Pan Horror & Co. 1950-69

[dem bones]

Pan Horror, Supernatural & Black Magic in the Fifties & Sixties

Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - Told In The Dark (1950)
Mrs Belloc Lowdnes - The Lodger (1950)
Anon (ed.) - Tales of the Supernatural (1951)
E. T. A. Hoffman - Eight Tales (1952)
M. R. James - Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary (1953)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - A Book Of Strange Stories (1954)
Walter De La Mare - The Return (1954)
M. R. James - More Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary (1955)
Cynthia Asquith (ed.) - Second Ghost Book (1956)
Cynthia Asquith (ed.) - Third Ghost Book (1957)
Jens Bjerre - The Last Cannibals (1958) *non-fiction*
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1959)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 2nd Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1960)
Corbett Thigpen & Hervey Cleckley - The Three Faces Of Eve (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock - Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV (1961)
Garry Hogg - Cannibalism And Human Sacrifice (1961, 1962, 1973) *non-fiction*
Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1961, 1968)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 3rd Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1962)
Colin Wilson - Ritual In The Dark (1962)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 4th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1963)
John Burke - The Man Who Finally Died (1963)
Algernon Blackwood - The Dance Of Death (1963, 1973)
Alfred Hitchcock - My Favourites In Suspense Pt. 1 (1963)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 5th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1964)
Alfred Hitchcock - Stories For Late At Night Pt. 1 (1964)
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange (1964)
Douglas Hunt - Exploring The Occult (1964) *non-fiction*
Ray Russell - The Case Against Satan (1965)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 6th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1965)
Alfred Hitchcock - Stories For Late At Night Pt. 2 (1965)
John Burke - Dr. Terror's House Of Horror (1965)
Eric Maple - The Dark World Of Witches (1965) *non-fiction*
Ornella Volta (ed.) - Roger Vadim Presents The Vampire (1965, 1971, 1972)
Phyllis Brett Young - Undine (1965)
Kurt Singer (ed.) - The World's Greatest Stories of the Occult (1965) *non-fiction*
Alfred Hitchcock - My Favourites In Suspense Pt. 2 (1965)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 7th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1966)
Alfred Hitchcock (ed.) - Stories My Mother Never Told Me Part 1 (1966)
John Burke - Hammer Horror Film Omnibus Vol 1 (1966)
John Burke (ed.) - Tales Of Unease (1966)
Peter Curtis - The Witches (1966)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 8th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1967)
John Burke - Hammer Horror Film Omnibus Vol 2 (1967)
Eric Maple - The Realm Of Ghosts (1967) *non-fiction*
Richard Cavendish - The Black Arts (1967, 1969) *non-fiction*
Alfred Hitchcock (ed.) - Stories My Mother Never Told Me Part 2 (1967)
Thomas Love Peacock Nightmare Abbey & Crotchet Castle (1967)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 9th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1968)
Ronald Bassett - Witchfinder General (1968)
Russell Braddon - Committal Chamber (1968)
James Turner (ed.) - The Fourth Ghost Book (1968)
Alfred Hitchcock - Stories Not For The Nervous Pt. 1 (1968)
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey (1968)
Herbert Van Thal (ed.) - 10th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1969)
John Burke (ed.) - More Tales Of Unease (1969)
Alfred Hitchcock - Stories Not For The Nervous Pt. 2 (1969)

[allthingshorror]

Tales of the Supernatural HAS to be a Van Thal antho. It SCREAMS him...

[dem bones]

The 'fifty one edition is actually a reprint of what was probably Pans first ever macabre title. Tales of the Supernatural was originally published in 1945, again two years later, and includes stories by Bulwer-Lytton, Maupassant, Stevenson, Pushkin, William Austin, Hugh Walpole, M. R. James and Tom Hood. The only other pre-fifties titles i've been able to find are Mrs Belloc Lowdnes' The Lodger (1947, 1950) and Poe's Tales Of Mystery (1949), but if anyone has better luck please let us know!

As ever, i'm compelled to at least mention a few titles which almost certainly contain no horror, supernatural or black magic content whatsoever and clearly do not belong on this list yet just as obviously do! I mean, who's gonna turn their nose up at Gypsy Rose Lee's welcome if unexpected foray into pulse-stopping crime fiction, The Striptease Murders ("Strangled with their own G strings") from 1959 or Hal Dresser's The Man Who Wrote Dirty Books (1967)?

A superb resource for Pan info, and one i've plundered shamelessly this last hour to bolster the original list, is the PAN Paperback Collectors Website. As it's a celebration of "The First Twenty One Years", there's a self-imposed ceiling of 1967, so probably best we concentrate our efforts on the 1970-1989 period as Mr. Tikit & colleagues have covered everything else!

[lobolover]

Curious about the Hoffman . I have to actualy read Sandman or Mines of Falun, but anything else I dont know that there is something genre worthy .

You may probably know this, but I never had, read or saw any Pan Book and was actualy oblivious to their existence till very recently .

[justin]

Rosemary's Baby, Ira Levin, 1968
Witchfinder General, Donald Bassett? (in the attic somewhere...)
A Hank of Hair, Charlotte Jay, 1964
The Case Against Satan, Ray Russell, 1965

[dem bones]

Can't believe i overlooked Rosemary's Baby

Witchfinder General and Case Against Satan were already on there, though. Witchfinder ... is credited to Ronald Bassett, though it's been said this was a pseudonym used by Herbert Jenkins - not sure if there's any truth in that, mind.

They certainly liked their books of the film. Here's some more from the 'seventies to spruce up an otherwise monumentally dull post.

[thecoffinflies]

But the only one of those six that's a "book of the film" is Dr T's House...

Or rather I don't know about Magic, but the cover says Look for the film which would imply the book came first.
Rosemary's Baby was a book first, and so was The Entity.

The opening credits of the movie And Now The Screaming Starts say quite clearly "based on the book Pengriffen, by David Case" - so that's an edition re-titled to go with the new movie.

And my copy of Witchfinder General is copyright 1966, two years before the movie. It lists "two other great historical novels by Ronald Bassett" - The Pompeians, and The Carthaginians. So unless Herbert Jenkins wrote those, too...?