First published in the US in 1988 and in the UK in 1990, The Wine-Dark
Sea contains eight unsettling stories that explore protagonists' fears
and desires, at once illogical and terrifying, and culminate in a
disturbing and enigmatic ending. Aickman's 'strange stories' (his
preferred term for them) are a subtle exploration of psychological
displacement and paranoia; his characters ordinary people that are
gradually drawn into the darker recesses of their own minds. For fans of
the horror genre, Robert Aickman is a must read.
The Wine-Dark Sea
The Trains
Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen
Growing Boys
The Fetch
The Inner Room
Never Visit Venice
Into the Wood
Robert Fordyce Aickman was born in 1914 in London. In 1951, he published
his first ghost stories in a volume called We Are the Dark, written in
conjunction with Elizabeth Jane Howard, then went on to publish eleven
further volumes of horror stories, two fantasy novels and two volumes of
autobiography. Dubbed 'the supreme master of the supernatural', he won a
World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award for his short fiction, and
also edited the first eight volumes of The Fontana Book of Great Ghost
Stories. Aside from his writing, Aickman was passionate about
preserving British canals and founded the Inland Waterways Association
in 1946. He died in February 1981.
Reece Shearsmith is a talented actor and writer. He is most famous for
co-writing and starring in the award-winning The League of Gentlemen,
along with Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson. In 2009,
Shearsmith and Pemberton won Best New Comedy at the 2009 British Comedy
Awards for Psychoville.
Reece Shearsmith has just finished filming Ben Wheatley's horror A
Field in England, out in July 2013.
