Pseudopod 420: Lost In The Fogby
J.D. Beresford“Lost In The Fog” first appeared in the collection
NINETEEN IMPRESSIONS (1918).
John Davys Beresford was a British novelist now remembered for his early science fiction like
THE HAMPDENSHIRE WONDER (1911), but who wrote supernatural and macabre stories occasionally. He was affected by infantile paralysis, which left him partially disabled. Beresford also contributed to numerous publications – in addition to being a book reviewer for
“The Manchester Guardian”, and was offered the editorship of the pacifist magazine
“Peace News” but declined because he felt he “would be a bad editor”. George Orwell described him as a “natural novelist”, whose strength was his ability to take seriously the problems of ordinary people.
Elisabeth Beresford, children’s writer and creator of
The Wombles, was his daughter.
Your reader –
Ant Bacon – appeared on Pseudopod recently reading
Penance by Liz Colter.
“‘Burden,’ I muttered. ‘Where in God’s name may Burden be?’
I found something unutterably sad in the sound of that name.
I felt lonely and pitiable.
It was bitterly cold, and the mist was thicker than ever.
I could hear no one. There could be neither porter nor station-master here. Evidently this station was nothing more than a ‘Halt,’ on what I presently discovered was only a single line. I was alone in the dreadful stillness. The world had ceased to exist for me. And then I stumbled upon the little box of a waiting-room, and in it was a man who crouched over a smouldering fire.
When I went in, he looked quickly over his shoulder with the tense alertness of one who fears an ambush. But when he saw me, his expression changed instantly to relief, and to something that was like appeal.
‘What brings you here?’ he asked with a weak smile ”
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