Revelations In Black: Phantom Brass; The Cane; The Coach on the Ring; The Kite (Jove Y4744) Review

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Revelations In Black: Phantom Brass; The Cane; The Coach on the Ring; The Kite (Jove Y4744) ReviewCarl Jacobi was a master in the weird tale genre. This was his first collection, originally published by Arkham House in 1947. The title story is one of the greatest weird tales of all time, and one of the strangest. It begins with one of my favorite horror motifs: the strange old antiques shop, wherein is found such curious items. It is in this shop that the narrator finds his sinister treasure:
A thousand times I have wished my eyes had never rested on that cover in black. What writhings of the soul, what terrors, what unrest, what madness would have been spared me!
But never dreaming the secret of its pages I fondled it casually and remarked:
"An unusual book. What is it?"
Larla glanced up and scowled.
"That is not for sale," he said quietly. "I don't know how it got on these shelves. It was my poor brother's."
The volume in my hand was indeed unusual in appearance. Measuring but four inches across and five inches in length and bound in black velvet with each outside corner protected with a triangle of ivory, it was the most beautiful piece of book-binding I had ever seen. In the center of the corner was mounted a tiny piece of ivory intricately cut in the shape of a skull. But it was the title of the book that excited my interest. Embroidered in gold braid, the title read:
'FIVE UNICORNS AND A PEARL.'"
From this strange beginning is woven an eerie masterpiece of vampiric horror. The aura of a haunted and daemonic past is beautifully evoked when the narrator discovers (by chance?) "...an old courtyard strewn with fountains, stone benches and statues lay tangled in rank weeds and undergrowth." It is when the narrator finally discovers the fountain that he is filled with nameless horror:
"It was the fountain at my side that had caught my attention first. Across the top of the water basin were FIVE STONE UNICORNS, all identically carved, each seeming to follow the other in galloping procession. Looking farther, prompted now by a madly rising recollection, I saw that the cupola, towering high above the house, eclipsed the rays of the moon and threw A LONG POINTED SHADOW across the ground AT MY LEFT. The other fountain some distance away was ornamented with the figure of a stone fish, A FISH whose empty eye-sockets WERE LEERING straight in my direction. And the climax of it all -- the wall! At intervals of every three feet on the top of the street expanse were mounted crude carven stone shapes of birds. And counting them I saw that THOSE BIRDS WERE TWENTY-SIX BLUEJAYS.
"Unquestionably -- startling and impossible as it seemed -- I was in the same setting as described in Larla's book! It was a staggering revelation, and my mind reeled at the thought of it. How strange, how odd that I should be drawn to a portion of the city I had never before frequented and thrown into the midst of a narrative written almost a year before!"
And then the hapless narrator encounters the inhabitants of this eerie realm. This is a perfect weird tale, strange and haunting and terrifying. Reading it for the first time was a thrilling experience, and it made me ache to teach myself how to write such tales of my own. I have yet to pen anything so effective.
Jacobi's imagination is as rich as it is unique. This is an extremely solid collection, and one that contains a large number of exquisite tales. The entire contents is:
"Revelations in Black"
"Phantom Brass"
"The Cane"
"The Coach on the Ring"
"The Kite"
"The Satanic Piano"
"The Last Drive"
"The Spectral Pistol"
"Sagasta's Last"
"The Tomb from Beyond""The Digging at Pistol Key"
"Moss Island"
"Carnaby's Fish"
"The King and the Knave"
"Cosmic Teletype"
"A Pair of Swords"
"A Study in Darkness"
"Mive"
"Writing on the Wall"
"The Face in the Wind"
In a letter written at 10 Barnes Street on February 27, 1932, H. P. Lovecraft wrote to Carl Jacobi:
..."Mive" pleased me immensely, & I told Wright that I was glad to see at last one story whose weirdness of incident was made convincing by adequate emotional preparation & suitably developed atmosphere. Most of the stuff in the cheap weird magazines is utterly & irredeemably flat because of the lack of any substance to lend a semblance of actuality to the extravagant & overcrowded incidents. I also read "The Coach on the Ring," & wish that the editor had had the discernment to let the original title stand. Many things in this tale captivated me exceedingly, though as you realise it was a little nearer the popular magazine formula than "Mive." I hope to see the other items of yours which you mention -- & congratulate you sincerely on your success in making various placements. ...
"Derleth spoke very highly of your work & future promise, & admiringly heralded "Mive" long before it appeared. He himself strikes me as one of the most remarkable youths I have ever encountered -- gifted alike in serious and and popular writing, & with an inexhaustible driving energy which most others must envy in vain."
Derleth was also a shrew and gifted publisher, and he brought us many classic books of weird fiction from a number of authors. REVELATIONS IN BLACK was the first of three collections by Carl Jacobi that would be published by Arkham House -- the others being PORTRAIT IN MOONLIGHT and DISCLOSURES IN SCARLET.Revelations In Black: Phantom Brass; The Cane; The Coach on the Ring; The Kite (Jove Y4744) Overview

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