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Post by dem bones on Nov 16, 2007 16:29:01 GMT
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - The 3rd Pan Book Of Horror Stories (Pan, 1962) W. Francis Phillipps Algernon Blackwood - The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York Charles Birkin - The Last Night Creeps Neville Kilvington - Meshes of Doom Horrors Michael Joseph - The Yellow Cat Monsters Charles Lloyd - Special Diet Horrors N. Dennett - Unburied Bane Horrors Edgar Jepson & John Gawsworth - The Shifting Growth Lord Dunsany - The Two Bottles of Relish Powers Of Darkness William Faulkner - A Rose for Emily Charles Lloyd - A Poem and a Bunch of Roses Horrors Hans Heinz Ewers - The Execution of Damiens Frank Belknap Long - The Ocean Leech Charles Birkin - An Eye for an Eye Shivers William Hope Hodgson - The Whistling Room Signey Carroll - A Note for the Milkman Edgar Allan Poe - The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar Elliott O’Donnell - The Mystery of the Locked Room Horrors Raymond Ferrers Broad - Dr Fawcett’s Experiment Horrors Edith Olivier - The Caretaker’s Story Monsters John Ratho - Lovers’ Meeting Horrors HG Wells - The Cone As mentioned (to the point of tedium, I'm afraid) on the original forum, Van Thal borrowed heavily from Charles Lloyd (Birkin)'s Creeps series (1932-6) for #3. Apart from the more high profile contributors (H. R. Wakefield, Elliott O'Donnell, Tod Robbins and Birkin), little is known of the Creeps crew, and few of them saw publication outside of the series. It's not improbable that many of these unfamiliar names were pseudonyms and Steve gave us food for thought with the following: I love Unburied Bane, the howling wind and witches and all manner of evil things screaming around the ancient, isolated farmhouse at night - certainly the stuff of childhood nightmares. And brilliantly done - you can almost smell the dank, fetid mustiness of the house. The skull in the parlour reminds me of the story of Dickie o'Tunstead in that book about legends & mysteries of the Peak District that I was reading.
I don't know if it's significant, but Dennett's story and Michael Joseph's The Yellow Cat contain almost identical lines;
"...the scarlet thread of my brain stretched to breaking point." (Unburied Bane)
"...the scarlet thread of his brain was being stretched to breaking point." (The Yellow Cat)
The same writer? What do you think? Among the letters in Ghosts & Scholars #18 (1994), we find the following educated guess from Richard Dalby: I think it might be quite likely that Eleanor Scott contributed stories to Philip Allan's Creeps series under another undiscovered pseudonym (the style of 'N. Dennett' is not dissimilar), or several pseudonyms? Coincidentally, the managing director of Ernest Benn Ltd who published Randalls Round - A.D. Marks - became a director of Philip Allan & Co. Ltd in 1930. The Creeps series was launched in 1932 by the three company editors, Allan, Marks, and Charles L. Birkin. Although the latter was the main (unacknowledged) editor of the series, A.D. Marks may well have encouraged Eleanor Scott to contribute several new horror stories under various names. Sadly this conjecture is impossible to prove now after sixty years. Eleanor Scott is probably best known to ghost story fans as the author of the aforementioned Randall's Round, a great favourite of, among others, Hugh Lamb who revived the title story, At Simmel Acres Farm and Celui-La for his own excellent anthologies during the 'seventies.
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Post by Dr Terror on Nov 16, 2007 19:37:05 GMT
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Post by dem bones on Nov 16, 2007 20:32:09 GMT
Yes, he was. Published an all time favourite of mine (and pulphack's, I believe) too, E. S. Turner's Boys Will Be Boys: the Story of Sweeney Todd, Deadwood Dick, Sexton Blake, Billy Bunter, Dick Barton, et al (1946), a celebration of gothic novels, penny dreadfuls, popular fiction and comics.
I'm not sure how much fiction he wrote but The Yellow Cat first appeared in Hutchinson's Mystery Magazine and Dennis Wheatley included A Glass Of Milk in his Century Of Horror (1936)
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Post by redbrain on Nov 18, 2007 23:20:52 GMT
I always though the Unburied Bane by M Dennett was an excellent story. In fact, back in the 60s, Des Lewis and I included it in a list of stories we sent to Panther Books as a potential anthology. Panther Books never responded.
At one time I wondered whether the unknown N Dennett might be someone's "revision client" - in the sense that Lovecraft ghost wrote stories for "revision clients".
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Post by redbrain on Nov 18, 2007 23:29:51 GMT
Make that "thought" not "though"
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Post by dem bones on Nov 18, 2007 23:50:09 GMT
Welcome redbrain!
I'm not sure we'll ever discover who half the Creeps contributors were. By the fifth or sixth book they were advertising for readers to send in their own work and, judging by the endearingly dreadful likes of Paul Erroll's The Woollen Helmet in Nightmares, at least some took up the challenge.
I wonder who Sidney Carroll was/is? As far as I've been able to work out, his is the only story that doesn't seem to have been published prior to its inclusion in Pan Horror #3?
