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34-520: The press has reprinted notable collections of ghostly stories by such writers as R. H. Malden , A. N. L. Munby , L. T. C. Rolt , Margery Lawrence , and Eleanor Scott. It also has published newly edited collections of supernatural tales by such writers as John Metcalfe , Marjorie Bowen , Vernon Lee , and Frederick Cowles, and it has produced multi-volume sets of the complete supernatural short stories of Sheridan Le Fanu , E. F. Benson , H. Russell Wakefield , Russell Kirk , and A. M. Burrage . In 2001,

68-408: A collection that purports to be the case histories of an occult detective , Dr Miles Pennoyer, as related by his assistant Jerome Latimer. Lawrence stated that this series was inspired by Algernon Blackwood's John Silence stories and Dion Fortune's Dr. Taverner series. Like May Sinclair before her, Lawrence became a confirmed spiritualist and believer in reincarnation in later years, and her book

102-469: A framing device for Le Fanu's short story collection In a Glass Darkly (1872). For most of its plot, The Hound of the Baskervilles , one of Sherlock Holmes 's most well-known adventures, seems to belong in this genre. However, by the story's end, the villain turns out to be completely human and mundane, who deliberately created this misleading impression. The next prominent figure in this tradition

136-452: A further group of articles on Spiritualism for Psychic News . It was the resulting large number of inquiries that prompted editor Maurice Barbanell to suggest that Lawrence compile and expand upon those articles in book form, which she undertook at London between August 1942 and May 1943. The book was intended to be a primer on the much-discussed subject of Spiritualism . Apprehensive that her readers might be disappointed that her latest book

170-562: A ghost in "The Pot of Tulips" (1855) and an invisible entity in "What Was It? A Mystery" (1859). The narrator of Edward Bulwer-Lytton ’s novella "The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain" (1859) is another student of the supernatural who probes a mystery involving a culprit with paranormal abilities. Sheridan Le Fanu 's Dr. Martin Hesselius appeared in "Green Tea" (1869) and later became

204-503: A man who battles the supernatural following his own near death experience . The most successful effort of this period was the short-lived television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–75), starring Darren McGavin ; the weekly series was based on two backdoor pilots ( The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler ) produced by Dan Curtis and scripted by Richard Matheson , based on an unpublished work by Jeff Rice. Kolchak's adventures have been continued in books by Rice and in

238-542: A psychic investigator; The Norliss Tapes (1973) with Roy Thinnes as a reporter investigating the supernatural; Baffled! (1973), a British production with Leonard Nimoy and Susan Hampshire vs. an evil occult society; God Told Me To , a 1976 horror and detective film with police procedural and paranormal elements; Spectre (1977), starring Robert Culp and Gig Young as criminologists turned demonologists; The World of Darkness (1977) and its sequel, The World Beyond (1978), starring Granville Van Dusen as

272-475: A publishing company is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Margery Lawrence Margery Lawrence (8 August 1889 – 13 November 1969) was an English romantic fiction , fantasy fiction , horror fiction and detective fiction author who specialized in ghost stories . She was born Margery Harriet Lawrence , in Wolverhampton. Her father was solicitor Richard J. Lawrence, her mother

306-538: A separate series of stories which follow on from Carnacki's death, and feature occult detectives whose work relates to the original tales - The Adventures of the Royal Occultist and Tales of the Last Edwardian respectively. Sax Rohmer 's collection The Dream Detective features the occult detective Moris Klaw, who utilises "odic force" in his investigations. The occultist Dion Fortune made her contribution to

340-406: A wide range of new occult detective tales set in a range of time periods, with the occasional pastiche of classic figures from this branch of fiction. ODQ moved to Ulthar Press in 2017. On the tragic death of Sam Gafford of Ulthar Press, it was decided that editors, John Linwood Grant & Dave Brzeski, would continue the magazine under the revised title of Occult Detective Magazine from #6 onward. It

