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93-520: Thomas Carnacki is a fictional occult detective created by English fantasy writer William Hope Hodgson . Carnacki was the protagonist of a series of six short stories published between 1910 and 1912 in The Idler magazine and The New Magazine . These stories were printed together as Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder in 1913. A 1947 Mycroft & Moran (an imprint of Arkham House ) edition of Carnacki,

186-552: A beautiful young woman. It has been described as a "bold and striking celebration of sexual confusion" in the style of Pierre Louÿs . It was illustrated by Stephen Fabian . Night Creatures , a collection of stories by Quinn, edited by Peter Ruber and Joseph Wrzos for Ash-Tree Press appeared in (2003). Demons of the Night , another collection of his stories, was published by Black Dog Books , of Normal, Illinois. Edited by Gene Christie, it contains his early stories. It has two of

279-475: A blast furnace within a protective pentacle including an ancient inscription in Celtic. According to legend, a court jester was once killed in the room's fireplace, and whistled as he was roasted to death. According to Hisgins family tradition, any first-born female will be haunted by a ghostly horse during her courtship. This story has been long considered a legend, but now for the first time in seven generations there

372-407: A character in 1925 (taking the character's surname from his own middle name), and continued writing stories about him until 1951. The longest of the de Grandin stories is the 1932 novel-length story The Devil's Bride , strongly influenced by Robert W. Chambers ' 1920 novel The Slayer of Souls . In 1937 he returned to Washington to represent a chain of trade journals, and there subsequently became

465-489: A description of his latest case. One of the guests, Dodgson, is the actual narrator of the stories, though the audience comprises an extremely minimal part of the narrative. Carnacki forbids discussion of the case in question until dinner is over; the group move to the parlor, everyone settles into a favourite chair, Carnacki lights his pipe, and the adventure proceeds without interruption. Each of Carnacki's tales relates an investigation into an unusual haunting , which Carnacki

558-404: A direct assault by the invisible horse; Carnacki fires his weapon and Mary's father attacks with his sword. As a light is brought they discover a rejected suitor, Parsket, wearing an enormous costume horse head and hooves. As they interrogate Parsket, hoofbeats are again heard in the house, and this time it is not a trick; Parsket dies of fright. The marriage goes on as planned, and the manifestation

651-567: A few questions from his guests and may hand around a relevant memento, but does not discuss the case at great length. He then dismisses his guests with the genial phrase "Out you go!" In addition to the trademark electric pentacle, Hodgson invented several rituals and ancient texts that feature in the Carnacki stories. Carnacki uses a fictional ancient text, the "Sigsand Manuscript", as a resource to protect himself against supernatural influences. Carnacki refers to "Aeiirii" and "Saiitii" manifestations,

744-498: A few weeks earlier. He is trying to drive out the tenants of his old home so that he can retrieve smuggled goods; the sounds were produced when he entered a hidden passage in Carnacki's mother's bedroom. The wooden panels have warped with age, and so make a clicking sound. As for the ghost, Captain Tobias also reports that he has seen the woman and child. Carnacki believes that "...the Woman and

837-424: A giant animal. It is clear that the protective barrier has failed utterly. As in "The Whistling Room", a second powerful entity intervenes and the candle flames turn blue; Carnacki is given a moment to escape the room, and does so, although his pantlegs are torn and his legs covered with cuts. In daylight, strange, ancient bones are found under the floorboards of the room; before the room can be demolished, that wing of

930-569: A government lawyer for the duration of World War II . He alternated between law and journalism all his life. He published over five hundred short stories. His first book, Roads (a new origin for Santa Claus , drawn from the original Christian legends), was published by Arkham House in 1948. Ten of the Jules de Grandin stories were collected in The Phantom Fighter (Mycroft & Moran, an imprint of Arkham House), 1966. A broader selection of

1023-733: A group of trade papers in New York, where he taught medical jurisprudence and wrote technical articles and pulp magazine fiction. His first published work was "The Law of the Movies", in The Motion Picture Magazine , December 1917. (His story "Painted Gold" may have been written earlier.) "Demons of the Night" was published in Detective Story Magazine on March 19, 1918, followed by "Was She Mad?" on March 25, 1918. He published "The Stone Image" in 1919. He introduced Jules de Grandin as

