Episode 24: 'The House on the Marsh' by Frederick Cowles
Frederick Cowles remains a somewhat overlooked figure in the realm of supernatural fiction. A writer on folklore and history, as well as a writer of children's stories, Cowles nevertheless produced an impressive number of horror and ghost stories that were widely collected in 1930s anthologies of such, and would periodically surface in 1970s anthologies of the same. As an author, Cowles appears to have taken a good deal of inspiration from M.R. James both in subject matter (ecclesiastical hauntings, cursed objects, black magic dabblers) and title formulation ( The Horror of Abbot's Grange can't fail to bring to mind James' Treasure of Abbot Thomas ; like James he has a story called, simply, Rats ). In plot The House on the Marsh umistakably harkens back to James' Lost Hearts . This is merely to make an observation (of course, nearly all writers of supernatural short stories of his era were paying a debt to M.R. James!), not to disparage Cowles. Indeed, ...