Weird Fiction Old, New, and In-Between III: The Occult Detective Story – Rafe McGregor

The third of six blog posts exploring the literary and philosophical significance of the weird tale, the occult detective story, and the ecological weird. The series suggests that the three genres of weird fiction dramatize humanity’s cognitive and evolutionary insignificance by first exploring the limitations of language, then the inaccessibility of the world, and finally the alienation within ourselves. This post introduces the occult detective story.

 

Ghosts and Detectives

In the late nineteenth century, magazine contributors on both sides of the Atlantic began to explore ways in which the relatively new and incredibly popular figure of the private detective could be merged with the much older but still entertaining milieu of the ghost story. One of the progenitors of this exploration was Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), with Dr Martin Hesselius in In a Glass Darkly (1872). The combination of detective protagonist and ghostly setting saw the initial blossoming of a subgenre of ghost-finders, paranormal physicians, and occult psychologists, with notable contributions by: Arthur Machen (1863-1947), with Mr Dyson in ‘The Inmost Light’ (published as The Great God Pan and The Inmost Light in  1894); Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith (1844-1914, writing under the penname L.T. Meade) and Eustace Robert Barton (1869-1943, writing under the penname Robert Eustace),  with John Bell in The Master of Mysteries (1898); Kate O’Brien Ryall Prichard (1851-1935, writing under the penname E. Heron) and Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard (1876-1922, writing under the penname H. Heron), with Flaxman Low in ‘The Story of the Spaniards, Hammersmith’ (published in Pearson’s Magazine in 1898); Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951), with Dr John Silence in John Silence (1908); William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918, pictured), with Thomas Carnacki in ‘The Gateway of the Monster’ (published in The Idler in 1910); and Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), with Simon Iff in ‘Big Game’ (published in The International in 1917). The first woman occult detective was probably Ella Mary Scrymsour-Nichol’s (1888-1962, writing as Ella Scrymsour) Sheila Crerar, whose adventures began with ‘The Eyes of Doom’ (published in The Blue Magazine in 1920). The most striking feature of this list is the overlap with the canon of weird fiction. Le Fanu was a precursor to both genres and many of H.P. Lovecraft’s (1890-1937) best-known stories could be described as occult detective fiction (although his protagonists rarely survive sufficiently unscathed for further investigations). Of the five authors I identified as canonical in part I, this leaves only Edward Plunkett (1878-1957, writing under his aristocratic title Lord Dunsany), but several of his Jorkens short stories (the first collection of which, The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens, was published in 1931) combine mystery with fantasy.

The occult detective became a staple of the cheaper weekly and monthly magazines of the Golden Age of the pulp era, particularly Cassell’s Magazine and Weird Tales. As that era came to an end interest in the subgenre waned, being sustained through the nineteen fifties, sixties, and seventies by three main sources: Dennis Wheatley’s (1897-1977) series of eleven novels featuring the Duke De Richleau (published from 1933 to 1970 and including The Devil Rides Out in 1934); the dogged persistence of short story writers such as Seabury Quinn (1889-1969), whose Jules de Grandin appeared in Weird Tales from 1925 (‘The Horror on the Links’) to 1951 (‘The Ring of Bastet’) and were frequently reprinted and collected during the sixties and seventies; and the successful migration from short story to small screen evinced by the popularity of BBC1’s Adam Adamant Lives! (1966-1967), ITV’s Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969-1971), and ABC’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-1975). The revival of interest in the occult detective at the end of the twentieth century was heavily influenced by migration to another medium, the graphic novel, specifically the Hellblazer and Hellboy comic series, the first created by Jamie Delano and featuring John Constantine (which began in 1988, pictured) and the second created by Mike Mignola and featuring the eponymous half-demon investigator (which began in 1994). The last decade of the twentieth century saw the subgenre regain some of its mainstream appeal, appearing in novels, television series, and feature films. The most commercially successful of these are likely: Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake (the series subtitled Vampire Hunter, with thirty novels 1993-2023); the CW’s Supernatural (fifteen seasons 2005-2019); and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense (1999). 

Character and Setting

The essence of occult detective fiction has remained largely unchanged since its initial popularity, the combination of a crime fiction character with a horror fiction setting. This combination creates an immediate tension because ever since Edgar Allan Poe introduced C. Auguste Dupin in ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (published in Graham’s Magazine in 1841) the detective has been the man or woman of reason, a rational agent who restores the moral and social order following its disruption by harm or crime. Poe referred to all three of Dupin’s cases as ‘tales of ratiocination’ and the same could be said of the investigations of Dupin’s most illustrious descendants, Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. In contrast, the setting of horror fiction may be more or less like the real world, but there is at least one aspect of that world into which the irrational in the form of the divine, the supernatural, or the paranormal intrudes. One may catch only the briefest of glimpses of it or it may be supervenient on science, but the divine, supernatural, or paranormal is always in excess of human reason, rationality, and ratiocination. One of the advantages of occult detective fiction is that creators can introduce an additional layer of suspense in having the detective investigate both criminal and supernatural cases and Hodgson employed this device with Carnacki very successfully. The world of the occult detective must nonetheless be one in which the supernatural intrudes into the natural in some way, whether or not that intrusion is revealed in every case.