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1116-540: A legend; a protective pentacle; a supernatural manifestation; protection from one supernatural entity by another, more powerful one; a creature or creatures unknown to science; a vigil. Occult detective Fitz James O’Brien ’s character Harry Escott is a contender for first occult detective in fiction. A specialist in supernatural phenomena, Escott investigates 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

1209-435: A loud, eerie whistling, Carnacki is called to investigate. He makes an exceedingly thorough search of the room, but can find no explanation. He is still not convinced of the supernatural nature of the sound until he climbs a ladder outside and peers into the room through the window: the floor of the room itself is puckering like a pair of grotesque, blistered lips. He hears Tassoc, the mansion's owner, calling for help, and enters

1302-503: 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

1395-491: A mediocre echo of John Silence". In an article about supernatural fiction, William Rose Benét stated "I remember delighting in the stories in "Carnacki, the Ghost Finder," recommended to me by Elinor Wylie , though I see that Howard P. Lovecraft rates this book below Hodgson's others." Ellery Queen praised the character as a "ghost-breaker after Houdini's own heart", and listed the 1947 edition of Carnacki as No. 53 in

1488-683: 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 a separate series of stories which follow on from Carnacki's death, and feature occult detectives whose work relates to

1581-982: A number over the years in their own eponymous series: Bix Barton , Devlin Waugh , Ampney Crucis Investigates and Dandridge . The occult detective team of Syd Deadlocke and Doc Martin, featured in Pulse of Darkness and other comics by Chris G.C. Sequeira , also fits into this genre. There is also the comic book series Ruse , once owned by CrossGen and now by Marvel Comics . Examples in manga and anime include Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro , Mushishi , YuYu Hakusho , Ghost Hunt , Mononoke , Death Note , Ghosts at School , Dream Hunter Rem , Bakemonogatari and Nightwalker: The Midnight Detective . Seabury Quinn Seabury Grandin Quinn (also known as Jerome Burke ; January 1, 1889 – December 24, 1969)

1674-420: A pentacle in the hopes of ending the haunting. However, as night falls, Aster will not enter the pentacle, believing this to be superstitious nonsense. Both men lose the power of sight as the apparition manifests, and Carnacki must listen helplessly from inside the pentacle as Aster is driven into screaming madness and death. No option remains to end the haunting but to destroy the house itself. In "The Gateway of

1767-542: 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

1860-486: A seemingly impossible book forgery. It is the only Carnacki story without any hint of the supernatural. "The Whistling Room" was presented by Pepsi-Cola Playhouse in 1954 (Season 1, Episode 42), starring Alan Napier and directed by Alex Gruenberg. "The Horse of the Invisible" was adapted as an episode of the 1970s British TV series, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes . Cast Big Finish Productions has recorded six of

1953-586: A series of definitions of terms that had puzzled his students. Besides contributing to the then De-Ce-Co Magazine , later the Dodge Magazine , for the Dodge Chemical Co, of Cambridge, Massachusetts , Quinn wrote articles for The American Funeral Director and other trade journals. His Jerome Burke material, not necessarily in sequence, is available in This I Remember: Memoirs of a Funeral Director , published by

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2046-417: A series of horrifying nightmares. He is equipped with a new variant on the electric pentacle involving rainbow-coloured tubes. When connected to the head of the dreamer these tubes fluctuate in color and light intensity. Carnacki photographs the tubes on a slowly moving strip of paper which he specially develops to create raised images. When the paper is run under the reproducer of a specially modified phonograph

2139-506: 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,

2232-406: 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

2325-423: Is a first-born female, and her fiancée has just suffered a broken arm after an attack by a mysterious assailant. Carnacki is summoned to investigate. He and the woman, Mary, and her fiancée, Beaumont, hear hoofbeats in the night, but no horse is seen. Many people present hear the hoofbeats, but no one can find an explanation; Carnacki sets up the electric pentacle around Mary's bed. The hoofbeats are heard again during

