RALPH ADAMS CRAM

Ralph Adams Cram was born in Hampton Falls, New Jersey in1863. He would go on to become one of America’s premiere architects. He published multiple books on the subject, but his first was a collection of ghost stories titled Black Spirits and White (1895). I discovered him in elementary school in a Troll book of haunted house tales. They were actually retelling of older stories. It was titled ‘The Strange House’, but I later discovered it was a modernized version of ‘No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince’. I loved the story, even more so after reading Cram’s original version. The only negative in regards to Cram’s weird fiction is the fact that that there are too few of them.

1-“No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince” (1895) – A man from Boston visits a friend in Paris who had moved there recently after inheriting some property from an aunt to whom he was not close. The aunt was rumored to be involved in black magic and was a close associate to the diabolical Sar Torrevieja, ‘King of the Sorcerers’. Sar was angered that he was not left the house, so he placed a terrible curse on the property. The house was wedged between two newer buildings and had been the site of several strange things, such as the fact that Sar Torrevieja was always seen entering the house but never exiting despite there being only one way in or out. Once a year an odd collection of people would assemble inside creating strange music and sounds from within. The traveler from Boston finds his friend is not living in the house he inherited, and that it is said to be horribly haunted. The traveler agrees to accompany his friend and two other men in spending a night inside the empty old place. Many bizarre rooms lay within, and as night arrives the visitor comes into contact with an evil entity that is as viscous and powerful as it is alien. This is one of the all-time scariest haunted house stories!

2- “In Kropfsberg Keep” (1895) – Two adventurous young men travel to the ruins of a Keep reported to be haunted by a vicious entity. They ignore all warnings from the villagers and proclaim they will spend the night there and prove it is not haunted. They are very brash and headstrong. The Keep’s former lord, Count Albert hung himself in his great-great-grandfather’s suit of armor in his bedroom of the tower. He did so while all the revelers he invited to the house for a night of debauchery died in the dance hall below in a fire he set. There was so much fear of the place no one ever went to retrieve The Counts body. They just let it stay hanging in his room untouched. Eventually the body vanished. The boys’ night in the keep is not uneventful.

3-“The White Villa” (1895) – Two men traveling abroad miss the last train after sightseeing around some ruins. The only place they can stay the night is in a white villa that is nearly a ruin itself. During the night one of them cannot sleep and is subjected to strange sounds and movements. When he is finally able to call out to awaken his friend, he is found in a pool of blood on the floor that is not his own.

4- “Sister Maddalena” (1895) – Sta Catarina is an old Carmelite convent that has become the home of a wealthy Cavaliere. The ghost of a beautiful, young nun appears to people upon their first visit and then does not reappear. She always says the same thing to the visitors. “I cannot sleep!” she says with a mournful look. Her history is a sad, dark tale of forbidden love, and the price she paid for pursuing it.

5- “Notre Dame des Eaux” (1895) – A woman falls asleep in an old church cathedral and is left there unnoticed when it is locked up for the night. As darkness and a storm descend upon it, she is confronted by a horrible entity that must once have been the mentally disturbed admirer of hers who disappeared years before. She is forced to use the only weapon she has to try and hold it at bay until dawn arrives.

6-“The Dead Valley” (1895) – Two boys encounter a strange valley while traveling back from buying a puppy in the foothills of Hallsberg. The valley is filled with thick mist and a loud cry of some unseen thing. The dog dies after they emerge from the valley, and the two boys become deathly sick. Months later, after the narrator recovers, he finds his friend, who has also been sick, has no memory of the events of that night. When the narrator returns to the site during daylight hours, he finds a disturbing, surreal scene in the valley. Lovecraft himself wrote about his appreciation for this tale.