Peter Haining – Nightfrights

[dem bones]

Peter Haining (ed.) – Nightfrights: An Anthology Of Macabre Tales That Have Terrified Three Generations (Peacock, 1975: Gollancz, 1972)

David Smee

Foreword – Peter Haining

1. Tales That Frightened Your Grandparents

Robert Louis Stevenson – The Bodysnatcher
Wilkie Collins – The Story Of The Terribly Strange Bed
Edgar Allan Poe – The Tell-Tale Heart
J. S. Le Fanu – Madam Crowl’s Ghost
Andrew Lang – The Man In White
E. Nesbit – Man-Size In Marble

2. Tales That Scared Your Parents

Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest
H. G. Wells – The Valley Of The Spiders
M. R. James – The Haunted Dolls House
Ambrose Bierce – The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot
Algernon Blackwood – The Transfer
Agatha Christie – The Lamp

3. Tales That Will Horrify You

August Derleth – The Lonesome Place
John Wyndham – Close Behind Him
Robert Bloch – Enoch
Mervyn Peake – Same Time, Same Place
Ray Bradbury – The Small Assassin
Joan Aiken – Furry Night

Peter Haining compiled a number of supernatural anthologies for children, including The Ghost Companion, Deadly Nightshade and, late in his prolific career, two volumes of Scary!. Short on surprises it may be, but Nightfrights is still a neat introduction to the wonderful and frightening world of macabre lit., puts me in mind a little of some UK equivalent of the Scholastic books.

[noose]

Here's a very small interview I did with cover artist Dave Smee

allthingshorror.co.uk/#/david-smee/4532985299