2418-474: 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

2511-409: Is called in to investigate. He spends the night in the chapel wearing armour with his camera ready to photograph any mysterious phenomena. All night he hears mysterious noises. As he approaches the altar, the dagger nearly kills him. The photographic evidence settles it, though—there is a rational explanation. The somewhat demented elderly gentleman of the manor house has armed an ancient trap that guards

2604-572: Is charged to identify and to end. He employs a variety of scientific methods in his work, including up-to-date technologies such as photography and his own fictional invention, the Electric Pentacle ; he also has a wide knowledge of folklore and the occult. Never presumptuous, Carnacki is careful to gather solid evidence before drawing a conclusion regarding the authenticity of a haunting; unlike many other occult detectives, several of his cases turn out to be only human fakery. This variety helps endow

2697-590: Is evident in Hodgson's creation: he is your generic stiff upper-lip Edwardian Englishman ... but the exotic landscapes he inhabits are supernatural... it's his exploits, and the carefully constructed milieu in which they take place, that continue to intrigue. They are quite timeless. Although a self-proclaimed fan of Hodgson's work, H. P. Lovecraft considered Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder "vastly inferior" to his earlier novels, calling it "his poorest work" and Carnacki himself "very weak, artificial and stereotyped", "surely only

2790-449: Is forced to shut his machine off. Predictably, there is a booming of thunder, and a furious storm starts raging. Towards morning, the storm calms, and soon after, the Jarvee is running before a strong wind—but a leak has been sprung, and two days after, they are forced to abandon ship and take to the boats. The Jarvee sinks to the bottom of the ocean. After he finishes his tale, Dodgson,

2883-431: Is hit, but the police arrive to investigate. The physical evidence convinces the officer that an investigation is in order. As they wind up their tour, a second officer sees the ghostly woman. The men follow the wet footprints and smell into the cellars; on the top step, they find a wriggling maggot. Through their investigation of the third cellar, they find that the prints stop at a disused well, filled with water. They watch

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2976-403: Is never heard again. Carnacki investigates a haunting in his own mother's house. The first indication that something is amiss comes when Carnacki, up late reading, hears his mother knocking, so he thinks, on the banister to tell him to go to his bed. She does not remember doing so the next day, and it happens again the following night. When Carnacki looks in on her, he finds her door open, but she

3069-738: 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

3162-417: Is sound asleep. A strange mildew smell is in the bedroom. Carnacki investigates the house, including the three cellars, but can find no explanation. The opening of the door happens again the following night, and this time while Carnacki is speaking to his mother the two of them hear a door slam twice downstairs. The smell of mildew is powerful as Carnacki investigates the house. More doors are heard slamming in

3255-536: Is written and illustrated by M. S. Corley. The book No. 472 Cheyne Walk: Carnacki, the Untold Stories by A. F. Kidd and Rick Kennett collects twelve stories written about the further adventures of Carnacki. Four of these stories were originally published as a 32-page booklet of the same title in 1992. The book version was printed in a limited edition of 500 copies. Many of these stories are inspired by off-hand references to other cases of hauntings that Carnacki makes in his stories, which were never explained further in

3348-490: The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box , with a foreword by Arnold Dodge. Quinn was a contemporary of Robert E. Howard , H. P. Lovecraft , and Clark Ashton Smith . Mary Elizabeth Counselman was a friend of Quinn's and wrote a tribute to him after he died. Quinn's posthumously published novel Alien Flesh (1977) is a sexually explicit erotic fantasy about a male Egyptologist who has a magical sex change into

3441-855: 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

3534-565: The Jarvee , the harder it is to see them, and eventually they disappear from sight. Carnacki, the Captain and the rest of the crew retire, and the night goes normally, until about eleven o'clock, when a furious storm bursts upon the ship without a hint of warning. Refusing to send men up above to lower the sails and masts because of previous experiences in which he did just that, and his men were hurled to their death, Captain Thompson forces them to sit out

