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Post by dem bones on Dec 17, 2011 14:28:10 GMT
Robert Westall (ed.) - Ghost Stories (Kingfisher, 2004, originally 1993) Graham Potts Illustrations by Sean Eckett
Franz Kafka - The Knock At The Manor Gate Gahan Wilson - Yesterday's Witch John Hynam - A Legion Marching By Charles Dickens - The Lawyer And The Ghost Anonymous (India) - The Ghost Who Was Afraid Of Being Bagged Psu Sung-Ling (Adapted by Vida Derry) - School For Ghosts Mary Williams - The Little Yellow Dog Kenneth Grahame - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn Alison Prince - The Lilies Ray Bradbury - The Emissary Ruth Manning-Sanders - John Pettigrew's Mirror Saki - Sredni Vashtar Philippa Pearce - Miss Mountain Guy de Maupassant - Was It A Dream? Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch - A Pair Of Hands Robert Westall - The Boys' Toilets John Gordon - Left In The Dark W. W. Jacobs - The Monkey's Paw M. R. James - Lost Hearts Perceval Landon - Thurnley Abbey Jean Richardson - Not At Home Joan Marsh - The Shepherd's Dog Blurb: Haunting! Shiver and shake at these spine-chilling tales of ghosts and ghouls from top authors. Guaranteed to give you goose bumps! Landed this in a Ruislip Manor charity shop yesterday and pleased to have done so! It's one from a series of 'Red Hot Reads'— other titles include Supernatural, Horror (details to follow), Fantasy (selected by Diana Wynne Jones), Science Fiction, Mystery, Adventure, Detective, Ballet, Horse & Pony - lots. "Ages 9-14" advises the back cover, but any book containing the grisly likes of Thurnley Abbey, Lost Hearts, The Monkey's Paw, Maupassant's beautiful, haunting Was It A Dream ? and a bogshed of terror contender from editor Westall himself surely holds appeal for children of all ages. Good to see some familiar names from the Fontana Ghost/ Horror & Frighteners years among the contributors to this and the other macabre titles. Companion 'Red Hot Read' to the above and William Mayne's Supernatural Stories. Not seen a copy, but looks like a decent introduction to the genre on the strength of the vintage content. Susan Price - Horror Stories (Kingfisher, 1995, 2005) Les Edwards Illustrations by Harry Horse
Algernon Blackwood - The Kit-Bag Stephen King - Here There Be Tygers E. F. Benson - The Room In The Tower Philip K. Dick - Beyond Lies The Wub Susan Price - Feeding The Dog Nicholas Fisk - Teddies Rule, OK? Eleanor Farjoen - Grendel The Monster Leon Garfield - A Grave Misunderstanding Charles Dickens - Captain Murderer Joan Aiken - Something Guy de Maupassant - The Hand Ellen Emerson White - The Boy Next Door Traditional [Catherine Sinclair] - The Murder Hole Terry Jones & Michael Palin - The Famous Five Go Pillaging John Steinbeck - The Affar At 7 Rue De --- Vivien Alcock - A Change Of Aunts Edgar Allan Poe - The Cask Of Amontillado Traditional - The Pear Drum Philippa Pearce - The Dog Got Them Saki - Gabriel-Ernest Jan Mark - Nule Jerome K. Jerome - The Dancing Partner Margaret Bingley - The Ring T. H. White - The Troll
AcknowledgementsBlurb: Spine-chilling!
A bloodthirsty troll, a sinister supernatural dog, murderous toys and empty coffins .... here are terrifying tales that will linger in your imagination.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 22, 2011 9:03:54 GMT
Toilets Of Terror"Come inside, come inside - they've been waiting for you ....." Robert Westall - The Boy's Toilet: "Some boys aren't bad .... if you can get them away from their friends." "Why bother," said Vicky, I'll settle for my poster of Duran Duran ..." Now here's a creepy one. The pupils of Spilsby Girls Grammer are in for a shock when a burst water-main means they are obliged to relocate on the oik side of town in the disused school on Harvard Road. The Boy's School has stood vacant since it was shut down in 1957 on account of a tragedy involving an unpopular boy. One by one, Rebeccah and her classmates develop a morbid fear of the toilets. It's not so much the obscene graffiti, most of it directed at someone called 'Barnett Boko', more that the place is haunted. No sooner has a girl entered the one cubicle still to retain a bolt on its door, than she hears angry male voices and the heavy tread of boots on concrete. Seven chains flush in unison. Youths unseen stick the head of another down the bowl. Eventually, once he tires of tormenting them, the ghost of the murdered pupil appears - mummified in bog-roll. In life, he was Barry Stebbing, beaten to death by brutal headmaster Barnett, and he can't rest until the sadistic bastard, now long retired, is made to pay for his crime. Anyhow, it got me to thinking that if ever there was a suitably unsavoury subject for our attention, it has to be ghost and horror stories set in public lavatories! I can think of a half a dozen - two by Stephen King, one each by Ramsey Campbell, Charles Black, Caroline Callaghan and Rick Codger - but there have to be more? Am also on the lookout for ghost & horror stories in which pervy voyeurs and just plain common or garden nosey parkers feature prominently. The one that comes unpleasantly to mind is Ralph Milne Fairlie's The House Of Ecstasy, after which my brain won't go.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 4, 2012 17:54:32 GMT
Westall came up with an impressively eclectic table of contents for Ghost Stories, and I'm enjoying the book so far. The stories range from Kafka's Kafkaesque The Knock at the Manor Gate to Dickens' lighthearted The Lawyer and Ghost , with detours to India for The Ghost Who Was Afraid of Being Bagged and China for School for Ghosts. I particularly liked the last of these, which concerns a young scholar who takes an accommodating approach to the ghosts haunting his house. Looking back over Grahame's Pan-themed The Piper at the Gates of Dawn brought back fond memories of Wind in the Willows, even though I tended to skip that chapter when I was a kid (great album, though). If I were choosing an excerpt from the book, I'd go for the chapter about the Wild Wood--it's much scarier (as vividly demonstrated by Terry Jones). I'm looking forward to the stories by Prince, Pearce, and Marsh, as well as Westall's intriguingly titled tale.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 6, 2012 12:02:50 GMT
I'm looking forward to the stories by Prince, Pearce, and Marsh, as well as Westall's intriguingly titled tale. I read the first page of Marsh’s The Shepherd’s Dog and realized that I’d already read it in Mary Danby’s The Green Ghost and Other Stories--I hate that when it happens. Prince’s The Lilies is up there with her most twisted, and that’s saying a lot. I can’t improve on Dem’s summary, but I will quote the following passage to give a sense of the story’s style: I sat back on my heels. It was nearly dark. “Shouldn’t we put a marker in for him?” I said.
