Actress Helen Gahagan (memorable asShein the 1935 movie version of the Haggard novel) called
Alexander Woollcott “the best ghost story teller in the world…he can make your hair stand on
end.” As radio’sTown CrierWoollcott re-channeled a number of his favorite yarns of vanishing
ladies, phantom hitchhikers and hideous premonitions into a kind of mass-media folklore.
still show you with proper pride the sizable hand-bell which announced the Town Crier on the air.
This bell is all the introduction Alexander Woollcott needed or now needs. …Woollcott was a
storyteller who could himself ring the bell again and again.”
“ ‘He talks brilliantly, doesn’t he?’ said Mrs. [Otis] Skinner… ‘No wonder he writes so well, he’s
such a good listener.’
“He listened out of hunger not politeness. Once his curiosity was aroused, no fictional sleuth in
pursuing his quarry could be as undeviating as Woollcott in tracking down a story. He tapped
other minds to fill his own. What he had heard he did not forget. He had the memory of a
pachyderm, and a pianola’s loyalty to the same tunes.
“He seldom told one story at a time. His anecdotes came not singly but in dynasties. He
approached his main story through a labyrinth of lesser ones.
“In spite of its many attempts, the radio has produced no one who could touch Woollcott; no
one who had his sense of melodrama and suspense; no one who could bite the language with his
precision; no one who could tell a story with his skill.”
1929, reviewing books in various timeslots until 1933. His CBS show The Town Crier, which
began July 21, 1933, opened with the ringing of a bell and the cry, "Hear ye, hear ye!", followed by
Woollcott's literary observations punctuated with acidic anecdotes. Sponsored by Cream of Wheat
(1934-35) and Grainger Tobacco (1937-38), it continued until January 6, 1938. He had no
reservations about using this forum to promote his own books, and the continual mentions of his
While Rome Burns (1934) made it a bestseller.
“From 1929 to 1934 Woollcott wrote a column called "Shouts and Murmurs" for The New
Yorker.”
quarters, Alexander Woollcott walks eventfully into his studio…a lordly, owlish man, with a cane,
and piercing blue eyes behind spectacles.
“There, without a trace of nervousness, haste, or misgivings, he relaxes before a table
microphone, as much at ease as thought it were his own desk in his comfortable, book-lined
apartment overlooking the East River… [N]obody on the Town Crier’s ‘street corner’ has the
slightest idea what the thoroughly unpredictable Alexander Woollcott will say next.”
mouthing some words before a strange-looking contraption and wondering why the dickens I was
so nervous. Later I learned that the strange-looking contraption was just a microphone and that
my normally high-pitched voice had all the deep basso qualities of an old-time Shakespearean
trouper reciting ‘Hamlet’ for a square meal.”
The New Yorker, August 17, 1929] “…I still feel a deep
animosity toward a radio…the sound of one whining insistently in every home I visit…”
New York Evening Post, November 23, 1933] “These fifteen-minute meanderings
that Alexander Woollcott does twice a week should irritate us. The Woollcott voice is so richly
redolent of self-satisfaction. It is so frequently apparent from his tone of voice that even as he
speaks, he is telling himself silently, ‘There is a phrase nicely turned, a word selected with perfect
precision.’ Curiously, however, Mr. Woollcott’s phrases are so nicely turned and his words so
precisely chosen, that we find ourself readily sympathetic with Mr. Woollcott in his satisfaction.
We enjoy his niceties of speech as least as much as he does.
“Last night he told a magnificently gruesome story. We had heard the tale before, but by some
strange feat of memory in reverse, we had forgotten it. No few radio thrillers, in our times, have
come to our ears; but we recommend to kilocycle dramatists that they listen to Alexander
Woollcott regularly hereafter for the evenings when he chooses to make our hair stand on end.
Without benefit of spectacular sound effects, without any simulated toughness of voice, Mr.
