Forgotten stories
HP Lovecraft argued that “the oldest and strongest feeling known to mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest type of fear is fear of the unknown.” This motto seemed to have guided Schwartz as he wrote Ghostly Tales After Dark . The author drew inspiration from American folklore, but in his works we can also find stories from England – the result of his search is as many as thirty-five stories that make even on a sunny day we can feel like on Halloween.
Forbidden reading
Alvin Schwartz has gained a reputation as a controversial writer over time. In the 1990s, his works were the subject of many attacks by parents and teachers who believed that their content contributed to the demoralization of children. Among the most common charges were those of drastic content and a lack of morals. Stephen Gammell was also in the heat of criticism, whose macabre illustrations, despite the passage of many decades, still chill the blood in his veins. It is difficult to disagree with these opinions, however, placing Schwartz’s books on the list of “forbidden reading” next to names such as JK Rowling or JD Salinger only made him popular among children bored with didacticism.
Polish debut
Thanks to the Zysk i S-ka publishing house, the book in the Polish language version reached readers in 2019. The anthology was published in hardcover and is slightly less than 150 pages long. The translation is the responsibility of Piotr Kuś, who may be known to the Polish reader for his translation of the works of Graham Masterton and Shari Lapen. The appearance of the book on the Polish publishing market was not accidental – also in 2019 a screening of Schwartz’s work of the same title was released in cinemas.
Parade of dreads
Schwartz’s anthology is a series of different stories, which means that every amateur of horror will find something for himself. The author is based on classic stories about ghosts, bogeymen, witches and cursed objects, but they are written in an unusual way – Schwartz made sure that they could be told among friends. That is why the presented stories contain sudden twists and hints as to when to shout or make a sudden movement to scare the audience. The author himself encourages people to frighten as part of entertainment, writing that “most of the terrifying stories, of course, should be listened to, not read”.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the stories, Schwartz also presents a concept for a party game ( Brain of a Dead Man ) and several stories supplemented with sheet music by his wife Barbara, which also allows them to be played ( Song of the Caravan ), and even a minicomic ( Slippery Creature ).
Mary around us
Although the vast majority of the stories contained in Schwartz’s Ghostly Tales are derived from oral accounts that go back several generations, the author also took care to show the reader that the modern world is not free from dangers – police files are still bursting at the seams with the files of murderers. Alvin Schwartz skillfully uses the reader’s expectations: the heroes are young people whose adventures seem to be the result of the intervention of supernatural forces – at the end of each puzzle, however, it turns out that there is a rational explanation, often very surprising ( Silk Dress ). The author also presents a few stories whose solutions are extremely prosaic, but the reader’s stimulated imagination is unable to perceive them (Viper , Attic ). It is worth mentioning that they are a bit more story-driven, which makes them appropriate reading also for older readers.
Cultural transplant
Schwartz’s spooky tales have undoubtedly gained the status of a cult work overseas, but it is difficult to predict that they will have a similar success in Poland – it seems that the passing time has worked to their disadvantage. The turning point in Schwartz’s career was placing his work on the “forbidden reading” list, but today his stories seem to be a distant and less terrible cousin of the Internet creepypasta . Also, the cultural distance that separates Polish readers from American realities negatively affects the reception of the work – although folklore is an extremely rich source of chilling stories, stories about Indian beliefs will be less terrifying for the Polish reader than Slavic demons – bane, drowns and miscarriages that lurk right next to you.
Regardless of the aforementioned shortcomings, the reading of Schwartz’s Ghostly Tales can be successfully treated as a cultural curiosity, which is a noteworthy item, even if the triumph she celebrated in America is not written in the country on the Vistula River.