3627-647: The Queen's Quorum of key detective works. China Miéville lauded the Carnacki stories as "vigorous Edwardian psychic-detectiviana". The first six stories are covered here in sequence of their original publication, five in 1910 monthly issues of The Idler and "The Thing Invisible" in The New Magazine , January 1912. "The Thing Invisible" is first as the stories were collected in 1913, and again as collected in 1947. Most if not all collections follow that sequence, prior to Project Gutenberg Ebook #10832 (2004), which contains

3720-454: 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

3813-414: The "Black Veil case", in which a man named Aster died because he did not accept the necessity of staying inside the protective pentacle. In "The Darkness", Aster is a reporter who accompanies Carnacki on his investigation of a haunted room. An apparition of a mysterious woman can be seen in the window and a rotting black veil is found inside a secret compartment in a window-seat. Carnacki burns the veil inside

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3906-554: The "Major Sturdevant and his Washington Nights' Entertainment series", subtitled "Stories of the Secret Service", and two more featuring Professor Forrester, another amateur detector of crimes. It also contains one of the most complete bibliographies of Quinn yet published. Someday I'll Kill You! , was published by Black Dog Books , of Normal, Illinois. Edited by Gene Christie, it contains all of Quinn's non-series stories published outside of Weird Tales between 1925 and 1963. All of

3999-464: The "shared universe" and pick up where he left off. Readers may decide for themselves whether to consider these stories "canon" or a legitimate part of the Carnacki story arc; they closely follow not only the basic framework structure of the Carnacki original stories but also Hodgson's style and vocabulary. In "The Gateway of the Monster" and "The Horse of the Invisible", Carnacki makes passing references to

4092-485: The Carnacki stories remain very accessible to a modern audience. A. F. Kidd and Rick Kennett in their introduction to No. 472 Cheyne Walk: Carnacki, the Untold Stories pose the question: "What is it about Thomas Carnacki that fascinates so many people?" According to Kidd and Kennett, the series' enduring attraction comes more from Hodgson's capacity for world-building than any special appeal of Carnacki himself: It certainly isn't his dynamic personality. Not much character

4185-769: The Child were not only two complete and different entities; but even they were each not in quite the same planes of existence". He thinks the men may have witnessed the ghost of a wayward unborn child that refused to accept birth into the natural world and which was thus pulled back by what Sigsand called "thee Haggs". Carnacki goes on to say "it leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift half-way between two lives, and running through Eternity from Something incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses". A chapel attached to an Edwardian manor house contains an ancient, cursed dagger that has just apparently almost murdered someone of its own accord, and naturally, Carnacki

4278-699: The Clement Williams School of Embalming). This was distilled from a lecture he gave in 1914. The text was extant as early as least 1924 / 1925, being serialized in Casket and Sunnyside . Quinn became editor of Casket and Sunnyside in December 1925. The second was An Encyclopedic Law Glossary For Funeral Directors and Embalmers , published by the Williams Institute of Mortuary Science, Kansas City 1940, with an introduction by Quinn, dated January 1940. This had

4371-576: The De Grandin stories "as indeed rather undistinguished", claiming they are full of stereotyped characters and poorly resolved plots. Quinn wrote several non-De Grandin tales in the 1940s and 1950s; Stableford states Quinn's "best stories here are ironically perverted love stories", such as "The Globe of Memories" (1937) and "Glamour" (1939). His writing was secondary to his career as a lawyer specializing in mortuary jurisprudence. He taught this subject at mortuary schools for many years, and for some 15 years

4464-524: The Electric Pentacle and turns the vibration machine on. Soon after, he and the Captain witness the mysterious shadows racing towards the ship. Strange, purple lightning is then witnessed, but it is not accompanied by thunder. Soon after, the ship undergoes a series of strange "shudderings" before it starts to tip onto its side, sending the Electric Pentacle sliding, and forcing Carnacki, Captain Thompson and his three mates to hold on for dear life. Carnacki

4557-989: 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 ,

4650-445: 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 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

