As a fan of occult detectives, one such character I wanted to get into is Josh Reynolds‘ Charles St. Cyprian, the Royal Occultist. I was frustrated that most of his many stories have been scattered over various collections and anthologies over the years, many out of print.
So was thrilled when 18th Wall Publications in 2020 started a new series of collections, the Casefiles of the Royal Occultist, with the first volume out in early 2020 and the second volume promised for the end of 2020.
And then it never came out in print. Oh, it came out in ebook format, but I don’t do those.
There was some kind of “technical issue” that prevented the print-on-demand edition. It took them almost three years to address the problem, but the second volume, Casefiles of the Royal Occultist, Vol. 2: Hochmuller’s Hound, finally came out in early 2023. So recently I was able to get and read it.
So for those late to the party, Charles St. Cyprian is described as a kind of cross of Rudolph Valentino with Bertie Wooster. A sort of “idle rich” type and fastidious dresser. He is assisted by his apprentice, Ebe Gallowglass, who is kind of an Emma Peel-type. She is a young lady originally from Egypt, with hints of a mysterious past.
The series takes its inspiration from such occult detectives as Jules de Grandin, John Thunstone, and others. The role of “Royal Occultist” has been around since the reign of Elizabeth I and started with Dr. John Dee, who was followed by others, including Thomas Carnacki. I’ve posted on Carnacki before. He is pretty much the same here, but with him being a Royal Occultist and William Hope Hodgson as someone who wrote up stories about him. His home at 427 Cheyne Walk is actually the residence of whoever holds that office.
The world of St. Cyprian does include other literary figures, as you’ll hear of a few mentioned, but none appear.
St. Cyprian meets Carnacki in 1913 and soon starts assisting before taking over the role towards the end of WWI. Having Carnacki die in the war seems a nod to the same happening to Hodgson. His stories run through at least 1926. There are a handful of “Royal Occultist” stories set before and after his term that hopefully will also be collected.
In looking over the list of Royal Occultist stories on Reynolds’ website, it’s not clear how these stories were picked, as some are aimed at gathering all the stories with different characters. While they are arranged by internal chronology in this collection, they run throughout his career.
We get 13 stories, including all four dealing with the titular hound, the first encounters with Dr. Ptolemy, and the first story with vampire hunter Baron Palman Vordenburg, who has since gone on to his own series of stories, which I have never read. And there are a few more. Most are reprints, and a few are originals. We do get a page listing their original appearances. Timewise, the stories range from WWI to the mid-1920s.
We kick things off with the first encounter with the Hound, which occurred during WWI. Both Carnacki and St. Cyprian are there, working with a group of soldiers to face various supernatural threats. The two come out of the encounter okay, but the Hound and his creator are thought dead. Reynolds has written three more stories of the Hound, using the Frankenstein monster movie titles as inspiration, with other characters appearing in them as well.
The next story is set shortly after the war and finds St. Cyprian plagued by a dream. He and Gallowglass meet up with the soldiers he had worked with, led by a Sgt. Ogden, whom we met in the previous story. Using Carnacki’s old electric pentacle, he is able to address the cause of the problem, though not without loss.
St. Cyprian is approached by a government official about a more personal problem: His soon-to-be son-in-law seems to be involved with a secret society, the Strix Society. He fears there’s more to the group than it seems, which is led by a woman named Helen Strix. St. Cyprian sees there is more to it as well and takes the case. Can he unravel who (or what) she is and put a stop to things?
In search for a missing woman, St. Cyprian is going after Dr. Ptolemy, as he has heard some sinister thing about him. He is trying to create new “vessels” for the ancient gods to inhabit. Dr. Ptolemy will return in subsequent stories, like the one inspired by Conan Doyle‘s Hound of the Baskervilles.
Another tale has St. Cyprian and Gallowglass in Alberta hunting down a wendigo with the help of Joel Jenkins‘ elderly Lone Crow, whom I have posted on. Baron Vordenberg helps with tracking down and ending a vampire in another long tale. We learn that he was pretty much the equivalent of St. Cyprian with the Austro-Hungarian empire. And it sounds like there are similar in France, Germany, and Czarist Russia.
Overall, this was an enjoyable set of stories. There are a few returning characters, such as Philip Wendy-Smythe, and Nadja Highmill. A few stories mention a new Ministry, the Ministry of Esoteric Observation. Will they be a threat to the position of Royal Occultist?
I am enjoying this series. The stories are inventive, and you see ideas pulled from folk magic, H.P. Lovecraft, and more. I look forward to the next one. But I have no idea when or what title it will have.
I really hope we don’t have to wait years for it. Honestly, I think they should get another volume out in late 2023. But that’s me. Looking over the existing stories, there are currently enough for at least four volumes at this time.
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