2013 Reprint Cover
Sleep No More is a 1948 horror and Ghost Story anthology by author LTC Rolt. Focused on Rolt's love of history and engineering, all the stories fit into the "antiquarian horror" genre (in the same style as Montague Rhodes James) via setting each one in some sort of historical or industrial setting within Britain, from lone manor houses, to railway tunnels, to iron foundries and hidden Welsh valleys. Many of the stories rely on a Nothing Is Scarier approach with Unseen Evil lurking around the corner, as the various characteres are consumed by a sense of dread which slowly erodes their Stiff Upper Lip mentalities.
The stories are in order:
- "The Mine": miners recount the supernatural hauntings within the "Hell's Mouth" mine.
- "The Cat Returns": A honeymooning couple finds themselves stranded at a haunted manor with a mysterious owner.
- "Bosworth Summit Pound": a canal boater dives into the tragic and supernatural deaths of Mary Grimsden and John Lofthouse.
- "New Corner": an automobile raceway is cursed with a string of accidents after a new bank in the track disturbs a site of the super natural.
- "Cwm Garon": an isolated and picturesque Welsh village hides a dark secret.
- "A Visitor at Ashcombe": a historian describes the ill-fated attempts to settle into Ashcombe Manor by a Mr. and Mrs. Bingley.
- "The Garside Fell Disaster": a railway man on the fictional Carlisle railway line, manning a lonely signal box outside the Garside Fell tunnel sees signs of doom and is unable to prevent a deadly train wreck.
- "World's End": visions of their future death haunt patrons of a rural inn.
- "Hear not my Steps": a skeptical ghost investigator becomes a victim of a violent specter.
- "Agony of Flame": a haunted Irish island traumatizes boaters who visit it.
- "Hawley Bank Foundry": a successful businessman attempts to reopen an abandoned forge during The Blitz, only to discover the site's dark secret.
- "Music hath Charms": two friends discover a supernatural music box hidden in a coastal manor once favored by smugglers.
- "The Shouting": a man explains his fear of the woods after encountering a band of roving children.
- "The House of Vengeance": a hiker traveling in Wales is forced by a storm to take shelter in a cursed farmhouse.
Tropes:
- Ankle Drag: Mr. Clegg is grabbed by his ankles by a supernatural force during "Hawley Bank Foundry." The force holding his ankles vanishes once he is able to turn on a light.
- Another Man's Terror: central to the events of "Hear not my Steps."
- Author Appeal: Considering the author's real life role in railway and canal preservation, the locale of many of the horror stories being along industrial settings plays into Rolt's advocacy for real life historic preservation.
- Creepy Child: the group of children in "The Shouting."
- Cool Car: all the automobiles present for the race in "New Corner." The car which ultimately ends up in a fatal crash is especially described as a beautiful machine, before it meets its untimely end.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: George Frimley plays this role in "Hawley Bank Foundry" constantly pushing his workers to continue working on reactivating the titular foundry despite the growing signs the grounds are haunted.
- Driven to Madness: In multiple stories in the anthology, but perhaps most prominently in "Hear not my Steps" where an encounter with a ghost causes the narrator to begin going crazy envisioning himself in the ghost's own past life and feeling a strong sense of depression overcome him, until he commits suicide.
- Dug Too Deep: Over the course of "The Mine" with the Long Barrow Mine eventually becoming known as "Hell's Mouth" due to the demonic forces that were disturbed by the mining.
- Femme Fatale: In "Music hath Charms" Count Henneze's mistress "La Pucelle" is implied to be this, with rumors suggesting that she ultimately betrayed the Count and stole his treasures. After James is corrupted by the music box his mistress Jeanne takes on the nickname of "La Pucelle" as well and her physical appearance certainly matches the trope.
- Foreseeing My Death: the experience of patrons at the inn during the events of "World's End."
- Gypsy Curse: Rebecca Grimsden is described to be of "gypsy stock" who "had she lived in an earlier period might have suffered death as a witch." In the events of "Bosworth Summit Pond" its implied that Rebecca used magic to force John Lofthouse to kill himself in the local canal.
- Have a Gay Old Time: modern readers might note this while reading the collection, with the word "queer" often used to denote "strange." Likewise the use of "gypsy" to refer to Romani characters through-out the book.
- Nuke 'em: the opening of "Agony of Flame" begins with the storyteller describing his wish to use an atom bomb to blow up a haunted island he encountered while in Ireland.
- Ominous Music Box Tune: The music box in "Music hath Charms" plays a discordant tune that causes the world around it to shake.
- Recycled Premise: the events in "The Garside Fell Disaster" bear a strong similarity to Charles Dickens' work The Signal-Man.
- Religion of Evil: the cult gatherings practiced by the villagers of Cwm Garon.
- Together in Death: After the death of John Lofthouse in "Bosworth Summit Pond" its suggested that John and Mary Grimsden reunited in death, with Mary's mother Rebecca claiming to have had a vision of the couple's afterlife nuptials.