Woollcott unfolds his story, adding immeasurably to its fantastic violence by the mincing
primness of his delivery.”
[New York Evening Post, December 11, 1933] “Alexander Woollcott is promising one of his
bloodcurdling stories. He is our favorite radio bloodcurdler.”
The New Yorker, July 6, 1929] “Story of the English lady who
disappeared from the Paris hotel during the World Exposition. It was discovered that she had
died of Black Plague and the hotel management and the police had kept her death a secret so that
the visitors to the city would not leave. Continued in issue of July 13.”
The New Yorker, September 19, 1931] “Tells of girl in Louisiana who had
the same dream three successive times. She dreamt that an elaborate hearse drawn by four black
horses drew up to her door, and the driver got out and said, ‘Are you ready?’ She remembered his
face long after because it was so hideous. The following winter she was up north shopping in a
department store. She was being sucked into the elevator with the crowd when she heard the
elevator man say, ‘Are you ready?’, and she backed away quickly when she saw his face. It was the
same as the man in the dream. She backed out, and the door shut in front of her. On that trip the
elevator fell and all the passengers were killed.”
one he penned in that mag a coupla issues ago…One night, it seems, a young girl living in a
country house down Louisiana way was startled out of her slumbers by the sound of carriage
wheels beneath her window…She looked out and saw a hearse drawn by four horses…The driver
with a prominent scar and other spooky features removed his high hat…He walked under her
window and said: ‘Are you ready?’…The girl became hysterical on her bed and later she looked out
the window to make sure she was dreaming…For three nights the same horrible dream visited
her…The following year she was in one of the New York department stores…She tried to enter an
elevator which already was crowded with shoppers…The elevator man looked at her—he had the
same scar, prominent beak and other ghostly features of that hearse-driver in her dreams!...He
said to her: ‘Are you ready?’…She backed away in terror and the door closed…She watched the
elevator indicator record the car’s descent. A few moments later she learned that on that trip the
elevator fell and all its occupants were killed!...What a facefuzz lifter that is!”
Cazalet, who lived in a collapsing manor-house in Kent. He could afford only a doddering couple,
and a single gardener, John Scripture, assisted by a lunatic father. When he arrived, he found his
friend away, so dined alone and went to bed. He awoke to see someone sitting in a patch of
moonlight, embroidering. The doctor thought it a queer gesture for a ghost, but got out of the
room. He met his returning host, and together they went to raid the icebox. They fell over the
headless body of the cook. Cazalet knew it was the work of the old lunatic. He was in the doctor’s
room, the cook’s head between his knees, plucking out the gray hairs one by one.”
is really a moving piece of folk-lore which has been going from mouth to mouth for a good many
years. Tells of the various letters received from all parts of the country telling him of its true
origin. But it is true that the tale is one that knows no creed or frontier. Mentions some of the
names and source of people who claim it as their own. One person took it very literally, and wrote
in the paper.”
motoring home late one night over a deserted highway, slowed down for a dangerous intersection,
and a girl dressed in evening apparel signaled him to stop, and asked him to take her back to the
city. He picked her up, and they drove to the city without further conversation after she gave him
her address. Swinging into the street she mentioned, he turned to speak to her, and found that she
was no longer in the car. He hadn’t stopped, so knew she hadn’t had a chance to get out. He pulled
up at the given number, and an old man invited him in. He told the young man it must be his
daughter. She had been killed a year ago at that place; it had happened almost every month.”
up an old book by Alexander Woollcott—‘Long, Long Ago’ is the title—and read again his weird
little story of the bride who dreamed repeatedly about a certain house and then one day,
honeymooning in France, came across the very house of dreams and when she approached it,
everyone fled in wild terror. Then comes the creepy punch line.
“Re-reading this tale, I recalled a session with a famed songwriter of the late 30s and early 40s—
Billy Hill, a giant of a man with a fleshy face and tiny eyes, among whose tune-hits had been ‘The
Last Round-Up.’ We were seated in the Stork club and Billy mumbled out the story which ran
something like this—after an introduction similar to the Woollcott account.
