The Pantomime Man and Others

Richard Barnham Middletons The Ghost Ship is one of the best-loved ghost stories in English literature about which Arthur Machen wrote I declare I would not exchange this short crazy enchanting fantasy for a whole wilderness of seemly novels. Middleton himself (1882-1911) was a tragic figure a young man impatient for success who managed to live the archetypal life of the Romantic Bohemian poet complete with poverty unrequited love for an impossible woman (a prostitute) despair and an early suicide. While he published many pieces in the best magazines of the day volumes of his work were published in his lifetime as soon as he was dead he was discovered. Four volumes of his collected works were in print within eighteen months. Three more followed in the next two decades. His poetry was acclaimed in the press as a new Keats both for the brilliance of his work and the brevity of his life. He is remembered today for a handful of superbly crafted eerie fantasies such as The Coffin Merchant On the Brighton Road and The Conjurer which only hint at the richness of the larger body of his work and suggest what kind of a literary artist he would have become if he had lived. The Pantomime Man presents an unexpected treasure-trove of Middletons writings. It was originally published a generation after the authors death when it had been thought that the store of Middleton material had been exhausted.