374-474: Is another well-known example, as is Derek Landy 's Skulduggery Pleasant series. Randall Garrett 's Lord Darcy stories and Dean Koontz 's The Haunted Earth are examples in which occult detectives operate in a world where the occult is simply an accepted part of mundane life. Assaph Mehr's Stories of Togas, Daggers, and Magic combine historical mystery detective in ancient Rome with fantasy and occult elements. A useful recent anthology collecting specimens of

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408-446: Is heavy with didactic occultist dialogue. Another well-known supernatural volume is Master of Shadows (1959). The Rent in the Veil is a fantasy involving a time slip to Ancient Rome, and Bride of Darkness is a tale of witchcraft in the modern world. In the foreword to Ferry Over Jordan (Psychic Book Club, 1944), Lawrence explains that during the latter part of 1941 she had written

442-738: Is now published by Cathaven Press in the UK. It seemed somehow fitting that refugees from Ulthar should go to Cathaven. In the 1970s, there were a number of attempts at occult detective television series and films. While not overtly occult detectives, the heroes and heroine of the ITC cult classic sci-fi thriller series, The Champions inherited occult powers from a Tibetan lama and used these powers to investigate crime. Other examples include Fear No Evil (1969) and its sequel, Ritual of Evil (1970), starring Louis Jourdan as psychologist David Sorrell; The Sixth Sense (TV series) (1972) starring Gary Collins as

476-855: The Dark Horse series of same name; Dylan Dog from the Sergio Bonelli Editore series; Nightlinger by Steven Philip Jones and published by Caliber Comics ; certain elements and characters in The Goon ; Martin Hel, a character created by Robin Wood ; the Joe Golem series; and Witchblade from Top Cow Productions . Two Hellblazer writers have gone on to write their own occult detective characters: Sebastian O also at Vertigo by Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis ' Gravel from Avatar Press . 2000 AD has featured

510-454: The comic book Kolchak Tales . Matheson's Kolchak Scripts have also been published. The Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo followed an occult detective format, though in the earlier series the apparent occult influences were all revealed as (fully natural) tricksters. In the wake of Scooby-Doo's success, several of the follow-ups from Hanna-Barbera involved varying degrees of occult and supernatural influence, including Goober and

544-458: The "Other Side". Somewhere that man was obviously still alive! Somewhere he was thinking of us, anxious to help, caring what happened; in a word, he was still alive somewhere, and I was determined to find out where " [foreword, p. 5]. Occult detective Occult detective fiction is a subgenre of detective fiction that combines the tropes of the main genre with those of supernatural , fantasy and/or horror fiction . Unlike

578-760: The 1920s she wrote general fiction, and her 1925 romance novel Red Heels was filmed by the Austrian film company Sascha Film as Das Spielzeug von Paris . A list of Lawrence's published novels to 1945 includes: Miss Brandt, Adventuress; Red Heels; Bohemian Glass; Drums of Youth; Silken Sarah; The Madonna of Seven Moons; Madam Holle; The Crooked Smile; Overture to Life; The Bridge of Wonder; and Step Light, Lady. In 1941, she published another collection of short fiction, Strange Caravan (Robert Hale, 1941). A list of her short stories to 1945 also includes: Snapdragon; and The Floating Cafe. Her best-known supernatural works include Number Seven, Queer Street (Robert Hale, 1945),

612-989: The Ghost Chasers , The Funky Phantom , and some of the 1980s entries in the Scooby-Doo franchise. To keep the plotlines suitable for Saturday morning audiences, the occult villains were kept family-friendly . More recent examples include: Angel Heart , The Believers , Blood Ties , Constantine , The Dresden Files , Dylan Dog: Dead of Night , The Exorcist III , Forever Knight , Grimm , Lord of Illusions , Lucifer , The Ninth Gate , !Oka Tokat , Penny Dreadful , R.I.P.D. , Special Unit 2 , Split Second , Supernatural , Twin Peaks , Vidocq , The X-Files , Millennium , Angel , True Detective (particularly seasons one and four), The Vampire Detective , Evil , and Wednesday . Doctor Occult , created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster ,

