When in May, 1886, I found myself at last in Paris, I naturally determined to throw myself on the charity of an old chum of mine, Eugene Marie d’Ardeche, who had forsaken Boston a year or more ago on receiving word of the death of an aunt who had left him such property as she possessed. I fancy this windfall surprised him not a little, for the relations between the aunt and nephew had never been cordial, judging from Eugene’s remarks touching the lady, who was, it seems, a more or less wicked and witch-like old person, with a penchant for black magic, at least such was the common report.
— first paragraph, “No. 252 Rue M. le Prince”
First a disclaimer: I read this in the Leonaur edition, which also includes E. G. Swain’s The Stoneground Ghost Tales (edition title, The Collected Supernatural & Weird Fiction of E. G. Swain & Ralph Adams Cram). Eventually I’ll read Swain, but if you like old ghost stories Cram’s collection is worth seeking out whether on its own or in tandem with another work. I won’t guarantee scares, since it’s rare for any writing this old to scare readers now, but there is still a charm to early ghost stories especially when this well imagined and written.
Contemporary Authors Online sums Cram up this way: “Ralph Adams Cram was the foremost figure in the Gothic Revival in American architecture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was also a cultural commentator who advocated the social, religious, and artistic ideals of the Middle Ages and condemned all aspects of modern life.” The copy on back cover of the Leonaur edition (see image below) cites his contribution to the design for West Point as an example of his work, and also notes he was an admirer of the ghost stories of M.R. James. He wrote little fiction beyond this collection, which holds six stories, almost all informed by his architectural knowledge.
Though not directly stated, all of the stories in Black Spirits and White seem to have the same narrator, an American traveler, who might well be Cram or a stand-in for him. The collection opens with the “No. 252 Rue M. le Prince,” now owned by a friend of the narrator after inheriting it from his aunt. The aunt has a peculiar and unsavory reputation and the house is oddly laid out and appointed. One room in particular appears to have been the site of magic rituals. Now the owner, some of his friends and the narrator intend to spend a night there.
Cram sketches in the house and, especially, the room with a sensuality to the description unlike that in the other stories. The house and its secrets become another character in the story, and the overnight is not without incident.
The narrator of “In Kropfsberg Keep” relates a story told to him as he and a friend travel from Innsbruck to Munich. Another story of men staying in a bad place, like “No. 252 Rue M. le Prince,” this has more of the feel of a folk tale, rather like those in the collection, The Invisible Eye by Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian. Cram’s narrator is quite engaging in all of these stories, and again, his familiarity with architectural styles and his eye for composition adds a dimension to them that differs from James or other ghost story writers I’ve read from that period.
“The White Villa,” a tale set in Italy, involving bandits, love and a vengeance which left ghostly traces, also has some of the feel of a folk tale, while “Sister Maddelena” concerns forbidden love and the fate of the titular Sister, and “Notre Dame des Eaux” deals with love and madness. All of these are charming and compelling, but “Sister Maddelena” may be the most touching and sad and to a degree reflects Cram’s interest in the Middle Ages.
“No. 252 Rue M. le Prince” and “In Kropfsberg Keep” are often anthologized, far more often than the others have been, still all are enlivened by a writer fully imagining his setting as well as his characters. Whether in a house on a street in Paris, in a keep on a slope in the Alps or in a convent “above the little village of Parco” near Monreale, Cram’s locations seem real, the history of the buildings woven into the sense of their reality, and all ground his tales in reality, making them satisfying reading. It’s a little odd then that one of his most famous and anthologized stories, “The Dead Valley,” while having a setting integral to the story, has no buildings.
Olaf and his friend Nils, both twelve have reason to visit the market town of Elfborg. On their return home they lose their way and find the titular valley, a barren, silent, dispiriting place that stretches for miles. Olaf has reason to visit the valley again and again is affected by induced lethargy and despair, and the question becomes, can he survive?
To an extent related by theme to Algernon Blackwood’s “The Transfer” and maybe Fritz Leiber’s “The Hill and the Hole,” “The Dead Valley” though short on plot supplies atmosphere enough to carry the tale along and the valley becomes a fitting location to end a collection of ghost stories.
Black Spirits and White by Ralph Adams Cram
(2011, Leonaur; also Project Gutenberg)
212 pages
ISBN: 978-0857060846
