The Reggie Oliver Project #0
The Reggie Oliver Project #0
The Reggie Oliver Project is something which hasn’t to my knowledge been done for Oliver’s work- a chronological reading and review of each of his 119 stories as published in the Tartatus Press editions as of 2025. Scroll to the bottom for a list of Oliver’s collections and links to each of the stories I’ve covered.
I discovered Reggie Oliver only relatively recently in my explorations of the Weird. A reference to him in Ghosts and Scholars, the online journal of MR James studies, led me down a fortuitous rabbit hole which ended up in me reading his eleven or so short story collections and short novels. Oliver is, perhaps, the leading writer in what I like to call the “English Weird” (or in a coinage by writer Simon Strantzas, the “Strange”). This, to me, is in the tradition of MR James, HR Wakefield and Robert Aickman. It melds with but isn’t wholly beholden to either the traditional English ghost story or the Lovecraftian/ Machenian conceptions of the Weird, and is informed by the neuroses of English culture.
The English Weird of Oliver presents the people in his imagined worlds almost as actors playing parts, their roles circumscribed by the implicit stage directions of class, gender and other sociocultural structures- and where going off script leaves the protagonists open to strange forces. This is very different from the Lovecraftian Weird, dealing more with the very English strangeness of academia, the class system, social convention and the shadow of the past.
James, of course wrote in the very early 20th century and Wakefield and Aickman followed soon after in the mid century. I spent my university years in the UK myself in the early 00s and one might think that the slightly fusty, mid century world of Oxbridge dons, clubbable gentlemen and strange dusty historical conundrums with clues in Latin or Greek would be thoroughly out of date. One would be wrong.
James himself stated that a good ghost story should be set contemporaneous to the writer rather than attempt to evoke a bygone era- but James himself wasn't above bending his own rules. Two of his finest stories deliberately incorporate well written historical pastiche- Mr Humphrey's Inheritance, which makes chilling use of what might seem a tedious 16th century homily; and Martin's Close which of all things features 17th century court recordings.
Reggie Oliver manages to summon up the mid to late 20th century Britain with its atmosphere of stale beer, smoky rooms, and rising damp along with the authentic voice of an upper class, but slightly down-at-heel, Etonian narrator that gives the ring of truth to so many of these stories. Oliver seems to be something of a polymath and he incorporates history (faux and real), theology, the fruits of a Classical education, and his own experiences as a repertory actor into his work.
His material ranges from traditional ghost stories, to Aickmanesque strange stories, to urban horror, but it never loses that air of authenticity. Seldom stepping into body horror or full-on violence Oliver’s work is a perfect updating of the Jamesian tradition.
Oliver's own engravings, like a cross between Gorey and Tenniel, which illustrate many of the stories are a bonus.
I was delighted to find that his latest collection This Haunted Heaven has just been released by Tartarus Press. Go get it. I have far too much on my reading list but moved this right to the top and it has inspired me to start the Reggie Oliver Project.
The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini and Other Strange Stories (Haunted River, 2003, reprinted by Tartarus Press, 2012)- 14 stories
Tiger in the Snow
Garden Gods
The Black Cathedral
The Boy in Green Velvet
The Golden Basilica
Death Mask
The Seventeenth Sister
The Copper Wig
The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini
The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler (Haunted River, 2005, reprinted by Tartarus Press 2013)- 16 stories
Masques of Satan: Twelve Tales and a Novella (Ash-Tree Press, 2007, reprinted by Tartarus Press 2016)- 13 stories
Mrs Midnight and Other Stories (Tartarus Press, 2011)- 12 stories
Flowers of the Sea, Thirteen Stories and Two Novellas (Tartarus Press, 2013)- 15 stories
Holidays from Hell, Fourteen Stories (Tartarus Press, 2017)- 14 stories
The Ballet of Dr Caligari, and Madder Mysteries (Tartarus Press, 2018)- 13 stories
A Maze for the Minotaur, and other strange stories (Tartarus Press, 2021)- 12 stories
This Haunted Heaven, ten strange stories (Tartarus Press, 2024)- 10 stories