“The girl stopped the car, climbed over the fence, ran across the green field—and there it was—
just as in her dream—the purple house. Three times she knocked—knock, knock, knock. (I’m
trying to tell it as Billy told it in a slow, hesitant voice.) The door opened and she knew who would
be standing there—and he was. The tall old man with the long white beard. And as in her dream,
she asked ‘Where am I?’ This time it did not end as in the dream, for the old man with the long
white beard was still there and he said, ‘You are nowhere.’ The girl pleaded ‘Please—please tell
me. Who are you? What is this purple house? Why am I here?’ and the old man said: ‘No one is
here. This is a haunted house. For fifteen years, it has been haunted.’ And the girl whispered:
‘Haunted? By whom?’ The old man said: ‘By you!’
“That was the story told by Billy Hill—and I printed it some years before Woollcott’s book came
out with the version I read it over again the other night.
“At any rate, after I had printed this little ghost story, my mail was deluged with protests and
jeers by readers insisting that Hill’s tale was an old chestnut. They called my attention to a book
by Andre Maurois where it had appeared with slight variations—also, some wrote they had read it
in a book by Edwin C. Hill. Others said it was a familiar legend in France and in Germany. A bit
annoyed, I went on a search for Songwriter Hill and finally located him one night at 21.
“ ‘Why,’ I stormed, ‘did you hand me such an old yarn?’ and he stared at me out of his small,
glazed eyes and said simply ‘I haven’t seen you in a year.’ Puzzled, I reminded him, we had been
together only a week or so before. He repeated dully: ‘You’re mistaken. What is this story you’re
talking about?’
“So I told him and he said: ‘O, sure I know that one—but I’ve never told it to a living soul.’ I said:
‘You’re out of your mind—you told it to me last week.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve never told
it. How could I? I was the man with the long white beard. I married the girl.’
“I figured the songwriter had been pulling my leg—but good—and I walked away. Two days
later, I learned Hill had collapsed and was in the hospital—suffering a nervous breakdown. Weeks
later when he was discharged, I met him and again asked him about the story. He looked at me as
if I were batty. ‘How,’ he protested ‘could I ever have told you any such fantastic story—especially
about me being the man with the long white beard. It’s crazy—the whole thing is crazy.’
“Three weeks later, Songwriter Billy Hill was found dead in a hotel room in Boston.”
The Capital Times,
March 3, 1950] “ ‘Dear Sir: Some years ago I heard Alexander Woollcott on his radio program tell
about the most horrifying story he had ever read. He said it had such an adverse effect upon him
that he devoutly wished he had not done so. He gave the name of the story, hoping at the same
time that listeners would not read it for they would be sorry they did. I have never read the story
and have since forgotten its name. Do you remember what it is?—at the risk of making me and a
lot of other people miserable?’
“I never heard the late Alexander Woollcott broadcast, so I asked August Derleth, Sauk City
author and mystery story expert, about the horror story. He replies:
“ ‘Alexander Woollcott was accustomed to dealing in superlatives. He used to like fantasy and
horror, and himself contributed to a good substantial portion of the legend of horror tales.
“In his broadcast, which was certainly not the only one of its kind, he might have been referring
to a number of tales—‘Thurnley Abbey,’ by Perceval Landon; ‘The Rats in the Walls,’ by H. P.
Lovecraft—or even, and most likely, to a traditional tale which he himself wrote up, ‘The
Vanishing Lady,’ which was most currently reprinted in ‘Strange and Fantastic Stories,’ edited by
Joseph Margolies, but was originally published in Woollcott’s ‘While Rome Burns.’
