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Post by dem bones on Oct 19, 2007 18:06:41 GMT
Peter Haining - The Evil People: Being 13 Strange & Terrible Accounts Of Witchcraft, Black Magic & Voodoo (Leslie Frewin, 1968) Cover: Pauline Ellison Introduction - Peter Haining
William Harrison Ainsworth - Nocturnal Meeting H. P. Lovecraft - The Peabody Heritage W. B. Seabrook - The Witches Vengeance Dennis Wheatley - The Snake August Derleth - Prince Borgia’s Mass Algernon Blackwood - Secret Worship Francis Prevot - The Devil Worshipper Basil Copper - Archives Of The Dead Robert Bloch - Mother Of Serpents Arthur J. Burks - Cerimarie Shirley Jackson - The Witch Ray Bradbury - Homecoming Edgar Allan Poe - Never Bet The Devil Your HeadPicked this up on a recent excursion to the Eastcote bookshop in darkest Middx. Not his greatest, but how can you resist a sixties or seventies Haining? This seems to be the first publication of Basil Copper's black magic classic. Brilliant PH photo too!
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Post by dem bones on Apr 2, 2010 19:07:12 GMT
includes Arthur J. Burks - Cerimarie: Her movements were the acme of obscenity ... When Charlie Hepner is found skinned alive in suspicious circumstances (just seeing if you're awake), the soldiers as one recognise this savagery as the work of Voodoo Priest Cerimarie Sam, "the greatest monster in all Haiti". Rodney Davis, a close friend of the murdered man, requests that he be set loose in the jungle to bring in Cerimarie. His Commanding Officer, desperate to put a stop to Cerimarie's capers, sanctions what is almost certainly a suicide mission. To perfect his native look, Davis goes for a makeover so extreme even Lon Chaney would reject as too masochistic, but his efforts eventually pay off when he locates the Voodoo Priest and his Serpent people who are fully indulged in a human sacrifice cannibal feast orgy at the time ... Almost certainly abridged and doubtless unpublishable today, but The Evil People is worth having for this grisly classic alone. Francis Prevot - The Devil Worshipper: Turner, a student of black magic, acquires a copy of the super-rare De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas from a dealer in nefarious items. As he studies the volume, he reflects on the fate of its previous owner, recently deceased; somehow every bone in Rahling's body had been ground to powder, though his skin remained unblemished. And speaking of skin, the book is bound in it, writhing as though it were suffering the most unendurable agonies ..... Shirley Jackson - The Witch: Irritating four year old on a train with his mother and baby sister. Keeps pointing at things. "look there's a cow!" "look, there's a witch". Much to his mom's relief, a genial stranger distracts him with a nice true story about his own little sister. Well, it starts off nice anyway; it gets kind of gruesome once he's warmed to his theme. Robert Bloch - Mother Of Serpents: The life and crimes of a pauper who rises to the Presidency of Haiti through foul means and fouler. His mother is a Black Priestess in the Serpent Cult, not a position guaranteed to impress his high class friends at Port au Prince so best to distance her altogether. Mother is hurt. She gets out her voodoo candles and .... John Holmes illustration for the Everest edition August Derleth - Prince Borgia's Mass: Satanists are stealing the bodies of the dead and using them in their blasphemous ceremonies. Cesare Borgia and his men sneak up on them as they celebrate Walpurgis night and, at his command, all nine participants are crucified upside down. Together with his Magi, Rene, he performs his own variation on the Black Mass. He and Rene are more adept practitioners of the Black Mass than their captives and summon Beelzebub who reduces the sorry sect to ashes. Dennis Wheatley – The Snake: Carstairs amuses Jackson and the narrator with the story behind his rags to riches success, all of it due, he believes, to black magic. In South Africa, he’d worked as book keeper to Isaacson, a despicable loan shark who’d one day crossed swords with Umtunga, the local witch-doctor over an outstanding debt (after penalties, Umtunga owed him thirty women). Unimpressed at this rudeness, Umtunga promptly performed a cockerel sacrifice on the usurer’s doorstep, and that night the loan shark died horribly. His widow then ordered Carstairs to call in the debt. Through more luck than judgment, he survives a were-mamba attack and decides it’s time to cut a deal with the voodoo guy at Mrs. Isaacson’s expense. He’s never looked back. Basil Copper - Archives Of The Dead: Linnet Ridge, a lavish mansion in remotest Surrey. Robert Trumble, failed poet, takes the position of live-in secretary to Dr. Ramon Fabri, a globally acknowledged authority on matters esoteric. It's a cushy, well paid number if you can overlook the sinister guests, the screams in the night, the Satanic altar and the fact that several famous visitors have the nasty habit of dying horribly shortly after their audience with Fabri. Trumble's curiosity gets the better of him.
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Post by Steve on Apr 3, 2010 9:03:51 GMT
You see, this is the curse of Vault - well, one of them anyway - you think you know a particular book, having read and enjoyed it umpteen years ago, then someone reviews it here and you realise that you can't remember half of what's in the thing so back on the 'to read' pile it goes. It's relentless, I tell you.
Of the ones I do remember, the Basil Copper story will probably stay with me only slightly less long than "Amber Print" (which, as I think I've mentioned before, will doubtless haunt me for the remainder of my days). The Wheatley and the Blackwood I've re-read fairly recently so can probably quite safely give them a miss next time round. The Poe and the Ainsworth (if it's the one I'm thinking of - ghostly black mass in an old abbey?) I remember as being pleasant enough but neither is particularly screaming for a rematch (I think Haining claims to have rescued the Poe story from relative obscurity, doesn't he? Not sure how true that is?). "Homecoming" I quite enjoyed at the time but recently had a go at From the Dust Returned, which collects all Bradbury's Elliott family stories, and couldn't really get on with it. All well and good but what's worrying me is that the likes of "Cerimarie", "The Devil Worshipper", "Prince Borgia’s Mass" and "The Witch" aren't ringing any bells yet all sound unforgetable.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 3, 2010 12:33:37 GMT
far be it from me to introduce a "there's an up side to this", but ... well, there's an up side to this. it's a curse for sure, but it's also a blessing. The recent mentions of Don Glut and Peter Saxon, for example, have made me itchy for a reunion with The Torturer, Vampire's Moon and the New Frankenstein's. on the odd occasion i go back to Vault Mk. I, i find several of the "masterpieces" i was so keen to inflict on everyone four years ago are now a complete blur to me and then i start wondering what i'd make of them now? it's right 'a book is for life' stuff.
As to The Evil People: Cerimarie did nothing for me when i first read it some time in the 'nineties, and i can only wonder what i was on because it's pure Not At Night gold. The Devil Worshipper and The Witch don't seem to have made any impression either. Probably not "great", but i like Mother Of Serpents and (particularly) Prince Borgia's Mass for their unfussiness. i tend to prefer Derleth's earliest stories (the kind E. F. Bleiler dismisses as "crude horror": and he's right) over his later, perhaps more accomplished efforts. Haven't been back to the Ainsworth (another mental blank: think it's an extract from The Lancashire Witches?)
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Post by helrunar on Apr 8, 2018 2:49:04 GMT
Great photo of Haining in this thread. Glad it survived the PhilistiaF&ckit apocalypse.
H.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 8, 2018 11:51:20 GMT
Great photo of Haining in this thread. Glad it survived the PhilistiaF&ckit apocalypse. H. It didn't. Am still mopping up after those chiseling, never to be forgiven, time-annihilating bastards. Just replaced the images on the Richard De'ath thread - which didn't take quite so long as yesterday's salvage operation: restoring the CC Cenf gallery.
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