Originally serialised in 'The Royal Magazine' between December 1905 and April 1906, but almost completely forgotten since, these five stories chart the adventures of Jack Hargreaves, an estate agent who specialises in dealing with haunted properties, and his "lady assistant" Alwyne Sargent, whose clairvoyant powers prove the key to unravelling the mysteries they encounter.
Episode list:
1. The Story of the Green House, Wallington 00:00:30
2. The Tapping on the Wainscot 00:23:24
3. The Secret of Horner's Court 00:52:14
4. The Two Roses 01:19:49
5. The Haunted Woman 01:49:09
A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.
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There is not a great deal of reliable biographical information available about George Allen Upward (1863-1926). Born of Welsh parentage, he studied law at the Royal University of Ireland in Dublin in the early 1880s. He became a vocal supporter of nationalist causes including Irish Home Rule, composing poetry and journalism for the cause. He attempted to start a political career but was defeated in his attempts to stand for parliament in the Labour interest. Upward was the author of a number of now-forgotten novels, including 'The Prince of Blakistan' (1895) and 'A Bride's Madness' (1897), and his work has fallen into comparative obscurity today. (Incidentally he was a cousin of the rather better remembered novelist Edward Upward, 1903-2009.) Allen Upward died of a gunshot wound in November 1926 at the age of 63, apparently self-inflicted, although the exact circumstances are unclear and there has been some speculation as to whether it was suicide or accident, or if any third parties were involved.
Between December 1905 and April 1906, Upward published a series of five short stories in 'The Royal Magazine' under the banner title "The Ghost Hunters", rather grandiosely described as "A New Series of exciting Ghost Stories. They are entirely Different in Conception from Anything of the Kind that has ever been Published before." In fact they not so very different from many of the ghost stories which were popular in the Edwardian era, but they are of interest inasmuch as they depict a male and female ghost-hunting duo in the shape of the narrator Mr. Hargreaves, an estate agent who has ended up specialising in selling haunted houses (making a profit by laying the spirits to rest), and his "lady secretary" Miss Alwyne Sargent, who is a clairvoyant and "sensitive". Hargreaves and Sargent were thus an early example of the Edwardian vogue for "occult detectives", which culminated a few years later with the stories of Hope Hodgson's Carnacki and Algernon Blackwood's John Silence.
Recording © Bitesized Audio 2021.