Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Master of the Macabre by Russell Thorndike The Master of the Macabre. "Dr. Syn's creator cannot but write interestingly. Some of the strange stories are horrible and not for the squeamish." - Sydney Morning Herald "These tales of terror and violence are quite nightmarish in their exciting conception." - Glasgow Evening News "Master of the Macabre is certainly macabre and provides just what you want, if you enjoy reading of 'ghosts and ghoulies, long leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night.'" The Star (Sheffield) "It is all very good reading for a windy night, alone in front of an open fireplace." - Winnipeg Tribune "This book is strange, … mehr. Russell Thorndike. "You, too, are an honest man, Captain Faunce," replied Syn. "You show your sympathy and your sentiment without shame, and I think you. Therefore, on the strength of your generosity, if I pledge you my word that this shall never happen again, will you. The Slype. " W]orthy of being compared to Dickens's creations . First-class entertainment." - William F. Deeck, "The Mystery Fancier" "An exciting story told in a pleasant narrative style with considerable skill, and a whole portfolio of Dickensian charact. The Master of the Macabre. "Dr. Syn's creator cannot but write interestingly. Some of the strange stories are horrible and not for the squeamish." - "Sydney Morning Herald" "These tales of terror and violence are quite nightmarish in their exciting conception." - "Glasg. Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh. Doctor Syn, a Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh. Posing as a respectable vicar in Dymchurch at the turn of the 18th century, Dr. Syn is actually the retired pirate Captain Clegg. Clegg, believed hanged in Rye, is no longer being sought by the authorities. However, country life proves too tame for S. Doctor Syn on the High Seas. """Doctor Syn on the High Seas"" is a 1936 novel by British writer Arthur Thorndike. The second in the Doctor Syn series, it tells the story of how a young clergyman called Christopher Syn loses his wife to a seducer and his consequent quest for veng. The Amazing Quest Of Doctor Syn. The men of Dymchurch had good reason to be suspicious of strangers--especially inquisitive strangers. In an area where smuggling was almost a way of life, any such man might well be an agent the revenue men. But this stranger; pompous, nervous, We. The Courageous Exploits of Doctor Syn. Doctor Syn. Posing as a respectable vicar in Dymchurch at the turn of the 18th century, Dr. Syn is actually the retired pirate Captain Clegg. Clegg, believed hanged in Rye, is no longer being sought by the authorities. However, country life proves too tame for t. Doctor Syn A Smuggler Tale. This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available a. The Further Adventures of Doctor Syn. Doctor Syn, meeting the brothers at dinner, jocularly suggested that the Admiral should employ the Scarecrow to catch the privateer, affirming that his mysterious and notorious parishioner, having never yet lost a smuggling lugger, must possess somet. The Shadow of Doctor Syn. Well--there it was. He had been hanged by the neck until he was dead, by some person or persons unknown--to wit--the Scarecrow, which the jury found on one was able to do anything about, since the Army, the Navy, the Revernue and Bow Street Runners, . Russell Thorndike. This article does not contain any citations or references. Please improve this article by adding a reference. For information about how to add references, see Template:Citation. Arthur Russell Thorndike (6 February 1885, Rochester, Kent – 7 November 1972) was a British actor and novelist, best known for the Doctor Syn of Romney Marsh novels. Less well-known than his sister Sybil but equally versatile, Russell Thorndike's first love was writing and, after serving in World War I, he devoted himself to it. Contents. Background [ edit | edit source ] He was born in Rochester, Kent, where his father had recently become a canon at the cathedral. He was a student at the King's School, Rochester and at St George's School, Windsor Castle and a chorister of St George's Chapel, an experience he later recounted in his book Children of the Garter (1937). Thorndike married Rosemary Dowson, a daughter of the well-known actress Rosina Filippi, in 1918. Acting [ edit | edit source ] At his suggestion, both he and Sybil (who once aspired to be a concert pianist) tried acting as a career in 1903. They became students at Ben Greet's Academy and two years later accompanied fellow members of the company on a North American tour, which included New York City. He