My mother looked faintly puzzled. “But he is fertilizer, child,” she said. So we put the tools away in the shed and went indoors for a mug of cocoa before bed. Westall selected it from a Prince collection, The Ghost Within (1984). I suppose I’ll have to buy that to go next to Haunted Children on my bookshelf. Robert Westall - The Boy's Toilet: "Some boys aren't bad .... if you can get them away from their friends." "Why bother," said Vicky, I'll settle for my poster of Duran Duran ..." Now here's a creepy one. The pupils of Spilsby Girls Grammer are in for a shock when a burst water-main means they are obliged to relocate on the oik side of town in the disused school on Harvard Road. The Boy's School has stood vacant since it was shut down in 1957 on account of a tragedy involving an unpopular boy. One by one, Rebeccah and her classmates develop a morbid fear of the toilets. It's not so much the obscene graffiti, most of it directed at someone called 'Barnett Boko', more that the place is haunted. No sooner has a girl entered the one cubicle still to retain a bolt on its door, than she hears angry male voices and the heavy tread of boots on concrete. Seven chains flush in unison. Youths unseen stick the head of another down the bowl. Eventually, once he tires of tormenting them, the ghost of the murdered pupil appears - mummified in bog-roll. In life he was Barry Stebbing, beaten to death by brutal headmaster Barnett, and he can't rest until the sadistic bastard, now long retired, is made to pay for his crime. One of the high points of the collection for me. It's impressively edgy for an anthology aimed at young people. I should check out more of Westall's work.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 8, 2020 9:21:40 GMT
Robert Westall [ed.] - Spinetinglers: Ghoulish Ghost Stories (Kingfisher, 2007) Picked this up a few weeks back at the market. Was only afterward I realised it is a repackaged Ghost Stories.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 10, 2021 10:38:17 GMT
Another Terrify the small market find from Sunday morning gone, a companion volume to Robert Westall's Ghost Stories/ Spinetinglers cut from much the same cloth. The less familiar reprints include a direct to Fashion Victim item and a Death - well, insanity by Dessert item. Each story illustrated by Adrian Reynolds. Helen Cresswell [ed.] - Mystery Stories (Kingfisher, 1996) George Smith Joan Aiken - The Green Arches Eleanor Farjeon - The Girl Who Kissed the Peach Tree Paul Ernst - The Thing in the Pond Paul Jennings - Smart Ice Cream Ann Pilling - The Pelican Carl Jung - The Tower Ray Bradbury - The Scythe Thomas Wright - A Sea Above the Sky Ambrose Bierce - A Vine on a House Diana Wynne Jones - The Master Sir Thomas Malory - King Arthur: How King Arthur Commanded to Cast His Sword Excalibur Into the Water, and How He was Delivered to Ladies in a Barge Vivien Alcock - The Whisperer Ursula Le Guin - Texts Helen Cresswell - The Sky Sea Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire Dino Buzzati - The Bewitched Jacket La giacca stregataBlurb: Expect the Unexpected!
Strange figures dance in the moonlight, an ancient vine hides a terrible secret and fish swim in the sky .... extraordinary events occur in this eerily compelling collection
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Post by dem bones on Aug 10, 2021 18:36:19 GMT
Paul Jennings - Smart Ice Cream: (Unreal! Eight Surprising Stories, 1983). Mr. Peppi sells 'Happy ice cream' from a van parked outside the school gates. Often, he'll give a free sample to unhappy kids like Pimples Peterson and Dopey Dadian, which rankles something terrible with the official school bully and #1 top swot, especially as a dollop or two helps overcome their ills. Carl Jung - The Tower: Bollingen, winter of 1923-4. Shortly after completion of the first tower of his Swiss castle, the psychiatrist dreamt his home was under siege from Wotan's army of departed souls. Vivien Alcock - The Whisperer: (Ghostly Companions, 1984). "Let me in, please let me in." Mary was ostracised by her big brother of account of she was a nuisance and broke everything she touched. Now her ghost begs to be allowed to join in a family game of catch. Really mawkish.
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