M. Y. Halidom Author · English · 1838–1914

M. Y. Halidom (1838–1914) was the pen name of Alexander Huth, a British writer and businessman who also wrote under the name Dryasdust. Born in London, he pursued literary work alongside his business career and is now known for weird fiction in the Gothic and supernatural vein. His best-known work is the three-volume Tales of the Wonder Club, built around an invented club for tellers of strange tales and gathering ghost stories, grotesque incidents and mysterious happenings in a darkly atmospheric style typical of Victorian supernatural fiction. He also wrote such works as The Black Lady and The Poet's Curse. Public information about the details of his life is limited, and existing accounts focus mainly on his pen-name identity and his fiction. Three of his works are held in this collection, whose common classification has not yet been specified.