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Post by jamesdoig on May 19, 2009 6:52:39 GMT
These are American, but does anyone have a series list? From the Paperback Library Horror series. The spines are numbered 7 and 8. Both from 1967
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Post by dem bones on May 19, 2009 9:06:37 GMT
Not a series list as such, but i've shifted your post into this section for an attempted listing of the Paperback Library titles through the sixties into the early 'seventies. You might be able to work out the ones that belong to the series from the 1966-67 titles? The NEL 1970 edition That Victor Kalim painting is absolutely wasted on 'Simon Majors' The Druid Stone which i've not been able to finish in three attempts (fourth coming soon). It returned from the grave in a NEL edition with an awful cover in 1970, and - i don't say this lightly - may well be the worst NEL i've ever (almost) read. Pierce Nace's Eat Them Alive i won't hear a bad word against. 'Etienne Aubin's much-loved Dracula & The Virgins of the Undead may be horribly written, tedious, and generally terrible, but at least it's entertainingly boring. The Druid Stone is just boring boring. There's a big difference!
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Post by severance on May 19, 2009 15:02:35 GMT
According to Curt's excellent site there were nine titles in this series - Black Magic Novels of Terror - all of them on Dem's bibliography thread:
Charles Birkin (ed.) - The Witch-Baiter (1967) Charles Birkin (ed.) - The Haunted Dancers (1967) Charity Blackstock - Witches' Sabbath (1967) Peter Saxon - The Torturer (1967) Peter Saxon - Scream And Scream Again (1967) Peter Saxon - The Darkest Night (1967) W. A. Ballinger - Drums of the Dark Gods (1967) Elliott O'Donnell - The Dead Riders (1967) Rollo Ahmed - The Black Art (1968)
There should be reviews for most of these on this site and the old site (I remember doing the excellent 'Drums of the Dark Gods' for instance) - and of course Curt's done them all on Groovy Age of Horror.
I must get back to Peter Saxon soon...
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Post by jamesdoig on May 19, 2009 23:18:27 GMT
Great! I've just noticed a whole board dedicated to Paperback Library that I completely missed before. I see Nicholson's Fingers of Fear was reprinred by them - didn't know that.
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Post by timothymayer on Oct 24, 2009 20:22:01 GMT
Yep. That's how I was able to read FINGERS OF FEAR. And it comes with the obligatory heroine running in fear on the cover.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 25, 2009 11:23:47 GMT
"Beautiful Gray Ormesby must save her love and her life in the cursed house!" It doesn't really tell the whole story, does it? The Paperback Library "Gothic" series is brilliant. Whoever was choosing the reprints certainly knew what they were about and it's amazing what you can pass off as a Romance title with a little ingenuity (the word 'love' and a pretty girl in a long dress running from an unseen evil as is most often the case here; something like The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward would have set them an interesting challenge). You just know that if they were in operation today we'd see some very unlikely horror titles repackaged as 'Paperback Library Paranormal Romance Library'. i'm not suggesting Florence Stevenson's "epic saga of natural hatred and unnatural love" Household (Leisure Books, 1989) is quite as excessive in troweling on the horrors as Fingers Of Fear, but it's heart in the right place. Spanning close on 150 years it takes in witchcraft, lycanthrope, vampirism, the odd rotting corpse hanging in chains, at least two family curses, overnight obesity .... first time i read it, it hit the spot, so fingers crossed it won't disappoint when our paths cross again shortly. And then there is always Arabella Randolph's The Vampire Tapes (Futura 1978) ..... Which reminds me. Does anyone have a listing of Robert Hadji's "Thirteen Worst Horror Novels" from Rod Serling's Twilight Zone magazine?
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