I think I am just hardwired to have expensive tastes. I don’t quite know where that comes from, for growing up, I think we were probably what you would call a lower middle-class family. Maybe not even that. My mother was divorced with three children, didn’t receive adequate (or sometimes any) child support, and for most of the time I was still living at home, she did not have a job.
Our groceries, clothing, utilities, mortgage–maybe everything– was taken care of by my grandparents. Without them we might have been in a pretty bad way, but as it is, I can’t remember wanting for much of anything. We were very, very lucky in that regard, and I’m certain I’ve never properly expressed my gratitude to them–but then again, I don’t think grandchildren ever do.
I do recall constantly sneaking into my mother’s room to sniff at her perfumes and play with her lovely makeup collection. She owned some beautifully enticing products. Thinking back upon it now…for a lady with no money, she sure had a lot of Lancôme and Clinque and many other not entirely inexpensive cosmetics. I’m not one to begrudge someone their beautiful things, but that is a bit of a head-scratcher.
When it came time for me to begin painting my face, well, let’s face it. I had been spoiled. I couldn’t just buy Wet-n-Wild from Wal-greens, no way, no how! And so I would save my baby-sitting dollars (and later, my hamburger flipping monies) and spend it all on department store makeup counter treasures.
Later, as I grew into my fascination for perfumes and began to explore the myriad options presented by niche and independent perfumers, I never forgot my early loves from the Christian Dior and Clinique counters in the mall. Though they are not as fancy as say, a Serge Lutens bell jar scent or an Exclusive Collection Guerlain fragrance, they’re certainly not cheap, either. I know many people would find the thought of spending $300 on a bottle of perfume absolutely ludicrous, but no doubt there’s quite a few who would feel no less offended at the thought of a $75 dollar fragrance (the category into which most of the scents pictured above would fall.)
Aromatics Elixir is described by Clinique as an “intriguing non-conformist fragrance”, and sure, I suppose that is one way to describe it. It’s a bitter, balsamic, astringent, herbal, alien thing–not at all the sort of scent that I imagine most people are used to smelling in a perfume bottle.
Aromatic top notes are verbena, sage and chamomile, which give way to the floral notes of geranium, rose and white flowers, with oakmoss and patchouli note at the base. Described by some reviewers as “a chypre on steroids”, it somehow smells both of a different time, something quite classic, and yet also wholly strange and new.
Chandler Burr describes it as “deep” and “thoughtful” and remarks that if one were to judge it by the first hour, it would be a two-star scent. However, he says, “…judge it after it has unfolded, breathed, burned off the shadows and begun its work, and it has to be five.” It never struck me as particularly shadowy, but you know how it is, once you’ve read something and it strikes a chord, no matter how fanciful. Now it’s difficult to smell it any other way. I wore this scent when I was 19 years old, attending community college and floundering about–it reminds me of failings and indecision and the gnawing pit in one’s stomach when one’s future is unclear, and yet somehow when I am most troubled, it is a very comforting thing to smell.
Addict by Christian Dior quite honestly reminds me of an Esquire Magazine cover, but back during the time when they featured more women and lots of cleavage on the front pages. It would have been in black and white. Eyes, heavily rimmed with kohl and smoldering. She’s probably chomping on a cigar.
Addict is an Oriental fragrance that smells like a statuesque, expensive, night blooming call girl. With notes of mandarin leaf, orange blossom, Bulgarian Rose, bourbon vanilla, Mysore sandalwood, and tonka bean, it is breathy, velvety, and narcotic. I’m not certain that this scent is, or ever was, very “me”, but I think it’s quite beautiful in the overblown erotic femininity of Anna Nicole Smith as shot by the tastefully provocative Ellen Von Unwerth sort-of-way.
I wore this when I was 28 and in transition, in the winter months while packing to move from Florida to New Jersey. It reminds me of waiting for the other shoe to drop and asking myself why did I want to be with someone when it felt like they loathed me. And maybe I despised him as well. Obviously, I don’t wear Addict very often anymore, but I will always appreciate the imagery it conjures.
Dune, also by Christian Dior, never fails to surprise me with its presence on my shelf. My mother owned and wore this scent, but I cannot remember smelling it on her. I recall stealing a small spritz here and there in my senior year of high school and thinking that it seemed a somber, yet transparent and inoffensive fragrance.
I forgot about it entirely until I purchased the marvelous Perfumes A-Z Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez (and I am not embarrassed to tell you this was perfect by-the-toilet reading for several years! Seriously, get a copy for that purpose alone.) With notes of vanilla, mandarin, and peony, Dune is officially described ” an oceanic fragrance, created in harmony with nature … radiant, fresh and subtle accord captures the landscape where the sky meets the sea in a warm, oceanic floral bouquet.” And while I suppose it may smell like driftwood and beach glass, it’s more a deserted beach on a cloudy day sort of thing.
