Monster Books # 2: Family Ghosts by Elliot O’Donnell (Consul, 1965)

In contrast to the horror/monster-related expectations raised by the eye-catching cover, Elliot O’Donnell’s subject here is, quite literally, ‘family ghosts’, and, without providing a contents page or index, he simply ploughs his way, Charles Fort style, through an interminable recitation of unsourced paranormal anecdotes, loosely categorised under such generic chapter headings as ‘Phantom Birds’, ‘White Ladies, ‘Scottish Family Ghosts’ and so forth.

Elsewhere in the text however, things do at least get pretty peculiar, which is good enough for me. One chapter for instance concerns ‘Haunted Welsh Bridges and Ghosts That Follow Families’, whilst, intriguingly, ‘Fish, Bat and Tree Ghosts’ are considered in Chapter II, beginning with the case of Nottinghamshire’s infamous(?) death-predicting sturgeon;

If this were an original work produced for Consul Books in 1965, I’d be inclined to suggest that O’Donnell had singularly failed to get with the programme re: producing a good ‘monster book’. Although Consul’s edition contains no record prior publication however, it is immediately obvious that ‘Family Ghosts’ was penned considerably prior to the swinging sixties. O’Donnell’s prose has a stodgy, Victorian feel to it, he speaks of receiving letters in 1910 clarifying points he had previously made in print, and in fact he rarely seems to mention anything subsequent to the First World War.

Indeed, a brief glance at Elliot O’Donnell’s Wikipedia page confirms that, born in 1872, he actually died in 1965. ‘Family Ghosts’ was first published in 1934.

Although best remembered for ghost books - of which he wrote dozens, beginning as early as 1908 - in turns out that O’Donnell was actually also an exponent of weird fiction, beginning his literary career with a thriller entitled ‘For Satan’s Sake’ in 1904 and following it up with ‘The Sorcery Club’ in 1912. He subsequently made the cover of ‘Weird Tales’ with ‘The Ghost Table’ in February 1928.

Given that Consul include no copyright notice at the front of this book, I can only assume the they simply dug up the printing plates for ‘Family Ghosts’ from god knows where and slapped them onto new pages to fill a hole in their release schedule, perhaps without even informing the recently deceased author’s estate. The cover illustration and tag line certainly seem more suggestive of an anthology of horror stories than a compendium of hoary old blather about spectral hounds and phantom fish… but who knows?

And speaking of the cover painting - it really is a corker isn’t it? I’ve got no idea who did it, but it’s absolutely great. I’d suggest it might have been better attached to a reprint of some of O’Donnell’s fiction, which I’d probably much rather read too to be honest, but so it goes.