Ghostly doings are afoot in Edwardian London. Choking fog rolls over the treacle- black Thames. Braziers cast eerie shadows in grimy alleyways. Two sinister doctors hunch beside a dying fire in the appropriately-named Printer’s Devil Court, ‘a dark house, with steep, narrow stairs’. Having supped on a hearty repast of lamb stew and treacle pudding, the ‘shadowy’ Dr Walter reveals his dastardly scheme. ‘We are proposing… to bring the dead back to life.’ Our hero young Dr Meredith is appalled. This is diabolical! Derivative of Frankenstein! Not quite. The experiment results in a phantom rather than a monster.
No gothic element is spared in this tale. The author has surpassed herself. Phosphorescent women wander in misty graveyards and devilish medical experiments are conducted in dank hospital basements. I suspect this could have been written with an adaptation in mind to rival the success of Hill’s The Woman in Black, although Printer’s Devil Court is a lot shorter.
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