REVIEWED BY J. F. NORRIS:


IRINA KARLOVA – Dreadful Hollow. Hurst & Blackett, UK, hardcover, 1942. Vanguard Press, US, hardcover, 1942. Reprint paperbacks include: Dell #125, 1946; Paperback Library 53-860, 1965; 2nd pr., 64-030, 1968.

   This gothic supernatural novel with detective novel elements wavers between genuinely creepy and outrageous self-parody. At the time I was reading it I wondered if Karlova is a pseudonym for some better known writer. The name seems influenced by Universal horror movie characters and actors. I later learned that I was correct.

IRINA KARLOVA Dreadful Hollow

   The author’s real name is Helen Mary Clamp (sometimes noted as H.M. Clamp), and she was extremely prolific throughout her lifetime. In addition to writing three supernatural novels using the Karlova pen name, she wrote over 60 novels from main stream to romance to adventure under her given name.

   Using yet another pseudonym (Olivia Leigh) she wrote a few more romances and eleven literary biographies on historical figures such as Nell Gwynn, Charles II of Spain and Louis XV. Her writing career lasted from 1925 to 1970.

   Dreadful Hollow seems to be influenced by those Universal monster movies I mentioned earlier. It certainly seems to be a bit of a coincidence that those films with all the Eastern European atmosphere and characters should share such a similarity with this book written several years after those films were popular.

   It is peopled with Hungarian gypsies, a mysterious countess of either Czech or Hungarian descent, and a stuffed werewolf, and the dread vampire legend looms large over the story.

IRINA KARLOVA Dreadful Hollow

   Although it does borrow a framework from the detective novel in that the two narrators do some digging up of clues and interview servants and neighbors, it really is nothing more than a pulpy, over-the-top horror novel with all the usual HIBK trappings of the neo-Gothic novel.

   The major difference is that whereas most of those books are pale imitations of a Gothic novel, Karlova’s book is indeed a true Gothic. She does very well with all the Radcliffian elements – emphasis on dreary landscapes and decaying households, a real femme fatale, a ninny of a heroine who suspects she is losing her mind, and genuine supernatural beings and activity.

   As I read I also noted that the structure of the novel was probably inspired by Stoker’s Dracula, with the first person narrative journal entries of young Dr. Clyde (who seems to have escaped from the pages of a pulp magazine like Speed Detective — he speaks in an entirely American wiseacre slang) interspersed with the third person limited sections focusing on Jillian Dare, the young girl hired to act as a companion to an ancient crone.

   The book is unintentionally funny and the mystery is, sadly, to a modern reader, rather obvious from the opening chapters. When young Countess Vera arrives on the scene, any reader who hasn’t instantly figured out the mystery has probably never seen a vampire movie in his or her lifetime.

IRINA KARLOVA Dreadful Hollow

   That isn’t to say the book is not without its deliciously gruesome surprises. There is a disappearance of a young boy that isn’t fully explained until the final pages, for instance. I have to confess that I was alternately raising my eyebrows, gasping and laughing in the final pages which really do get rather wild and bizarre for a book of this era.

   I am sure that even most jaded contemporary reader will find something thrilling in Dreadful Hollow. They certainly don’t write them like this anymore.

   A side note: Some additional research turned up several articles on the internet which mention the fairly recent discovery of William Faulkner’s screen adaptation of Dreadful Hollow.

   Apparently the find happened sometime in 2001 by his daughter who turned the script over to Lee Caplin, Faulkner’s literary executor. Caplin also happens to be a film producer and was toying with the idea of making the movie. Here’s a link to the news story I found from 2007.

   And there is also some mention of the discovery of the script in a article back in the March 2009 issue of The Faulkner Journal: “The Unsleeping Cabal: Faulkner’s fevered vampires and the other South.”

   But now in 2010 it seems the whole thing as been scrapped. There is no info on the movie on Lee Caplin’s website for his Picture Entertainment outfit and nothing noted on his page at IMDB — a source I find generally reliable about films in pre- and post-production.

Irina Karlova’s supernatural mysteries:

      Dreadful Hollow. Hurst & Blackett, 1942.
      The Empty House. Hurst & Blackett, 1944.
      Broomstick. Hurst & Blackett, 1946.