L.A. Lewis’s Followers (7)

L.A. Lewis

Born

in Sheffield, England, The United Kingdom

February 06, 1899

Died

October 28, 1961

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Leslie Allin Lewis was the only child of Arthur Henry Lewis (b. 1872), a brewery expert according to the 1911 UK Census, and Catharine (sometimes Catherine) Mary Ann Allin (1870-1962), who were married at Wantage, Berkshire, in the spring of 1896.

Leslie grew up at the Allin family estate at East Hendred in Berkshire, and was educated at Roysse’s School in Abingdon (now named Abingdon School). As a boy he wrote and illustrated a series of stories about a panther named Blackie. During World War I he joined the Artist’s Rifles, and trained as a pilot, taking his certificate on the Maurice Farman Biplane at the Military School in Ruislip, on 29 May 1917. According to Richard Dalby, he served in France for a year, and after the war he took a co Leslie Allin Lewis was the only child of Arthur Henry Lewis (b. 1872), a brewery expert according to the 1911 UK Census, and Catharine (sometimes Catherine) Mary Ann Allin (1870-1962), who were married at Wantage, Berkshire, in the spring of 1896.

Leslie grew up at the Allin family estate at East Hendred in Berkshire, and was educated at Roysse’s School in Abingdon (now named Abingdon School). As a boy he wrote and illustrated a series of stories about a panther named Blackie. During World War I he joined the Artist’s Rifles, and trained as a pilot, taking his certificate on the Maurice Farman Biplane at the Military School in Ruislip, on 29 May 1917. According to Richard Dalby, he served in France for a year, and after the war he took a course in Aero Engineering, and later earned an Instructor’s license.

His father apparently died before 1925, and after 1926 Leslie lived with his mother and some members of her family in the Finchley area of London, through around 1951, save for a time of service in the R.A.F. during the World War II. In July 1929, he published a story “The Chords of Chaos” in The Theosophist, edited by Annie Besant. His one collection of ten stories, Tales of the Grotesque (London: Philip Allan), came out as part of the “Creeps” series in October 1934. It is one of the best of the volumes of the “Creeps” series, with original tales like “The Tower of Moab” in which a man’s madness is exemplified by his vision of a Babel-like tower. One later tale, “The Author’s Tale,” came out in Terror by Night (1935), edited by Christine Campbell Thomson as part of the “Not at Night” series.

Elizabeth Yeardye Rickell (1897-1988), who had served in Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Crops during World War I, was Leslie’s longtime friend, and she apparently became his common law wife in the early 1950s (there is no official record of their marriage). She told Richard Dalby that her husband destroyed his surviving writings in a fit of depression, and that he long suffered from hallucinations, and from deteriorating physical and mental health during his final years. He died of a heart attack while in hospital in 1961. Tales of the Grotesque has been reprinted three times, expanded by the one uncollected tale, in hardcover by Ghost Story Press in 1994 and 2003, and in trade paperback by Shadow Publishing in 2014, each reprint having an introduction by Richard Dalby. ...more

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Average rating: 3.91 · 470 ratings · 79 reviews · 11 distinct works • Similar authors

	Vampire Stories by Richard Dalby (Editor), Peter Cushing (Introduction), Robert Bloch 3.66 avg rating — 177 ratings — published 1992 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tales of the Grotesque: A Collection of Uneasy Tales by L.A. Lewis, Richard Dalby (Editor), Dave Fletcher (Illustrations) 4.13 avg rating — 69 ratings — published 1934 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Century's Best Horror Fiction: Volume One, 1901-1950 by John Pelan (Editor), L.A. Lewis (Contributor), Rosalie Muspratt (Contributor) 4.13 avg rating — 53 ratings — published 2011	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories 2 by Richard Dalby (Editor), Kingsley Amis (Contributor), Robert W. Chambers (Contributor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 47 ratings — published 1991 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	65 Great Tales of Horror by Mary Danby (Editor, Contributor), Auguste de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (Contributor), Thomas Burke (Contributor) 3.84 avg rating — 49 ratings — published 1981 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Realms of Darkness by Mary Danby, Christopher Lee (Introduction), Martin Amis 4.06 avg rating — 35 ratings — published 1985 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	100 Twisted Little Tales of Torment by Stefan R. Dziemianowicz (Editor, Introduction), Martin H. Greenberg, Robert Weinberg 3.69 avg rating — 36 ratings — published 1998	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Wave of Fear: A Classic Horror Anthology by Hugh Lamb (Editor), Ambrose Bierce, Eleanor Scott 4.14 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 1974 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Tower of Moab 4.36 avg rating — 11 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Неспящие № 1 by L.A. Lewis, Robert Aickman, Graham Masterton 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by L.A. Lewis (?)

“Seated in the middle of the floor with its back to me was the naked figure of a baby of, perhaps, two years, prattling wordlessly in its sing-song treble as it played with a pile of gleaming white objects arranged about it in a circle. One of these, a globular thing of peculiar configuration, it grasped in its right hand, and banged down noisily among the rest. Opposite, just discernible in the shadowy corner, sat the largest brindled cat I had ever seen, dreamily watching the play through half closed, flame-yellow eyes. I suppose it must have been many minutes that I stood there dumbfounded, staring at this incredible spectacle, before my dazed senses registered its full hideousness, and then a strangled gasp escaped me, for I saw that the toy in the child’s hand was a tiny human skull and that all the other white things were the various bones of an infant skeleton!”
― L.A. Lewis, Tales of the Grotesque: A Collection of Uneasy Tales

tags: horror

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L.A. Lewis’s Followers (7)

L.A. Lewis

Combine EditionsL.A. Lewis’s books

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