Furthermore, if Luca Turin is to be believed, Dune is a “disenchanted, lady-like gem…unsmiling from top to bottom”. He suggests that “true, menacing darkness” is to be found in this fragrance, and it is a strong contender for “the Bleakest Beauty in all perfumery”. I am sure it is no surprise to you that I am dreadfully influenced by this sort of hyperbole and you can bet I had purchased a bottle for myself within seconds. This was six or seven years ago, and I am still not entirely convinced Dune is the bleakest thing I have ever smelled (edit: I’ll be straight with you. It’s Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb), but it is rather evocative nonetheless and puts me in an interesting frame of mind when ever I wear it.
I shared the book’s description with my sister, who has also developed an appreciation for fragrance, and now every time she visits me, she sniffs at my scents and ask if she may try something. Nine times out of ten, she will settle on smelling bleak.
Though I never again will see the days where I would devour an entire stack of library books in one week, I have made diligent attempts over the past few years to ensure that I don’t neglect one of my favorite past times (I was terribly guilty of this neglect in my late teenage years and early twenties and I cannot tell you how much I regret the reading that I did not do at that time!)
Last year I challenged myself to read 50 books–which seems a rather paltry amount now that I have typed it out–nonetheless, I achieved that goal, and upped my number this year to 75! Now, to be perfectly honest, I include in this number comic books and graphic novels and slim volumes of poetry. But whatever. Reading is reading, I reckon.
So far I am at 48/75 which isn’t bad at all, although I think I can do better. I’m certainly working hard to diminish these countless stacks of newly accumulated books, at any rate.
My standout reads more than halfway into the year are:
The Etched City – languid, decadent, dark fantasy; gorgeous but short on plot. Salt Is For Curing – witchy recipe/poems of curses & murder & bones & bodies Yurei – entertaining, engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable book about Japanese ghosts Geek Love – everyone knows this wildly marvelous, heartbreaking book, I won’t embarrass myself by synopsisizing it Wylding Hall – ghosts, a haunted manse in a remote locale, and a British acid-folk band A Head Ful of Ghosts -teenage madness and/or possession funtimes Bluets – a poet’s memoir and brilliant investigation of/reflection upon the color blue Megg and Mogg in Amsterdam -further adventures of depressed, disgusting degenerates Margaret the First – beautifully imagined story of Margaret Cavendish, the eccentric and wildly unconventional 17th-century Duchess.
Have you got a reading goal for yourself this year? Are you keeping up with it? And what have you enjoyed thus far? Do tell!
A gathering of death related links that I have encountered in the past month or so. From somber to hilarious, from informative to creepy, here’s a snippet of things that have been reported on or journaled about related to matters of death & dying & mortality.
I am having a difficult time concentrating on much of anything, and no doubt my focus and attention span will not improve as the week goes on. So while there are things I have done, read, smelled, tasted lately that I would like to share with you…I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what they were.
My grandmother is not doing well, and while that is not much of a surprise–after all, she is 96 years old, and has been generally unwell since before my grandfather passed on last year–I do feel like at this point we are all just waiting, waiting.
I believe she is ready to let go, and I think that we are ready to let her go, which is a rather “dizzying, nauseating, emotional contradiction” because it sort of feels like you are wishing someone you love, dead, doesn’t it? Of course we are not, but regardless of what anyone wants or wishes, it seems like her body is stubbornly, obstinately clinging to life. Which I suppose is commendable, in a way? But it is also very sad and exhausting for everyone, and I think we all sort of feel stuck in limbo just a bit.
She has the look that my grandfather had a few days before he died. A mushroomy pallor. A sort of deflated slackness in the face. Except where he was a little loopy at the end, she is, so far, totally lucid. I’m not thrilled that I have begun to recognize the look of a human who is about to wink out of existence. This is never knowledge I hoped to have.
But then again, what do I know? A long time ago, we decided that my grandmother was a vampire. Immortal. For all I know she will live another ten years. At least! Wouldn’t that be something?