4743-576: The Ghost-Finder edited by August Derleth added three stories: " The Haunted Jarvee ", published posthumously in The Premier Magazine in 1929; " The Hog ", published in Weird Tales in 1947; and " The Find ", a previously unpublished story. The stories are inspired by the tradition of fictional detectives such as Sherlock Holmes . Carnacki lives in a bachelor flat in No 427 Cheyne Walk , Chelsea ;

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4836-693: 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 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

4929-652: The Monster" Carnacki makes reference to the "Noving Fur" case. It is unclear if this is a typographical error and Hodgson intended "Moving Fur" instead; the Collected Fiction edition and the Project Gutenberg electronic text show this correction. "Matheson's Inheritance" covers both bases by including moving fur and placing the haunting in Noving House in Wales. Matheson has inherited a baroque mansion. Local legend says

5022-464: 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

5115-527: 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

5208-439: The altar: a spring mechanism designed to fling the dagger when the altar gate is opened. Carnacki uncovers the truth because of a subtle difference between the "before" and "after" photographs of the altar's cast iron metalwork. This story was first printed in Weird Tales (Jan 1947). Carnacki faces perhaps his most powerful adversary: a disturbing hog spirit of giant proportions which is trying to enter our world, manifesting as

5301-431: The basement shining strangely. While they watch, something is heard to emerge from the well, giving off the horrible smell; Carnacki lowers the cage, and when the men uncover the lanterns they discover that they have caught Captain Tobias, carrying a leg of spoiled mutton . He came in through a secret passage at the bottom of the well. We learn that Captain Tobias is wanted for smuggling, after being released from prison only

5394-414: The ceiling, and several men have been found dead in the house. Is it a prank or a haunting? Carnacki recruits a group of burly local men to investigate, along with several dogs, and they attempt to stay the night within the mansion. During their ordeal doors slam, the fire goes out, a dog is killed, and the entire group bolts from the house in terror. Upon studying his photograph, Carnacki realises that he and

5487-464: The crew to stay below decks, padlocking the doors and making the first and eighth signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual, connected with triple lines crossed at every seventh inch. The Captain and the three mates demand to accompany him during the night, and Carnacki reluctantly agrees. He draws a pentacle with chalk around the machine emitting the vibrations, and around the Captain and his mates. He then erects

5580-438: The designated area to eliminate obvious physical causes of a haunting. Finding nothing, Carnacki is left to wait. After four days, whilst performing his usual patrol along the ship's poop deck with the Captain, his old friend suddenly points out to him a shadow of some sort on the ocean's surface, speeding towards the ship. He notices similar shadows converging on the ship from all of the cardinal directions. The closer they get to

5673-462: The first six stories alone, in their magazine sequence. "The Thing Invisible" was revised, and expanded by about half, presumably for the 1913 or 1947 collection. The collection as presented by Forgotten Futures contains both versions of "The Thing Invisible" and publishing history notes that identify some minor differences in the other stories. In an ancient mansion, the bedroom known as the Grey Room

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5766-589: 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

5859-541: 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

5952-403: The house was once occupied by a dewi (wizard) and his familiar an afanc . One room in the house emanates dread. Carnacki and Matheson can find no natural explanation, and so Carnacki spends the night in the room, inside his protective pentacle . In the middle of his vigil his candle flames suddenly turn black, and the floor becomes a heaving carpet of fur, as if the pentacle was upon the back of

6045-451: The house. They have little doubt that it is a supernatural manifestation. The landlord claims to see a woman, apparently searching for the child, although Carnacki cannot see it. All of the seals on the doors are unbroken. As they debate what they have seen, the mildew smell returns, more powerful than ever. The downstairs passages are wet with grotesquely shaped footprints. In his nervousness, the landlord accidentally fires his revolver. No one

6138-404: The latter being more dangerous and capable of overcoming Carnacki's protective devices, and several rituals, including the "Saaamaaa Ritual", with its mysterious "eight signs" and "unknown last line" that is invoked in "The Whistling Room" by a mysterious power. There are references to even more arcane fictional works, including the "Incantation of Raaaee", but no further information is provided in