646-464: The Phantom Stranger were both published by DC Comics , with Occult falling into obscurity for decades before a 1980s revival, while the Phantom Stranger appeared steadily from his debut if mostly in a supporting role. The comic book Hellblazer began in the 1980s and boosted the popularity and image of the occult detective fiction genre and shaped it to its modern form. Many modern examples of

680-663: The Round Table sequence, include Nights of the Round Table (1926) and The Terraces of Night (1932). Stefan Dziemianowicz describes these stories as "simple but solidly told tales of horror and the supernatural that are mindful of the classic ghost story tradition but adorned with enough contemporary flourishes" to demonstrate that Lawrence was comfortable working variants on this tradition. These stories often appeared in British pulp magazines such as The Sovereign Magazine and Hutchinson's Mystery-Story prior to book publication. During

714-527: The adventure of his occult detective Gregory Gordon George Green, known as "Gees", in a series of novels. Pulp writer Robert E. Howard created stories about Steve Harrison , an occult detective, in the Strange Detective Stories magazine. Margery Lawrence created the character Miles Pennoyer in her occult detective stories collected in Number Seven, Queer Street . Modern writers who have used

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748-640: The anthology Acquainted with the Night , edited by Christopher and Barbara Roden. Ash-Tree Press itself has received the 1997 Special Award, Non-Professional, from the World Fantasy Awards and the 1999 Specialty Press Award of the Horror Writers Association . Christopher and Barbara Roden are the proprietors of both Ash-Tree Press and Calabash Press; the latter publishes fiction and nonfiction related to Sherlock Holmes . This article about

782-774: The first true occult detectives, as he combined both knowledge and experience of what he calls “the ab-natural” with scientific deductive method and equipment. The adventures of Carnacki have been continued by a number of writers, including A. F. Kidd in collaboration with Rick Kennett in 472 Cheyne Walk: Carnacki, the Untold Stories (2000), William Meikle in Carnacki: Heaven and Hell (Colusa, CA: Ghost House Press, 2011), Brandon Barrows in The Castle-Town Tragedy (Dunhams Manor, 2016), and others. In addition, writers Joshua M Reynolds and John Linwood Grant have each produced

816-589: The genre is Mark Valentine , ed., The Black Veil & Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths ( ISBN   978-1-84022-088-9 ), published by Wordsworth Editions in 2009. Earlier themed anthologies include Stephen Jones , ed., Dark Detectives : Adventures of the Supernatural Sleuths (Fedogan & Bremer, 1998) and Peter Haining , ed., Supernatural Sleuths: Stories of Occult Investigators (William Kimber, 1986). The magazine Occult Detective Quarterly (Electric Pentacle Press, 2016) specialises in presenting

850-541: The genre such as Hellboy , Supernatural , Grimm , The Originals , and The Dresden Files have been influenced by it, and many imitators of both the series and its character flourished such as Criminal Macabre , Gravel , Planetary , and others. Its elements and style have been used countless of times in other works and many analogues of the cynical protagonist John Constantine have appeared. Other examples of occult detectives in comic books include Doctor Spektor from Gold Key Comics ; Hellboy from

884-768: The genre with The Secrets of Dr Taverner (1926), consisting of psychic adventures of the Holmes–like Taverner as narrated by his assistant, Dr Rhodes. Aleister Crowley 's Simon Iff featured in a series of stories, some of which have been collected in book form. Dennis Wheatley 's occult detective was Neils Orsen. In Poland, Włodzimierz Bełcikowski created two stories ( W walce ze Złotym Smokiem - In Battle with Golden Dragon - 1925; Tajemnica wiecznego życia - The Secret of Eternal Life - 1926) about William Talmes (Holmes' rip off but with occult/parapsychic powers and inventor's skills) battling murderous oriental sect and psychic vampire from Atlantis . Though never large,

