Episode 35: 'The Man With No Face' by G.M. Robins

 

As I continue to forage for forgotten gems I keep turning up authors about whom I know very little and about whom very little seems to be known. I can tell you that G.M. (Gertrude Minnie) Robins (11 July 1861 — 22 November 1939) wrote over fifty novels, many of which were published under her married name, Mrs Baille Reynolds, and that she wrote chiefly in the mystery, crime and gothic genres - including macabre, strange short stories like this one.

The Man With No Face appeared in her collection The Relations and What They Related, and tells the story of a wife who has a terrifying vision that leads her to fear for her husband's safety and her own sanity. But what does the vision mean? Is it a spectre from his past, or a premonition of his future?

Robins, who was active in the suffrage movement and a president of the Society of Women Journalists, writes a neat little story - a short, dark tale with a twist of the kind I appreciate and like to cover on the show sometimes.  For the recording I excised an outdated racial reference.

And if you like scary masks in stories, I have another one lined up...

Thanks for reading (and listening).

Jasper

 

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About the episode:

 

"The Man With No Face" by G.M. Robins, first collected in The Relations and What They Related, and Other Weird Tales, published by Hutchinson, 1902.

Credit where credit's due:

 

End theme music:  The Black Waltz by Scott Buckley | www.scottbuckley.com.au Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

 

Incidental music:   

 

Dopplerette by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3668-dopplerette
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Ominous by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4162-ominous
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

 

Sound effects:

All  sound effects sourced at Freesound.org

The recording was created using Audacity and BandLab. Podcast hosted by Anchor.