6231-504: The mansion burns. The blue candle flames point Carnacki back to references to the protective powers of colours in the Sigsand manuscript, suggesting the origin of the coloured tubes that appear in Hodgson's Carnacki story "The Hog". The afanc is described as having a horse-like head; this description does not match the Welsh myth, and so may be a reference to "The Horse of the Invisible". Motifs :

6324-416: The men have been played for fools. His photograph shows a wire, too fine to see in the dark, lowered from the ceiling to remove the hook holding the door open. The "blood drip" is coloured water, and the "ghosts" are actually a criminal gang living in secret rooms in the mansion and playing a trick on him, taking advantage of the local legends to frighten away interlopers. When a chamber in a mansion manifests

6417-464: The narrator asks what caused the haunting. Carnacki then explains his theory of "focuses", saying that the Jarvee , for whatever reason, be it the particular mood a builder was in as he hammered a nail home, or the tree that makes up a certain board, was a focal point for "attractive vibrations". He summarises by saying that it is impossible for him to know fully why the Jarvee was being haunted, and he could only make suppositions. Carnacki investigates

6510-416: The night, but Carnacki can find nothing. The next day, he consults the landlord, and learns something of the house's mysterious history, which includes a former tenant named Captain Tobias, and rumours of a ghostly woman. Several previous tenants had left upon seeing this apparition. The landlord agrees to spend the night in the house as well. In the dead of night, they see a ghostly, naked child running through

6603-452: The night, but nothing else happens. No marks of hooves can be found around the grounds the next morning. The following evening, hoofbeats and neighing are heard on the grounds, and Mary is heard screaming. Carnacki rushes out with his camera, and snaps a picture, but sees nothing after the blinding flash. Beaumont is struck in the head, but not badly injured; he claims that he has seen an enormous horse's head. The hoofbeats are again heard during

6696-557: The night. The decision is made to accelerate the wedding plans, in the hopes that the haunting will disappear with the successful conclusion of the courtship. The next day, Carnacki takes Mary around the house, snapping photographs to see if any manifestation can be seen on film. In the cellar a horrible neighing is heard, but nothing is seen. In one of the developed photographs, however, an enormous hoof can be seen. The night again passes uneventfully. The next morning, though, hoofbeats and neighing can be heard almost immediately, in what seems

6789-520: 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

6882-1253: 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

6975-429: The original story series. In their introduction to the 1992 booklet the authors describe these stories as pastiche , in the sense of respectful imitation or homage, as opposed to parody , which mocks the original (either with respectful humour, or more viciously). The authors suggest that Hodgson, by having Carnacki casually drop references to other cases which he himself did not write about, "invited" his readers to enter

7068-680: 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 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

7161-462: The pentacle. This proves unwise, as when night falls the vicious entity pours from the ring itself and Carnacki is inside the pentacle with it. He barely escapes with his life, while the entity is trapped. He ends the haunting by melting down the ring into a lump of slag within his protective barrier. A deserted mansion in Ireland displays signs of haunting, including what appears to be blood dripping from

7254-463: The room via the window. But Tassoc is not in the room—only an extraordinarily dangerous supernatural entity. Carnacki is saved only by the intervention of an unknown, second being, which utters the unknown last line of the Saamaa ritual, temporarily rendering the whistling entity powerless. With that, Carnacki throws himself through the window to escape. He then has the room demolished, and all parts burned in

7347-416: The sounds heard by the dreamer are reproduced- in this instance the sounds of evil swine. Carnacki decides to go for a voyage aboard the Jarvee , his old friend Captain Thompson's antique sailing ship, for purposes of rejuvenation, but also to investigate the ambiguous complaints of ghosts his friend had been making for some time. Carnacki performs his standard methods of exhaustively and completely searching

7440-485: The squall passes, followed by an entire week of calm seas, with a furious wind storm every night. During this week of calm, however, Carnacki is left to experiment with his repellent vibrations, until finally, he is given the distinct impression that his experiments are producing results, and he finally convinces Captain Thompson to allow him to set up his machine to emit the vibrations at full power, without stopping, starting at sunset. Afraid for their lives, Carnacki orders

