Literary Horror discussion

Alfred Noyes was a British poet and story writer, probably best known for his 1906 poem, “The Highwayman” (which I remember first reading in high school). He wrote some ghostly/weird stuff including a 1940 apocalyptic novel entitled The Last Man . My favorite Noyes by far is a short piece entitled “Midnight Express” that first appeared in a publication called This Week in 1935. Perhaps it’s only because we’re currently reading Dark Entries , but it now seems to me that there is a somewhat surreal quality to this particular Noyes story that is kinda similar to what is found in many of Robert Aickman’s tales. It’s certainly fair to say that I’ve never been 100% certain of what is going on in “Midnight Express”, but I love its use of language and I find the structure of the story almost irresistible. If I were to write out a list of 10 or 20 of my favorite supernatural stories, I’m sure “Midnight Express” would show up on it.

My reason for thinking about this story today is that I just stumbled across a YouTube link to a reading of the story. The story is read by Julia Morgan, who also happens to read for Librivox. It’s a short clip (about 12 1/2 minutes). For reasons I won’t go into (spoiler territory), in my opinion this story is better consumed on the printed page (as opposed to listened to), but if anyone is curious and doesn’t have access to a print version, here is the link.

The story "Midnight Express" by Alfred Noyes appears in the anthology _The Ghost Now Standing on Platform One_.

Its an interesting story, in a review of it I even called it Borgesian because it has an imaginary book and the story is something like an Idealist view of reality.

Ronald wrote (in part):

The story "Midnight Express" by Alfred Noyes appears in the anthology _The Ghost Now Standing on Platform One_.

It’s appeared in a number of anthologies over the years. I’m pretty sure I first read it either in August Derleth’s Sleep No More or Henry Mazzeo’s Hauntings . And I just this morning recalled that Shawn Garrett (who is, I believe, a member of this group) recorded the story earlier this year as part of his Pseudopod series.