The crucial tension between the rational detective and the extra-rational setting is difficult to master and demands a rigorous internal logic, which may also be more or less revealed in the narrative. There is a special relationship between detective fiction, including occult detective fiction, and narrative. In every narrative there is a real or imaginary sequence of events that takes place in the storyworld. In an autobiography, this sequence of events would begin with the author’s birth or – more commonly – the birth of her parents or grandparents and end shortly before the decision to write the autobiography or with the publisher’s decision to publish the manuscript. In a detective story, the sequence of events begins with the murderer planning the murder or with a person’s decision to disappear and ends with the murderer being identified and usually (but not always) brought to justice or with the missing person found (whether dead or alive). Typically, the story will start after the discovery of a corpse and end before the trial begins. Even within that limited period, however, the represented events will be a selection of all of those that take place in the storyworld. In both documentary and fictional narratives, the narrative is thus a superstructure underpinned by the base of the real or imaginary sequence of events. Detective fiction standardly dramatizes, stages, or thickens the relationship between story and sequence of events by presenting both the story of the crime (the sequence of events) and the story of the investigation (the story itself) together, with the progression of the detective involving her repeating, retracing, or revisiting the progression of the criminal. The tension between the story and the sequence of events is in addition to the tension between the rational detective and extra-rational setting and the combination of the two is, I think, a large part of why occult detective fiction has proved so difficult to master.

Archivists, Musicians, and Priests

I concluded part II by defining weird fiction as philosophical in virtue of presenting or representing a fully-fledged and fleshed-out worldview, generically hybrid in character, and foregrounding the difference between the world as we think it is and the world as it actually is. This definition would include most of the occult detective stories I have mentioned so far and my take on the genre is that it is most accurately categorised as a subgenre of weird fiction rather than a subgenre of either crime or horror fiction. If one is seeking a more specific definition, then there is no need to reinvent what has already been established: occult detective fiction is philosophical in virtue of presenting or representing a fully-fledged and fleshed-out worldview and foregrounding the difference between the world as we think it is and the world as it actually is and featuring a detective protagonist in an apparently supernatural setting. I shall have more to say about the instantiation of the second part of this definition in occult detective as opposed to other weird fiction in part IV. Like the weird tale, the occult detective story is best-suited to shorter formats, such as the short story, novella, graphic novel, and feature film. I include feature film rather than television series because television in the twenty-first century has taken a narrative turn, by which I mean that each season of a series (if not the whole series) tends to tell a single story rather than a different story each episode. One of the great exceptions to this rule of thumb about occult detective fiction is Amazon Prime Video’s Carnival Row (two seasons 2019-2023), specifically the first season, which is vastly superior to the second.

The most exemplary short story series is by Sarah Monette (b.1974 and also writes under the penname Katherine Addison) and features Kyle Murchison Booth, an occult detective who is an archivist at the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum. Booth’s first case, ‘The Wall of Clouds’, was published in 2003 (in Alchemy) and his first ten cases were collected in The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth (2007, with a second edition published in 2011). Seven more short stories and a novella, A Theory of Haunting (2023), have been published since (for a total of eighteen cases), although the stories can be difficult to find online. I mentioned the most accomplished occult detective novella in part II, Victor LaValle’s (b.1972, pictured) The Ballad of Black Tom (2016), a deconstruction of Lovecraft’s less accomplished occult detective story, ‘The Horror at Red Hook’ (published in Weird Tales in 1927). While my graphic novel recommendation is somewhat outré, I trust it will resonate with readers of my generation (particularly those from the UK), Mark Millar and Chris Weston’s all but forgotten Canon Fodder (published in 2000 AD 1993-1995). Like Carnival Row, the first instalment is followed by a disappointing sequel, but the digital versions of both are still available from Rebellion. For a feature film, one can do no better than Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987), starring Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet, Robert De Niro, and Charlotte Rampling, which is an adaptation of William Hjortsberg’s Falling Angel (1978) and one of the few cinematic adaptations that is unquestionably better than the novel on which it is based.

 

Recommended Reading

Fiction

William Hope Hodgson, The Casebook of Carnacki – Ghost Finder, Wordsworth Editions (2006).

Sarah Monette, The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth, Prime Books (2011).

Rafe McGregor, The Adventures of Roderick Langham, Theaker’s Paperback Library (2017).

Nonfiction

No comprehensive or authoritative study of occult detective fiction has been published to date and the best sources of information are the editor’s introductions in these three anthologies (I began writing such a study in 2020, during the pandemic, but as soon as I understood what a mammoth task it would be, realised I’d rather spend the time continuing the cases of my own occult detective):

Peter Haining (ed.), Supernatural Sleuths, William Kimber (1986).

Mark Valentine (ed.), The Black Veil and other tales of Supernatural Sleuths, Wordsworth Editions (2008).

Stephen Jones (ed.), Dark Detectives: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries, Titan Books (2015).