7533-458: The stories are told from a first-person perspective by Dodgson, a member of Carnacki's "strictly limited circle of friends", much as Holmes' adventures were told from Doctor Watson 's point of view (his other friends are Jessop, Arkwright and Taylor). Whereas the Holmes stories never made use of the supernatural except as a red herring, this is the central theme of the Carnacki stories, though several of

7626-529: The stories have non-supernatural endings. The character of Carnacki was inspired in part by Dr. Hesselius, a supernaturally inclined scientist who appeared in short stories by the Irish fantasy writer Sheridan Le Fanu , notably the early and influential vampire story " Carmilla ". Carnacki is also highly reminiscent of Algernon Blackwood 's John Silence. The stories are presented using a framework: Carnacki periodically invites four friends to dinner, to be followed by

7719-463: The stories in unabridged audiobook format. The stories adapted are: Cast A graphic novel adaptation and continuation of the story of Thomas Carnacki called "Carnacki: Recorder of Things Strange" is currently in the works, fully inspired by the original stories written by William Hope Hodgson. The adventures of Thomas Carnacki will be told in short story format steeped in weird fiction, folklore, ghost stories, mythology and symbolism. The graphic novel

7812-415: The stories with suspense, as the audience cannot be sure whether the ghosts are real or not: of the nine Carnacki stories, one contains no supernatural elements, four feature authentic paranormal activity, two have the appearance of the supernatural as a disguise for mundane human activity, and two contain manmade hoaxes in parallel with an actual haunting. After the tale is complete, Carnacki usually answers

7905-450: The stories, including the novel The Devil's Bride , was issued in a six-volume Popular Library paperback edition in 1967–77. A three-volume omnibus reportedly including all the de Grandin stories was issued by Battered Silicon Dispatch Box in 2001. Although the De Grandin stories were enormously popular on their initial publication, modern critics tend to regard them as the weakest part of Quinn's work, with Brian Stableford describing

7998-415: The stories. The stories influenced later horror and fantasy writers, notably Seabury Quinn , who had his own supernatural detective character ( Jules de Grandin ). Simon R. Green pays homage to Hodgson with his Ghost Finders series, where the protagonists work for the mysterious Carnacki Institute. Judas Ghost , a film based on Green's series, was released November 2013. Unlike some of Hodgson's work,

8091-408: The storm completely unprepared, and the Jarvee suffers tremendous damage. Observing all this, Carnacki guesses that the phenomenon is caused by vibrations, so when he observes the shadows converging on the ship again the next day, he sets up a device to emit repellent vibrations. The ship is then struck by a furious squall, which tears one of the sails right off of the ropes. It is not until 2 A.M that

8184-546: 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 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

8277-408: The well for the rest of the night, but nothing more happens. The next evening, the men reconvene in the basement with lamps, a tripwire, and a wire cage to suspend over the well. Carnacki locks and seals the doors. As they keep watch, the ghostly child again manifests, apparently fleeing from an unseen pursuer. All present but Carnacki claim to see a woman, although he does see all the metal objects in

8370-714: Was an American government lawyer, journalist, and pulp magazine author , most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin , published in Weird Tales . Seabury Quinn was born January 1, 1889, in Washington, D.C. In 1910 Quinn graduated from the law school of the National University and was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar. Quinn served in the Army in World War I . After his service he became editor of

8463-507: 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

8556-540: Was the editor of Casket & Sunnyside , a leading trade journal. His Jerome Burke stories are still published in the Dodge embalming magazine. Of his professional work, only two books were published. The first was A Syllabus of Mortuary Jurisprudence , published in book form in 1933 by Clement Williams of Kansas City, Kansas, with a foreword by C. A. Renouard (of the Renouard School of Embalming) and Clement Williams (of

8649-446: Was the site of a grisly murder generations ago. Carnacki is summoned to investigate a noisy spirit that tears off the bedclothes and slams the door(s). The manifestation is far more powerful than he expects, and he spends a miserable, terrified night in his electric pentacle while a horrible apparition in the form of a giant human hand pounds at his defences. The next day, Carnacki finds the fabled "luck ring", and he brings it with him into

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