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Episode 550 - The Shadow (Patreon)

Published:
2021-06-08 15:44:26
Imported:
2026-06
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We didn't ghost ya - YET! We're back with The Shadow by Edith Nesbit!

Special thanks to reader Rachel Ford - check out her new podcast FINDING ME AGAIN!

And if you want to grab this story and lots of other great weird, go to Oldstyle Tales Press!

Comments

Bret Kramer

Now you’re ready for Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Double Shadow” ;)

Andrew M. Reichart

I remember "Rachel Ford" from the Lovecraft days 😄

Ben A

I'm excited for the Colossus of Ylourgne! I hope you're scoring it as well, Chad. Your couple of recent tracks have been excellent (not to say the volumes of music before weren't!). And, Chad, since you asked, here’s the other half of what you heard about stature in the nineteenth century. The timing of maturation of growth in humans has not changed from the nineteenth century. If it did, this would be evident as part of a trend that we in anthropology study called secular change, which is when there are widespread differences in body shape that occur over generations. (Think of how Japanese or Korean populations are much taller on average now than they were a century ago due to changes in diet.) The bones of the pelvis (iliac crests), parts of the clavicles, and the bodies of the vertebrae don't fuse until the mid-20s to even early ("get ready for dying") 30s. This pattern hasn't changed in millennia. The additional bone growth is marginal, so most folks reach their final height by the early 20s. One difference of the 1800s and today, though, is that the median human in industrializing or industrialized societies does tend to have better nutrition (socioeconomic disparities, though, are an important caveat), and so achieves a taller stature. There's also the fun phenomenon of catch-up growth, where individuals can recover some lost growth as children or adolescents if their nutrition improves. These meant that living peoples tend to have opportunities to make up for slower growth as children, and generally are taller than their ancestors a couple of centuries ago.

Michael Cunliffe

For a moment, I thought you were going to cover the 1994 Alec Baldwin classic..

Ben Gilbert

You covered “The Tapestried Chamber” by Sir Walter Scott in Episode 185.

Steve

Woman that was a kid? That was Jenny Agutter of Logan's Run, An American Werewolf in London, Avengers (and Call the Midwife).

Tyler Huhn

Finally caught up after starting last October, and what a show to catch up on! The 'round the campfire' ending of Ms. Eastwich's story gave me chills. Have to thank you guys for introducing me to the wider contemporaries of HPL, as I was always dismissive of them due to how his work was handled by certain individuals. I managed to snag a copy of Clark Ashton Smith's The Abominations of Yondo, and can't wait to add more to my collection. Thanks for the creeps!

Sanjay Mathew

Railway Children 2: Children of the Corn Railway Children 2: Mission Berlin

Sanjay Mathew

YES! Outside the House is a straight up ghost story but it's presented incredibly Weirdly. There's a lot to say about the Great War and class oppression too.

Devin Morse

It's extra rewarding when ghost stories flesh out the characters before any spoopy stuff. You fellas did a great job of getting into the subtle deets (all reet, all reet). For another character-driven ghost story, though perhaps not as nuanced as The Shadow, I recommend "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" by Robert Smythe Hichens. It features a parrot medium, and Junji Ito adapted it into a horror manga.

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

I certainly did get some Ibsen Ghosts vibes from the story. They may or may not be there, but I felt them.

Ethan Cordray

I think you're right about the syphilis angle not really being in the story. Sure, there might be realistic problems (like STDs) that could be similar to the effects of the Shadow in this story, but the point of the story is not to just "symbolize" some particular real-world social problem. This is a Gothic story, playing by Gothic rules. The ghost is a ghost. That is, it's a deliberately unidentifiable, inexplicable phenomenon. Its whole point is that it *cannot* be explained away or solved by some particular technical method. It's a paranormal affliction that takes the deeper, inexpressible spiritual feelings of guilt, regret, and fear and gives them physical power to harm people. The very fact that they can never say exactly what it is, what it does, or why it exists is what makes it Weird and horrifying. You can't get rid of this ghost with penicillin.

Christine M

Aw yiss, I'm definitely going to pull out a version of this the next time it's ghost story hour with friends, and wrap it up by staring in horror over someone's shoulder. Should be even more fun than subtly giving the Ouija planchette a hard shove!

Chris Vinny

Chad, I realize you were likely just joking and are probably passingly familiar with Wilkie Collins, but he was a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens who pioneered the detective story. I mention it here because of a book that may be of interest to your audience called "Drood" written by Dan Simmons (of The Terror fame), in which the main character is Wilkie Collins and the story has a tie in to your show. This book occupies an interesting space in that it is squarely a (well researched) weird-historical-fiction novel with a very unreliable narrator. The impetus of the story is the train crash that Dickens survived which you talked about on the Signal Man episode - which sends Dickens off on a weird fiction adventure which we hear about from the opium addicted mouth of Wilkie Collins - which continues on through Dicken's death. I read this a long time ago and liked it at the time and figured some people here may too.

Ntrovert

I enjoyed this far more than I expected to. Part of it was Rachael’s reading; you both have very talented wives, and I really enjoy getting to hear them as part of the show. But I also enjoy a “ghost” story where the scare is kept off-stage and more implied than explicit. Sometimes it’s more fun to let it work on my imagination…

Mark Saunders

You did actually cover The Tapestried Chamber, it was episode 185.

Clint Page

Nine years ago, I was walking across the University of Georgia campus and accidentally happened into an old graveyard while listening to the HPLLP episodes on "At The Mountains Of Madness". While listening to this episode, I was halfway through my daily walk, almost a mile from my apartment when a rainstorm started with no warning. I listened to the last half of this episode trudging up a hill, soaked to the bone and dodging mud puddles. Memories, boys. I do it for the memories.

Nic Wassell

Having read the story this morning and re-listened to the podcast ep afterwards, I think there is a case to be made for Miss Eastwick being more than a passive observer of the 'haunting'. The framing situation sets up that Miss Eastwick is more than what she is seen as by those around her, by whom she is dismissed as a machine instead of someone with her own personality and desires. I think this could set up the idea that although on the surface she is forgiving and understanding, the shadow is the shadow cast over her own life by the actions of the married couple. That she could be subconsciously enacting the curse that she insists would be impossible. And I think the subconscious element would be important too - for me it is far more tragic if there is no-one who really did anything wrong, but just did things the way people do that end up hurting others without intention. And even though Miss Eastwick knows that the couple didn't do anything wrong, something is still inside her, hiding in shadows, wanting to punish. Her love for the husband keeps him from being targeted but unfortunately Mabel is not so fortunate. The prayer she utters at Mabel's bedside that proves all too prophetic is a nice piece of literary irony of course but it could also be a 'good' version of the curse in the only form that she can acknowledge to herself. I think it is the death of Mabel's daughter that makes me think this way as otherwise it is too much coincidence that after some 20 years, it is that night that the shadow comes for her, just after Miss Eastwick has seen her again, stirred up those old feelings and memories and told the very story of her parents' tragedy. I think unfortunately that moment of recognition by Miss Eastwick on the dance floor signed her death warrant. (Slightly more fatuously though, was I the only one who upon hearing the description of the figure melting and liquefying into a pool on the floor thought "oh no! T-1000!')