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Strange Tales In Fiction And Fact

by Richard Howard

218 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-1093; ISBN 1-4120-9339-2; US$17.37, C$19.98, EUR14.27, £9.99

Twelve highly original stories of ghosts and visitants and an evocative essay on the author's own strange and unexplained experiences. A unique and thought-provoking book that will haunt you.

About the Book

Ghosts, vampires and the afterlife merge with the forces of nature and symbolic archetypes in these twelve highly original short stories that run the gamut from darkness and death to innocence and hope. While rooted in this world, they reach into the beyond with the mystical insight of parable and myth that touches something deep within the unconscious.

The eminent composer, Alan Hovhaness, writes: “I greatly admire Richard Howard as a very fine and original writer. I cannot praise highly enough Tower Song. This I think is one of the great stories of all time and certainly should be published throughout the world. The Messenger has a quiet mysterious power and great depth. I know the difficulty to arrive at the spiritual and mental harmony which allows such poetry to flower in naturalness and spontaneous singing quality. The Temple of Lior held my attention from beginning to end. It is compelling and its symbols are of profound wisdom. Moon Prophecy is wonderful. The forces of terror and beauty are controlled. This story with its message haunts me. Mass consciousness dangers are warnings from ancient times into modern times.”

And the celebrated English artist, Coral Guest, writes: “Strange Tales is a portal into another reality. Each of these stories offers us an entry point into something ‘other’ and mirrors a particular awareness that we all possess in the depth of our psyche. Richard Howard is a unique talent who has the power to invoke this particular frequency. He is a spiritual writer, one of rare integrity, and each story is a testimony to his own insight. A book of rare truth and all-encompassing mystery.”

This volume also contains an autobiographical essay in which the author recounts a lifetime of strange experiences that very early on aroused his curiosity about the paranormal.

"Beautifully written and most fascinating."
Colin Wilson

About the Author

Richard Howard was born in April 1943 in Twickenham, in the county of Middlesex, England. Among the strongest influences in his life has been symphonic music, which he discovered at the age of 11, especially the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, Gustav Mahler, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Allan Pettersson, and Alan Hovhaness, whose several hundred works he has catalogued. [A complete transcript of his 1983 interview with Hovhaness can be found at www.hovhaness.com where there is also a link to the catalogue of works.] His earliest literary interest was a fascination with the world conjured by Lewis Carroll, an interest that grew to include Edgar Allan Poe, Saki, M.R.James, A.N.L.Munby, Arthur Machen, Sarban, William Samson and the shorter prose works of Oscar Wilde, as well as Henry James’ novel, The Turn of the Screw.

He is the first to admit that his education and lifestyle have been unorthodox, which has given him an “outsider’s” view of the world from which he feels he has greatly benefited. He worked at Pinewood Film Studios as a sound technician in the 1960s and then at Twickenham Studios before leaving for Cornwall to write his first novel in 1970. This he later destroyed along with several short stories and a second novel, a remaining fragment of which appears in the present book as the short story The Prisoner.

In 1992 he joined The Actors’ Institute in London’s Islington where he completed The Mastery under the late Ray Evans and a considerable number of intensive acting workshops. He continued this interest with Tom Radcliffe’s London Group Theatre, culminating in a performance of Harold Pinter’s One for the Road, in which he played the part of Nicholas. Subsequently he completed a three year diploma course in counselling at The Pellin Institute in South West London and has done further training in hypnotherapy.

From an early age he has been interested in anything to do with the paranormal and has participated in several nocturnal investigations into ghostly phenomena. He is married, lives in Surrey, and is currently working on his first screenplay.

Excerpts