Spectral Shadows
Three Supernatural Novellas by
Robert Westall
Book Description
Three supernatural novellas by Robert Westall, hailed as the finest British author of ghost stories since M.R. James, collected together for the first time
BLACKHAM’S WIMPEY
Why should three successive crews flying a Second World War bomber – Blackham’s Wimpey – be driven to madness, despair, even death, though the plane returns from each mission without a scratch?
‘A writer of disturbing brilliance’ – Times Educational Supplement
THE WHEATSTONE POND
Too many deaths, too many suicides. It was more than coincidence. The Wheatstone Pond was a killer. When it’s drained, antique dealer Jeff Morgan gets interested, hoping there’ll be a few valuable wrecks of model boats down there. He isn’t prepared for the horror he will
find instead . . .
‘Gutsy and energetic, grippingly plotted’ – Guardian
YAXLEY’S CAT
Sepp Yaxley vanished seven years ago, and no one has seen him since. Rose and her children Tim and Jane thought his vacant cottage, alone by the marshes, seemed like the perfect place for a holiday adventure. But that was before they decided to find out what happened to old Yaxley. Before they started to find strange things in the garden. Before the neighbors began to act weird. Before Yaxley’s cat came back . . .
‘Calls to mind Hitchcock’s creepiest films’ – Publishers Weekly
Three Supernatural Novellas by
Robert Westall
Book Description
Three supernatural novellas by Robert Westall, hailed as the finest British author of ghost stories since M.R. James, collected together for the first time
BLACKHAM’S WIMPEY
Why should three successive crews flying a Second World War bomber – Blackham’s Wimpey – be driven to madness, despair, even death, though the plane returns from each mission without a scratch?
‘A writer of disturbing brilliance’ – Times Educational Supplement
THE WHEATSTONE POND
Too many deaths, too many suicides. It was more than coincidence. The Wheatstone Pond was a killer. When it’s drained, antique dealer Jeff Morgan gets interested, hoping there’ll be a few valuable wrecks of model boats down there. He isn’t prepared for the horror he will
find instead . . .
‘Gutsy and energetic, grippingly plotted’ – Guardian
YAXLEY’S CAT
Sepp Yaxley vanished seven years ago, and no one has seen him since. Rose and her children Tim and Jane thought his vacant cottage, alone by the marshes, seemed like the perfect place for a holiday adventure. But that was before they decided to find out what happened to old Yaxley. Before they started to find strange things in the garden. Before the neighbors began to act weird. Before Yaxley’s cat came back . . .
‘Calls to mind Hitchcock’s creepiest films’ – Publishers Weekly
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BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 194391043X ISBN-13: 978-1943910434 $17.99 US, 282 pp. Trade paper Published 2016 |
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Robert Westall was born in North Shields, Northumberland in 1929. After taking degrees in fine art from Durham University and London’s Slade School, Westall worked as an art teacher and was also a freelance journalist and art critic for The Guardian.
It was not till later in life that Westall turned to fiction, having been inspired to become a writer after telling his son Christopher stories about his childhood during World War II. His first book, The Machine Gunners, was published in 1975 when he was 45; it was a major success, winning the Carnegie Medal, and has been recognized by critics as a lasting classic of children’s literature. He would go on to publish over 40 books for young readers, including works that drew on his boyhood during the war, stories involving cats, and tales of the ghostly and supernatural. Besides The Machine Gunners, Westall is perhaps best known for The Scarecrows (1981), which won him a second Carnegie Medal and which his obituary in the Independent called ‘one of the most searing and haunting child-eyed views of divorce yet to have been written’, and Blitzcat (1989), which won the Smarties Prize. The Watch House (1977) and The Machine Gunners were also adapted for television serials.
After retiring from teaching in 1985, Westall worked briefly as an antique dealer, an experience that partly inspired his sole work of fiction for adults, the ghost story collection Antique Dust (1989). The first edition’s jacket lists his hobbies as ‘nosing round old buildings, studying cats and looking for the unknown’ and notes that ‘he has never seen a ghost but has not yet given up hope’.
Robert Westall died in 1993 at age 63.
It was not till later in life that Westall turned to fiction, having been inspired to become a writer after telling his son Christopher stories about his childhood during World War II. His first book, The Machine Gunners, was published in 1975 when he was 45; it was a major success, winning the Carnegie Medal, and has been recognized by critics as a lasting classic of children’s literature. He would go on to publish over 40 books for young readers, including works that drew on his boyhood during the war, stories involving cats, and tales of the ghostly and supernatural. Besides The Machine Gunners, Westall is perhaps best known for The Scarecrows (1981), which won him a second Carnegie Medal and which his obituary in the Independent called ‘one of the most searing and haunting child-eyed views of divorce yet to have been written’, and Blitzcat (1989), which won the Smarties Prize. The Watch House (1977) and The Machine Gunners were also adapted for television serials.
After retiring from teaching in 1985, Westall worked briefly as an antique dealer, an experience that partly inspired his sole work of fiction for adults, the ghost story collection Antique Dust (1989). The first edition’s jacket lists his hobbies as ‘nosing round old buildings, studying cats and looking for the unknown’ and notes that ‘he has never seen a ghost but has not yet given up hope’.
Robert Westall died in 1993 at age 63.