remained three-and-a-half years with the company, once giving three performances as Hamlet in three different versions of the text on the same day. He also toured in South Africa and Asia. In 1914 he enlisted. His brother Frank, who once performed on stage, was killed in action. Russell was severely wounded at Gallipoli and discharged. He rejoined Ben Greet's theatre company and his sister at the Old Vic in 1916, where he played in Shakespeare's King John , Richard II , and King Lear . Thorndike also acted with Sybil and her husband, Lewis Casson, in their touring repertory performing melodramas. In 1922 he was applauded for his performance in the first professional production of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt at the Old Vic. In film, Thorndike's appearances were infrequent. He played Macbeth (1922) in a silent version of the play opposite Sybil's Lady and also played leads in silent versions of other classic plays, including Scrooge (1923) as Old Ebenezer, and The School for Scandal (1923) as Sir Peter Teazle. He ended his film career in minor priest roles for Laurence Olivier in Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955). Although Thorndike appeared on the stage over four decades (including playing his own Dr. Syn character and entertaining audiences as Smee in ten revivals of Peter Pan , including the famous Scala Theatre version where Donald Sinden doubled the roles of Mr Darling and Captain Hook), he felt a deeper fulfilment in writing, which would include the later work The House of Jeffreys . Writing [ edit | edit source ] Published in the Dymchurch Day of Syn programme from 1985 is an apocryphal biography of Thorndike that indicates it was during the period of touring with Ben Greet's theatre company, that Russell and his sister Sybil came up with the idea of Dr Syn. The story goes, both were with the company in Spartanburg when a man was murdered on the street outside their hotel. The article suggests the corpse laid there for some time while ". his glazed eyes seemed to stare right up into Sybil's bedroom". Sybil was unable to sleep, so she asked Russell to sit up with her. She made a pot of tea while they talked, and the character of Dr Syn was born. As the night went on, "They piled horror on horror's head and after each new horror was invented they took another squint at the corpse to encourage them." Around this time he completed his first novel of romantic adventure on Romney Marsh entitled Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh . Pretty Sinister Books. Crime, Supernatural and Adventure fiction. Obscure, Forgotten and Well Worth Reading. Friday, November 8, 2013. FFB: Master of the Macabre - Russell Thorndike. In the tradition of works like Arthur Machen's The Three Impostors and R. Austin Freeman's The Uttermost Farthing: A Savant's Vendetta (which this book markedly resembles) The Master of the Macabre (1947) is another collection of supernatural and macabre tales that take the form of a quasi-novel. Taylor Kent, writer of thrillers, is travelling by car to deliver a package to Charles Hogarth. En route he encounters a raging snowstorm, loses control of his car and crashes not far from Hogarth's home. Kent now injured with a broken ankle is rescued by Hogarth's servant Hoadley and taken to the house where he soon becomes both guest and invalid. While recuperating Hogarth shows Kent his collection of macabre objects and relics he has amassed over several decades. Each one has its own peculiar story and over the coming nights Hogarth proceeds to relate several stories. The book has an amazingly similar structure and skeletal plot to The Savant's Vendetta in which a sinister collector of human skulls also tells a variety of stories to a house guest. Each novel has an underlying connecting story that recurs throughout the narrative resulting in a surprise climax. In the case of Thorndike's book the climax has to do with the ghost of the corrupt Abbott Porfirio who haunts Hogarth's home and who appears in a series of apparitions which Kent first attributes to nightmares. An aspect of the novel I found most interesting is Thorndike's take on the haunted house as a living entity. This idea had previously been explored by Bulwer-Lytton in the late nineteenth century in "The House and the Brain" and to much greater effect in the mid 1920s in Cold Harbour by Francis Brett Young. The topic would continue to be explored by generations of supernatural fiction writers and would reach its apotheosis in 1959 with The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and continue to be reworked by Richard Matheson ( Hell House ) and Robert Marasco ( Burnt Offerings ) in the 1970s.