“This is the curious and frightening story of a woman’s disappearance from a Paris hotel, and
was the essence of Marie Belloc-Lowndes’ novel ‘The End of Her Honeymoon’ (1913) and also in
later novel by Lawrence Rising entitled ‘She Who Was Helena Cass.’ He presented ‘The Vanishing
Lady,’ as he did his ‘Full Fathom Five,’ another horror short, as based on fact and simply recast or
retold these stories; and he was probably right, since Woollcott was not very original, and
whenever he did a puff job like this it was to praise some book with which something he did or
one of his friends was connected.’
“I’ve read ‘The Vanishing Lady,’ but without getting any creeps.”
Dunkirk Evening Observer, October 30, 1934] “Alexander
Woollcott, doter on misty folklore, once told about the ancient house at No 59 Washington
Square. Back in 1907, Will Irwin rented an entire floor and from the time he began writing there
he was obsessed with the feeling that somebody, or something, continually was watching him.
And then at 3 o’clock each morning, he’d awaken with an awful sensation of some clammy and
imminent horror. Didn’t see anything, but finally had to move to a hotel to save his nerves.
“Irwin loaned the apartment to James Hopper, another writer, and Hopper had identical
experiences. So did Samuel Hopkins Adams, who tried to sleep there two or three nights. Later,
two Boston women were given the key for the duration of their New York visit. But they fled the
house with the first visitation of the inexplicable terror.
“Not until several years afterward did the persons concerned in the mystery learn an additional
fact about the old house. Once, when Washington Square was a Potter’s Field and when a gallows
stood where the memorial arch stands now, No. 59 was the city morgue.”
Galveston Daily News, August 8, 1937] “And it was
Alexander Woollcott who retailed the yarn about the two women who stayed overnight in a
deserted house on Cape Cod. One of them saw a ghostly gentleman standing before the fireplace
during the moonlight hours of night and rose with the dawn to find bits of wet seaweed left by the
intruder. A New York scientist founds these bits to be fresh seaweed of a variety known only to the
African coast. Investigation disclosed that a son of the last tenants of the house had been
drowned…off the coast of Africa.”
[Uniontown Morning Herald, February 8, 1936] “Thanks to the reviving influences of
Alexander Woollcott and the movies, ghosts seem likely to come back into popular favor.”
[Kokomo Tribune, March 18, 1937] “Any Alexander Woollcott fan will tell you that the story of
the mysterious hitch-hiking ‘ghost of state road 31,’ who got into the papers this week, is old stuff.
The Town Crier has, upon several different occasions, told the tale over the air and has remarked
the curious habit it has of turning up in various parts of the country. As your correspondent
recalls Woollcott’s version, the ‘ghost’s’ name was Idea, the same name given the girl in Tuesday’s
U.P. dispatch from Indianapolis. Our private guess, without imputation, is that Charles Sullivan,
the young cigar salesman who reported the experience with ‘Ida’ near Columbus, Ind., is a good
Woollcott listener. And that the Indiana bureau of the U.P. is a good gullible bunch of boys.
October 30, 1929
the Kellogg Radio Town Crier, on the eve of Hallowe’en, makes your hair
stand on end with true tales of ghosts…”]
November 22, 1933
December 11, 1933
COLE, HILDA. “
JACOBS, HERBERT. “He Craves to Read World’s Most Horrifying Story!”The Capital Times(March 3,
1950).
Woollcott, Alexander. “Full Fathom Five.” (The New Yorker, June 22, 1929).
WOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “The Vanishing Lady.” (The New Yorker, July 6 and 13, 1929).
WOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “The Triple Warning.” (The New Yorker, September 19, 1931).
WOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “Moonlight Sonata.” (The New Yorker, October 3, 1931).
WOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “Postscript.” (The New Yorker, October 17, 1931).
WOOLLCOTT, ALEXANDER. “Thankfully Received.” (The New Yorker, November 14, 1931).
ZIEMER, GREGOR. “Friendly Voices in the Dark.”The Rotarian(January 1956).
The New York Evening Post.
Alexander Woollcott