A new mix for Saturday night’s pulsating phantasms
Track list: Jenny Hval, Female Vampire | Hypnos, Chelsea Wolfe | Feed, blood candy | BLOOD, Sidewalks and Skeletons | Hex Me, Cerulean Veins | Feel, THE SOFT MOON | A Life Worth Leaving, Nightmare Fortress | Misunderstood, Elysian Fields | THE KNIFE, Arrows Of Love | All Your Sisters, Open Wide, The Flenser | En ensam vandrare, Anna von Hausswolff | Killer, Psychic Rites | Never Enough, Cult Club | Sky is Hell Black, Has a Shadow | Opus Tenebris, Horror Vacui | Black Cathedral, This Cold Night | Moan River, Shad Shadows | Haunted Keys, Nightcrawler | Follow, Black Heart | Spectral Bliss, New Grave | Dream Ceremony, Ghost Noise | L’esprit De L’escalier, M‡яc▲ll▲ | I’d Rather Not, Ritual Howls | Silver Thread Of The Sun, A DEAD FOREST INDEX
image: Vampirella #3, “I wake up screaming”; art by Billy Graham
Wormwood & Rue, a small pin and design company located in NYC, released their first series of pins today, Midsummer 2016. Inspired by the unceasing wonders of nature, mythology, folklore, this initial collection includes three enamel lapel pins: the magical mandrake root, the iconic fungi fly agaric, and the ghostly, intuitive barn owl.
Wormwood & Rue is the creative endeavor of Carisa Swenson, a lovely friend and the uncanny sculptress/stitchy mistress of GoblinFruit Studio (whom I have written about previously.) Carisa’s work strikes a balance between the odd and the endearing, the familiar and the fantastical, and these charming new creations have a similar quality: predatory night birds, hallucinogenic botanicals, and things that thrive in dark forests, rendered splendid and soft, with a folksy, charming storybook appeal. In gazing upon these small treasures, I’m reminded of the illustrations that might accompany an obscure, vintage gem, a children’s book of mysterious folk tales and legends.
Per this marvelous artist, in her own words: “So many ideas and interests have coalesced within this new venture… small pieces of art that are relatively inexpensive, jewelry as personal amulets, a desire to apply my illustration skills to projects that are quick and fun. All the designs chosen for this first series contain my own personal interests: ornithology, mythology; the use of herbs, roots and mushrooms as medicine, poisons or pathways to other worlds. These pins have been incredibly helpful in freeing me from blocks I’ve been experiencing lately with my other work. If all goes well, I’d like to release 3-4 series of pins per year, released on the turn of the seasons, with limited run pins dropped in between each solstice or equinox. Creature from folklore and myth and endangered species designs are already being planned.”
I, for one, cannot wait to see what marvels Carisa conjures for us next! In the interim, click on each of the image below to be whisked away to her shop!
You’ve carefully cultivated your strange, unearthly beauty and gothic mystique, and as a finishing touch you must pair it with a fragrance befitting the vision of dark decadence you’ve conjured forth.
Indulge me, won’t you? Over at Haute Macabre I’ve a few scented recommendations for dark muses and femme fatales alike that I think will complement your All Black Everything wardrobe perfectly.
Oh, what’s that? You require wardrobe selections, too? Well, you know I will never disappoint you…
(This was originally written for and posted at After Dark In the Playing Fields in 2010, by my partner in the enterprise at that time, who shall henceforth be known as A Kindred Spirit)
‘Valancourt? and who was he?’ cry the young people. Valancourt, my dears, was the hero of one of the most famous romances which ever was published in this country. The beauty and elegance of Valancourt made your young grandmammas’ gentle hearts to beat with respectful sympathy. He and his glory have passed away. Ah, woe is me that the glory of novels should ever decay… Inquire at Mudie’s, or the London Library, who asks for ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’ now? Have not even ‘The Mysteries of Paris’ ceased to frighten? Alas! our best novels are but for a season…“
–William Makepeace Thackeray
Several years ago, I returned to upstate NY after spending several months living in semi-tropical Taiwan. That winter was particularly cold and I spent much of it huddled under woolen blankets on the couch reading anything that was within arm’s reach. Eventually, I had to venture out to an actual bookstore, where on a whim I picked up a reprint of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Victorian gothic thriller Uncle Silas (1865). To my surprise, I became completely engrossed in the plot twists set in its creepy conspiracy-laden corridors. All too soon, the book was finished and I was unable to find anything remotely like it.
Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I had two newly reprinted gothic novels from Valancourt Books in the mail before I could despair too much. (As you can see from above, more have followed.)
Valancourt Books is an independent small (micro) press founded in late 2004 and presently based in Kansas City, specializing in quality new editions of rare literature from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. They now have over 102 books in print, with many more on the way, in a variety of genres, but mainly focusing on Gothic, Romantic and Victorian literature.
Recently, I had the opportunity to ask James D. Jenkins, the publisher and editor of Valancourt Books, some questions about this type of literature and the appeal of this genre to readers in the twenty-first century.