918-520: The occult detective subgenre grew to include such writers as Seabury Quinn (with his character Jules de Grandin ); Manly Wade Wellman , whose characters Judge Pursuivant and John Thunstone investigated occult events through short stories in the pulps , collected in The Third Cry to Legba and Other Invocations (2000) and in the novels What Dreams May Come (1983) and The School of Darkness (1985); and "Jack Mann" ( E. C. Vivian ), who chronicled

952-1253: The occult detective theme as a basis for supernatural adventures include Peter Saxon (The Guardians series), John Burke (Dr Alex Caspian), Frank Lauria (Dr Owen Orient), Lin Carter (Anton Zarnak), William Massa (Occult Assassin, The Paranormalist, Shadow Detective, Spirit Breakers) and Joseph Payne Brennan (Lucius Leffing). The occult detective theme has also been used with series characters devised by such contemporary writers as Douglas Adams ( Dirk Gently ), F. Paul Wilson (the Repairman Jack series), Steve Rasnic Tem (Charlie Goode), Jessica Amanda Salmonson (Miss Penelope Pettiweather), David Rowlands (Father O'Connor), Rick Kennett (Ernie Pine), Brian Lumley ( Titus Crow ), Robert Weinberg (Sydney Taine), Simon R. Green (John Taylor), Steve Niles ( Cal McDonald ), Mike Carey (Felix Castor), Mike Mignola ( Joe Golem ), Mercedes Lackey ( Diana Tregarde ), Laurell K. Hamilton ( Anita Blake ), Brian Keene (Levi Stoltzfus), Jonathan L. Howard (Johannes Cabal), Brandon Barrows (Azuma Kuromori), and Jonathan Maberry (Sam Hunter). Jim Butcher 's best-selling book series The Dresden Files

986-421: The press published a collected edition of M. R. James 's ghost stories and related writings. In addition, Ash-Tree Press has published new collections of stories by contemporary authors and a series of original anthologies. Awards for these include the 2002 British Fantasy Award for best collection for After Shocks by Paul Finch and the 2004 International Horror Guild Award and 2005 World Fantasy Award for

1020-507: The traditional detective who investigates murder and other common crimes, the occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts , demons , curses , magic , vampires , undead , monsters and other supernatural elements. Some occult detectives are portrayed as being psychic or in possession of other paranormal or magical powers. Fitz James O’Brien ’s character Harry Escott is a contender for first occult detective in fiction. A specialist in supernatural phenomena, Escott investigates

1054-662: Was Dr. Abraham Van Helsing in Bram Stoker 's Dracula (1897), followed closely by E. and H. Heron 's Flaxman Low , featured in a series of stories in Pearson's Magazine (1898–99), Algernon Blackwood 's Dr. John Silence, and William Hope Hodgson 's Carnacki the Ghost Finder . Other supernatural sleuths in fiction dating to the late nineteenth century include Alice & Claude Askew 's Aylmer Vance and Champion de Crespigny's Norton Vyse. Thomas Carnacki may well be considered one of

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1088-448: Was called Grace, and she had at least two siblings Allan and Monica. Her father published her early poetry in Songs of Childhood, and Other Verses , in 1913. Her poem " Arabian Serenade " was set to music by composer Edward Elgar in 1914. Lawrence was also an illustrator, and produced drawings for The Hills of Ruel, and Other Stories (1921) by Fiona MacLeod . Her earliest collections,

1122-525: Was not a further novel or book of short stories, Lawrence took care to explain that she had not recently "taken to Spiritualism", but rather had been deeply interested in it for many years: "My interest in it dates actually from the moment when I saw a near relation three nights after he died, when he gave me specific instructions about the finding of a box containing important papers. They were found precisely where he said--and from that moment I became deeply interested in what, throughout this book, I have called

1156-507: Was one of the earliest occult detectives in comic books with a 1935 debut. Doctor Occult was first a costumed superhero but his appearance quickly changed to a more typical detective (Fedora hat and long coat). The Phantom Stranger , created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino , first appeared in an eponymous six-issue comics anthology published in 1952, first as a debunker of fake supernatural events but later incarnations showed him with mystical or supernatural abilities. Doctor Occult and

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