Round this time last year I reviewed Ray Russell's The Case Against Satan on my blog. On the basis of that I bought Haunted Castles and now I've finally got round to reading it. What a book! A masterpiece of Gothic Horror that has somehow fallen from sight. Thankfully it's now a Penguin Classic endorsed by the great Guillermo del Toro.
Essentially the collected Gothic stories of Russell (who also wrote sci fi and twist-in-tail stories), Haunted Castles comprises three long tales obviously meant to go together from the outset ('Sardonicus', 'Sagittarius', and 'Sanguinarius') and four shorter works in similar style: 'Comet Wine', 'The Runaway Lovers', 'The Vendetta' and 'The Cage' (also known as 'The Prince of Darkness', the opening story in Russell's collection of the same name, which I'm currently working my way through.)
If I have to name a favourite, it's 'Sagittarius'. I liked 'Sardonicus' a lot, 'Sanguinarius' a little less, mainly because it's Eliabeth Bathory and I think my own novella about her will be scarier; basically, we take totally different approaches to her character. 'Sagittarius', though, is pure Grand Guignol and couldn't be more to my taste. One of the characters even performs at the theatre of the same name. Pure bliss.
Overall, I really enjoyed the way several stories are linked by Harley Street physician Sir Robert Congrave and his travelling pal Lord Henry Stanton. Stanton's letters to Congrave give Russell another story-telling device which adds texture to his narratives. It helps that the two friends are so completely different in character.
In summary, Ray Russell is a great of horror fiction, up there with Lovecraft and M R James. I deliberately exclude living masters because they came after. Stephen King, of course, is a generation later than Russell but broke through at a similar time. I wonder if King, surely the greatest horror writer of all time, was aware of Russell when he started out?