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OTB: What makes these types of works considered “gothic”–and how did you become interested in this type of literature? What is your favorite work of this type?
JDJ: Really, looking back, I think I’ve always been drawn to the Gothic. I remember one summer as a child when my dad sent me to the public library and told me to bring home a classic book to read. I came home with Dracula, which apparently wasn’t what he had in mind. But, as far as the types of Gothic works that Valancourt Books specializes in, I first became interested in those as an undergraduate. I recall being in the university library one afternoon and stumbling across this old book in a black binding called The Castle of Otranto. Something about it intrigued me, and I took it home and stayed up late that night reading it. I was totally riveted by it (and still am!) I started reading other Gothic novels and was completely fascinated by books like Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer. The press, of course, is named after the hero of Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, which I first stumbled upon in the bookstore at the Roma Termini train station when I was 20. I read it for the first time in a medieval castle I stayed at in a place called Montagnana, Italy. I’ve really been hooked ever since.
As far as what makes them Gothic, I guess that’s a little hard to define. It’s one of those things where you know it when you see it. Most of them do share common elements, such as being set in ruined castles or monasteries and featuring heroines in distress and dastardly villains, as well as common set pieces like skeletons, phantoms, rusty daggers, old manuscripts, and the like. Typically in the old Gothic novels, those published between 1764 and 1830, there are two main types-–the “terror Gothic,” which attempted to terrify the reader through mystery and suspense, and the “horror Gothic,” which tended to shock readers with explicit sex and violence. As for a favorite, I don’t know if I could pick one. I really love The Castle of Otranto, which I’ve read repeatedly, and The Mysteries of Udolpho, which always amazes me. Among the minor Gothics, I’m a huge fan of The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest (1794) and Francis Lathom’s The Midnight Bell (1798), two of Jane Austen’s “Horrid Novels.”*
What made you decide to found a press? I know I was fortunate enough to stumble across your website several years ago–there really were no other publishers of these kinds of novels at that time. Have you encountered any particular difficulties unique to this kind of business?
I think you were actually our first customer! I’m glad you found us! The short story of how the press was founded is that I graduated law school in 2004 and couldn’t find a job. I had a lot of time on my hands in between applying for work, and by that time I had read all of the dozen or so classic Gothic novels published by Oxford and Penguin. I wanted to read more, but they just weren’t available. I started thinking, “Someone should be publishing more of these,” and then somehow it just hit me that rather than wait for someone else to do it, I could start doing it. So, I started spending my free time typing The Animated Skeleton and The Castle of Ollada from microfiche, and now, over 100 books later, I’ve never looked back!
Some of these works could rightly be considered, for lack of a better word, the “bestsellers” of their day. Why did the majority of these works go out of print, in spite of their original popularity? Why did certain works like those of Radcliffe or Walpole, remain in print over the years? Were they really that much better in terms of story quality than the ones that faded into relative obscurity?
That’s a great question, and I don’t think there’s an easy answer to it. Just like today, I’m sure a lot of these books were published back then to critical disdain and poor sales and didn’t go into a second edition. Many of them quite deservedly fell out of print. But then there are some that make you scratch your head. Eaton Stannard Barrett’s The Heroine (1813), which we are preparing for the press at the moment, comes to mind. It was hugely popular and went through several editions, and found numerous admirers, among them Jane Austen and Edgar Allan Poe. It’s also incredibly funny, even two hundred years later. Why did satires of Gothic literature by writers like Austen and Thomas Love Peacock survive in print into the 21st century, while Barrett’s did not? I don’t know. The great thing is that with the greater availability of rare old texts through sources like Google Books and other electronic and print sources, more and more of these books can be rediscovered and those that were undeservedly lost can be republished in new editions.
Despite their sometimes initial popularity, these works were often marginalized and dismissed by the critics of the time, considered pulp or cheap entertainments. Over the years, they only became of interest to academics or other specialists–do you see a value in bringing these works back into print for something other than scholarly pursuits? Are they worthwhile to the modern reader simply as historical artifacts or for an intrinsic entertainment value?
I guess that depends on taste! A lot of our readers enjoy these works simply for their entertainment value. In fact, I’ve never liked to think of them as historical artifacts and I’ve tried to encourage our editors to avoid that sort of thing in their introductions. I mean, with all the books available-–both classics and contemporary literature – why would you want to waste your time reading something that’s only worthwhile as an historical artifact? That said, I think I’d have to concede that we’ve published one or two that were of more interest for their rarity than their literary value!
Why do you think gothic literature could still resonate with readers today?
