Very rare ghost story, perhaps related to the famed ‘Frankenstein contest.'

[Ghost story] / [Anonymous]. Anecdote related by Mr. Steiger to Lord Mahon. [Middle Hill]: [Middle Hill Press], [c. 1837-1863 (see below)]. 8vo [16.9 x 10.4 cm], 3 pp., [1] p. blank verso. Disbound, no doubt from an original composite volume from Middle Hill collecting items from the press (typical for shorter Middle Hill Press items). Small fold to bottom corner of first leaf, laid paper watermarked “1837.”
 
Very rare (1 U.S. copy, Grolier Club) first and only edition of this intriguing ghost story printed at the Middle Hill Press of the eccentric bibliomaniac Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), likely reproducing a letter or manuscript at one time in his collection. The (very) short story, which as far as I know is unmentioned in the bibliography of ghost or horror stories, is presented simply as an “Anecdote related by Mr. Steiger to Lord Mahon,” but perhaps should be connected to the work of John Polidori (1795-1821), Lord Byron’s personal physician who participated the celebrated ghost-story contest held in the summer of 1816 at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva among Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Shelley, a contest which famously was won by Mary Shelley with a tale that would evolve into her epoch-making Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).
 
The first line of the Anecdote reads, “Mr. Steiger, (Nephew to the Avoyer Steiger, who distinguished himself by his opposition to the French, when they seized Berne) being in the Army, was once quartered in a Country Town, of which the name has been forgotten, but where he procured excellent private lodgings at a singularly small expence” (p. 1). This detail recalls Polidori’s Ernestus Berchtold; or, The Modern Oedipus: A Tale (1819), which grew from his contribution to the Villa Diodati ghost-story contest, and in which the title character joined up with “the venerable Steiguer” (Niklaus Friedrich von Steiger [1729-1799]) in his unsuccessful defense of Berne at the Battle of Grauholz (1798) (34 ff.). It would be hard to take as a coincidence the use of Steiger as a plot device in two separate horror stories. (Polidori is known to have inquired about the recent local history of Bernese Alps while traveling there in late 1816 [Macdonald, pp. 109-10].)
 
The quite simple, clipped prose of the Anecdote is also much like that used by Polidori both in Ernestus Berchtold and in his novella The Vampyre (1819), a work originally attributed in print to Lord Byron but in fact expanded by Polidori from Bryon’s 1816 Villa Diodati contest story as later printed as “A Fragment” in Byron’s collection Mazeppa, A Poem (1819). It is unclear to me if the “nephew Steiger” of the Anecdote is a real person or an invented character, and it is also unclear which “Lord Mahon” is supposed to have related the tale. Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope (1753-1816), who studied science in Geneva and invented a new sort of iron printing press, is perhaps the best candidate. Further research is required to elucidate these connections.
 
The Anecdote itself treats the haunting of Steiger’s rented apartment by an unseen ghost who can be heard walking back and forth, who moves chairs, unlocks the bureau, plays the pianoforte, draws back the bed-curtains, etc. No examination by investigators – even pulling up the floorboards – reveals a rational source of these disturbances. Steiger falls ill without explanation. Locals tell him that the rooms formerly were occupied by a murderer who later committed suicide there. Steiger leaves for other accommodations, recovers his health, but soon returns because he finds “his new Lodgings much more expensive, and much less pleasant than his old ones” (p. 3). This proves to be a foolish decision, for the ghost quickly returns breathes in Steiger’s face while he is sleeping. Steiger then leaves forever and no resolution is given.
 
“Phillipps was one of the greatest (and perhaps the most voracious) of all book and manuscript collectors” (Tanselle, “Preface,” in Holzenberg, p. xi), and beginning in 1822 his delightful, often bizarre Middle Hill Press produced hundreds of items of true literary, bibliographic, antiquarian, local-historical, and genealogical importance, all the while mixing letterpress with experimental lithographic, anastatic and photographic techniques. Phillipps also used his press to handle business needs of the estate (e.g., blank forms), to engage in local squabbles and political disputes, and to print items of all sorts in very small batches for his own amusement or for informal distribution to friends (or enemies) of his choosing. The Anecdote related by Mr. Steiger to Lord Mahon no doubt was printed in very small numbers.
 
This item is not dated, but the paper carries the watermark “1837.” H. P. Kraus cites a proof copy with annotations suggesting a printing date of 1863 (Kraus, 105/106). The matter is unresolved.
 
OCLC locates examples of the Anecdote at the Grolier Club, British Library, and Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.
 
*E. Holzenberg, The Middle Hill Press: A Checklist of the Horblit Collection, p. 124, no. 448; H. P. Kraus, Special Subject Bulletin, No. 5: A Catalogue of Publications Printed at the Middle Hill Press, 1819-1872; D. L. Macdonald, Poor Polidori: A Critical Biography of the Author of The Vampyre.