The Mark of the Beast and Other Horror Tales
Rudyard Kipling
Dover Publications
November 2, 2011
Reviewed by David Goudsward
When thinking of horror authors, Rudyard Kipling is probably not the first name that leaps to mind. One of the most popular authors in his lifetime, his star has diminished with the British Empire, and his claim to fame today is probably as the author of the Disneyfied Jungle Book stories.
This S.T. Joshi-edited collection is a reminder that Kipling is more than talking bears and Gunga Din. It is an impressive selection from Kipling’s body of supernatural works, ranging from widely reprinted such as the ghost of a jilted lover in “The Phantom ‘Rickshaw” to the rarely seen “Haunted Subalterns,” a lighter piece about two junior officers with a poltergeist in their quarters.
Seventeen of Kipling’s short stories and novelettes are arranged chronologically, which may be the collections sole weak spot – early works are not as fully realized as later works, meaning the stronger stories are in the latter half of the book. But Kipling’s voice rings true throughout as the stories switch subject matter from the psychological terror of thanatophobia in “The Wandering Jew” to stories of the dead returning with their own agenda (“The Lost Legion”). His use of ghost children in “They” and “Swept and Garnished” is particularly unsettling, not in small part to the death of his own 6-year old daughter several years before.
The titular story, “Mark of the Beast,” was considered inappropriate in its gruesome depiction of a man possessed by the spirit of a mad beast after desecrating a temple. In all but transformation, it is a tale of lycanthropy. Other stories, while not technically horror, would have been completely at home in the pages of Weird Tales. In “The City of Dreadful Night,” an insomniac Brit walks the ancient Walled City of Lahore by night, seeing things not meant for western eyes, realizing that night and death are intertwined. “By Word of Mouth” features a surgeon who is a broken man after his wife dies. Now his bearer claims he has a message from his dearly departed.
Eleven of the stories take place in India and use terminology that would be familiar to turn of the century British readers. For those readers who are not British centenarians, there is a glossary of Indian terms used in the stories. It will prove useful.