I think the Gothic has always resonated with readers. Even in ancient texts, you find mention of such things as ghosts and apparitions, and of course in early British literature, such as Shakespeare’s plays, you pretty regularly find things like phantoms and witches. These sorts of works of course gave rise to the Gothic works of authors like Walpole and Radcliffe. But I think it would be a mistake to assume that the Gothic ever really went away. In the Victorian era, you had mystery and supernatural works by writers like Wilkie Collins and Sheridan Le Fanu, and a little later popular novelists like Richard Marsh and Bram Stoker. Even in recent years, we’ve had Stephen King, Anne Rice, and now Stephenie Meyer. I think something about the Gothic, about scary stories and tales of horror and mystery, is a universal impulse-–it’s something that has always existed both in our literature and other countries’ literatures, and that I think always will.
What are your most popular titles? Do any have a surprising popularity or affect readers in unexpected ways? I would imagine that the lesser known works of Bram Stoker or perhaps the previously mentioned “Horrid Novels” would have especial appeal to someone interested in this type of literature.
You’re absolutely right. The Horrid Novels and works by authors that are better known, like Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, tend to be among our best sellers. One book that, year in, year out, is always among our bestsellers, though, and which I always find surprising, is George Brewer’s The Witch of Ravensworth (1808). It’s really a wonderful little book and I’m happy that people have discovered it, but I’m nonetheless always a little perplexed at the levels of its sales.
I have noticed over the last few years that Valancourt Books has been expanding in scope to include titles from the later Victorian period as well as the twentieth century. What was your motivation to include these sorts of books in the catalogue? Are there still more areas you might decide to cover in the future?
Well, one thing that tends to happen when you have your own press (and especially when it’s a one-person press) is that what the press publishes tends pretty much to be whatever you’re interested in. As I’ve gotten older and read more widely in other areas, I’ve discovered new areas of interest and other obscure works that I wanted to bring back into print and share with readers. One of these is the popular literature of the 1890s, which is just an amazing decade. It’s in the 1890s that Sherlock Holmes rises to prominence, that we get characters like Dorian Gray, Dracula, and The Beetle, and perhaps even more importantly, it’s the decade where the three-volume novel that had dominated publishing for a century or more and had made books largely unaffordable to everyday readers was finally abandoned in favor of inexpensive, one-volume editions that were accessible to all. So we start to see just an explosion of popular, thrilling, cheap novels, many of which are truly fascinating and worthy of new attention. We’ve also started doing some gay-themed literature from the early 20th century, which is another interest of mine, and something that’s getting a lot of scholarly attention these days. Presently we don’t have plans for any new series, although we plan to continue expanding our 18th century and Victorian collections, which have been gradually growing.
What titles will be forthcoming over the next year or so? Is there anything particularly intriguing or obscure that you’re still trying to track down for future publication? Are there some known works so hard to locate that original copies to work from do not exist or are too rare to even get access to?
JDJ: Probably the two that are the most highly anticipated are the final two “Horrid Novels”: Horrid Mysteries by Carl Grosse and Eleanor Sleath’s The Orphan of the Rhine, probably the two rarest of the lot. Although probably twenty, thirty years ago, there would have been works so rare that you couldn’t get copies of them, that’s not really the case anymore. With online library catalogs like Worldcat and COPAC, it’s pretty quick and easy to find out what libraries hold a given book. And although the books we publish are usually so rare that the copies do not circulate, with modern reproduction and scanning technology, the books can usually be copied or scanned for us (for an often lofty price!) For example, The Forest of Valancourt (1813), which we published in hardcover, survives in only one known copy–-at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and we were able to get a photocopy of it so we could republish it. There are a couple old Gothic novels mentioned in reference works that we have not been able to track down (the most notable is probably W. H. Ireland’s Bruno; or, The Sepulchral Summons), but for some of these lost works, we have been unable to verify after extensive research that they ever really existed in the first place.
Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. As always, I wish you and everyone at Valancourt Books every possible success for making these titles available to everyone.
JDJ: Thanks, Jessica, always a pleasure. Thanks for the opportunity to share some info about Valancourt Books with you and your readers!
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Valancourt Books’ list of currently published works can be found here; they are widely available at Amazon or other booksellers.
*The “Horrid Novels” refers to a selection of 18th century Gothic fiction mentioned by Jane Austen in her gothic satire, Northanger Abbey. Most of the ‘horrid novels’ were believed to be inventions of Austen until the early twentieth century. For a complete list of titles, see here. Valancourt Books has published five of the seven and has plans to release the other two in the future.
A sneak peek of some of the pages for the 
In love with the stick & poke tattoo art by 
If you’re in Southern California, you must go see “
