The Sulfuro Bhangarh Manuscripts

The Sulfuro Bhangarh Manuscripts (2011) is an epistolary horror novel by Thomas Curtis.
The unexplained events at the centre of the book are revealed through a series of newspaper articles, letters and log book entries, which are expounded upon and explained by the occult anthropologist, Professor Richard Marsh.
The narrative initially concerns two nineteenth century maritime disasters, namely the sinking of a Portuguese slaving galleon the Sulfuro, and the disappearance of a British postal ship the Bhangarh.
This latter event results in the heroine of the novel being stranded on an island in the Indian Ocean which is home to a mysterious and malevolent entity and this is where the second half of the book takes place.
Character Names
Most of the character names in the novel are references to either historical or fictional figures or else they foreshadow the novel’s eventual anagnorisis. Some examples are:
*Manuel Alvarado - Pedro de Alvarado was a Spanish conquistador infamous for his extreme cruelty.
*Benjamin Brigs - Benjamin S. Briggs was the captain of the Mary Celeste, an American brigantine discovered mysteriously abandoned in 1872.
*Richard Albertson - Albert G. Richardson was the first mate of the Mary Celeste.
*Cathal LeFanu - Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of nineteenth century gothic mysteries many of which concerned either real or hallucinatory demons.
*Augustus Feldner - August Feldner is the narrator of Mark Twain’s supernatural story No 44.
*Sarah Morelle - The Invention of Morel (1940) is an island-based science fiction novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares which deals with existentialism and virtual reality.
*Diego Escarabajo - Escarabajo is Spanish for beetle, a creature which Morelle compares to the entity.
*Peter Boitard - Pierre Boitard was a 19th century French geologist who wrote Paris Before Man.
*RMS Bhangarh - Bhangarh is a ruined city in Rajasthan thought to be the most haunted place in India.
*Richard Marsh - The real Richard Marsh was the author of a supernatural thriller called The Beetle: A mystery (1897) which concerned a shape shifting creature masquerading as a man.

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