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Post by Steve on Nov 19, 2007 2:09:54 GMT
I wonder who Sidney Carroll was/is? As far as I've been able to work out, his is the only story that doesn't seem to have been published prior to its inclusion in Pan Horror #3? I think I can shed a bit of light on this one for you. "A Note for the Milkman" was first published in Today's Woman, of all places, in 1950. Later collected in Timeless Stories For Today And Tomorrow (Bantam, 1952), edited by Ray Bradbury. Carroll has another story, "None Before Me", in the same book. Now there was a Hollywood screenwriter named Sidney Carroll (1913-1988), quite well thought of in his day - won a few awards and nominated for an oscar for his work on the Paul Newman film, The Hustler. Also did a fair bit of TV work, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents and even an episode of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected ("Stranger in Town"). I assume it's the same chap. Trivia fans may be further interested to hear that he was father of the novelist Jonathan Carroll (who incidentally is the half-brother of minimalist composer Steve Reich but I digress...), author of Outside the Dog Museum, which won the British Fantasy Award, and the collection of short stories, The Panic Hand, which won him a Bram Stoker.
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Post by redbrain on Nov 22, 2007 13:24:04 GMT
Welcome redbrain! I'm not sure we'll ever discover who half the Creeps contributors were. By the fifth or sixth book they were advertising for readers to send in their own work and, judging by the endearingly dreadful likes of Paul Erroll's The Woollen Helmet in Nightmares, at least some took up the challenge. Thank you, janitor of lunacy. I believe that, when "The Exorcist" was released, a janitor was said to be going bananas mopping up the vomit. Was that you? This is a bit off topic, but as to the Creeps series, I used to own a copy of The Creeps Omnibus, and recall the stories being generally pretty poor. One that sticks in my mind (and/or throat) was by Elliot O'Donnell (I think) and concerned a table possessed by a malevolent spirit. The piece of furniture went on the rampage and crushed a poor pussy cat. That was about it!
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Post by dem bones on Nov 22, 2007 22:19:11 GMT
This is a bit off topic, but as to the Creeps series, I used to own a copy of The Creeps Omnibus, and recall the stories being generally pretty poor. One that sticks in my mind (and/or throat) was by Elliot O'Donnell (I think) and concerned a table possessed by a malevolent spirit. The piece of furniture went on the rampage and crushed a poor pussy cat. That was about it! Sacriledge! the only criticism I will hear of The Creeps Omnibus is that it's so lazy. All that Birkin's done is lump the first three volumes together rather than attempt a "best of" the entire series. incredibly, the Elliott O'Donnell story you mention, the Ghost Table, earned him the cover of Weird Tales in February 1928. The crushed cat's name was "Miggles" by the way. I just thought I ought to mention it. It might be important. For more rambling on about how great the Creeps, Not At Night and Thrills series' are, see: gruesomecargoes.proboards52.com/Thank you, janitor of lunacy. I believe that, when "The Exorcist" was released, a janitor was said to be going bananas mopping up the vomit. Was that you? Yes. I was getting in some intensive training for Vault.
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Post by redbrain on Nov 23, 2007 17:45:58 GMT
This is a bit off topic, but as to the Creeps series, I used to own a copy of The Creeps Omnibus, and recall the stories being generally pretty poor. One that sticks in my mind (and/or throat) was by Elliot O'Donnell (I think) and concerned a table possessed by a malevolent spirit. The piece of furniture went on the rampage and crushed a poor pussy cat. That was about it! Sacriledge! the only criticism I will hear of The Creeps Omnibus is that it's so lazy. All that Birkin's done is lump the first three volumes together rather than attempt a "best of" the entire series. incredibly, the Elliott O'Donnell story you mention, the Ghost Table, earned him the cover of Weird Tales in February 1928. The crushed cat's name was "Miggles" by the way. I just thought I ought to mention it. It might be important. For more rambling on about how great the Creeps, Not At Night and Thrills series' are, see: gruesomecargoes.proboards52.com/Thank you, janitor of lunacy. I believe that, when "The Exorcist" was released, a janitor was said to be going bananas mopping up the vomit. Was that you? Yes. I was getting in some intensive training for Vault. Poor Miggles! It may well be that I'm more distressed to read of cats being killed than humans. (Let's face it - if you don't like reading about humans dieing horribly - this site is the wrong place for you.) The narrator of Stoker's "The Squaw" always seemed to me to take an unreasonable attitude. I hope your intensive training got you into the right space for the Vault.
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Post by weirdmonger on Nov 23, 2007 18:10:01 GMT
Poor Miggles! It may well be that I'm more distressed to read of cats being killed than humans. (Let's face it - if you don't like reading about humans dieing horribly - this site is the wrong place for you.) That's an incredibly interesting point. Still, for me, I'm not distressed to read fiction about humans or cats being killed horrifically.
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Post by redbrain on Nov 24, 2007 13:58:03 GMT
Poor Miggles! It may well be that I'm more distressed to read of cats being killed than humans. (Let's face it - if you don't like reading about humans dieing horribly - this site is the wrong place for you.) That's an incredibly interesting point. Still, for me, I'm not distressed to read fiction about humans or cats being killed horrifically. Ah, but Des, you are not an ailurophile like me!
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Post by dem bones on Nov 24, 2007 14:27:52 GMT
Ah, but Des, you are not an ailurophile like me! Blimey, this board is in a bit of a pickle. We've got people who have sex with dead corpses and everything!
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Post by redbrain on Nov 24, 2007 14:36:39 GMT
Ah, but Des, you are not an ailurophile like me! Blimey, this board is in a bit of a pickle. We've got people who have sex with dead corpses and everything! Tsk! An ailurophile is a cat lover. (And not in a sexual way!!!!)
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Post by dem bones on Nov 24, 2007 14:50:57 GMT
Oh! I'm such a big silly sometimes!
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