Sarban was the pen name of John William Wall (1910-1989), a senior British diplomat, who held several posts in the Foreign Office, most notably in the Middle East. As a writer he was an admirer of the subtle strange stories of Arthur Machen and Walter de la Mare and this is reflected in his three most significant books, published in 1951, 1953 and 1955 respectively.
‘Ringstones and Other Tales’ contains 5 stories, the title story being the longest and most significant. Its protagonist, Daphne is hired as a teacher to 3 boys at Ringstones Hall in Northumberland. The hall is named after a stone circle on the moors nearby. It is here that Daphne experiences strange survivals of ancient races, of which one of the children, in particular, seems to have some knowledge. She is rescued from what would have been an ominous end. Steeped in atmosphere it is a disconcerting story and deserves to be better known.
‘The sound of his Horn’ is a standalone short novel, in which an injured British soldier dreams of a dystopian future in which Germany have won the Second World War and are engaging in bizarre hunting involving genetically modified captives. The title refers to the old song ‘Do You Ken John Peel’, which uses the phrase “the sound of his horn”. In Sarban’s story this motif carries definitely unnerving connotations and in some ways this story anticipates the recent ‘Hunger Games’ novels.‘The Doll Maker’ is the longest story in Sarban’s third collection of three stories and is an excellent weird story in which the 18 year old Claire Lydgate falls under the spell of Niall Sterne (the doll maker) who introduces her to his fantastic miniature landscapes peopled with small figures. She realises that he is extracting blood from humans and essentially recreating them as miniature dolls. She escapes this fate and destroys the doll worlds. It sounds too bizarre to be credible, but Sarban’s genius is to lure the reader in to the weird world he has created, resulting in a thrilling climax to the novel.
A recent revival of interest in Sarban is due in no small measure to Yorkshire based Tartarus Press, who have republished all the contents of the three books published in his lifetime, plus additional stories, here first published, including a fourth volume ‘The Sacrifice and Other Stories’. ;
We are also indebted to Mark Valentinewho has published a richly illustrated biography of Sarban ‘Time, A Falconer: a Study of Sarban’ (2010) which sheds much new light on this author.
