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Post by dem bones on May 31, 2019 18:11:46 GMT
Coming this autumn: Stephen Jones [ed] - Gaslight, Ghosts & Ghouls: R. Chetwynd-Hayes: A Centenary Celebration (P.S. Publishing, Oct: 2019) Les Edwards During the 1970s and ’80s, R. Chetwynd-Hayes (1919–2001) was one of the most important horror writers and editors working in Britain. Not only was he happy to write about such genre standards as ghosts, demons, ghouls, vampires and werewolves, but he also delighted in making up his own bizarre monster variations that managed to stretch the imaginations of both author and reader alike. During his lifetime, Ronald published twenty-four collections of short fiction, twenty-four anthologies (including twelve volumes of the influential Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories series), thirteen novels and more than 220 short stories. His work was adapted for the movies, television, radio and comics, and reprinted in various languages around the world. One of his publishers described him as “Britain’s Prince of Chill”, and his volumes of ghost stories and humorous tales of terror once filled the shelves of nearly every public library in the UK. Now, the celebrate the centenary of his birth, his long-time friend an colleague, World Fantasy Award-winning editor Stephen Jones, has compiled Gaslight, Ghosts & Ghouls: A Centenary Celebration, a stunning volume of stories and non-fiction that truly does justice to R. Chetwynd-Hayes’s work and his enduring legacy. This massive volume contains sixteen of the author’s highly original tales of terror and the supernatural, which invariably combined horror and humour in equal measure, giving them a style that was uniquely Ronald’s own. These not only include a rare reprint of one of his novellas featuring “the world’s only practising psychic detective” Francis St. Clare and his vivacious assistant Frederica (“Fred”) Masters, but also two tales that have never been reprinted since their original publication, plus a vampire novella that is appearing in print for the very first time! There is also the longest interview with Ron ever published, conducted by Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher, and the editor also teamed up with Chetwynd-Hayes aficionado Marc Damian Lawler to compile the most complete and detailed Working Bibliography of the author’s work ever assembled. Additionally, the book includes a dust-jacket and a full-colour portfolio of book-cover paintings by the masterful Les Edwards, a photographic section with many rare photos that have never been seen before (many supplied by the author’s family), plus two stunning endpapers by John Bolton and Graham Humphreys, and a back cover painting by Walter Velez, all inspired by The Monster Club, the 1980 movie based on Ronald’s stories and starring Vincent Price and John Carradine. GASLIGHT, GHOSTS & GHOULS will be available in three beautiful states: A regular trade hardcover A signed and slipcased limited edition A strictly limited deluxe edition that will include a holographic or carbon page from one of the author’s original manuscripts PS Publishing will be launching this volume at the British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon 2019 in Glasgow, Scotland, over October 18th–20th. As R. Chetwynd-Hayes himself would have said: May you never hear invisible footsteps following you down the stairs Preorder PS publishing
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droogie
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by droogie on Jun 1, 2019 3:43:35 GMT
This book looks sick! With some luck I'll have it in time for Thanksgiving weekend reading. Another winner from Stephen Jones.
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Post by humgoo on Jan 7, 2020 15:09:18 GMT
Am curious as to the TOC (anyone seen them?). Introduction by Stephen Jones A Writer in the Dark Lands: An Interview with R. Chetwynd-Hayes by Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher Housebound The Gatecrasher The Day That Father Brought Something Home The Door The Elemental The Jumpity-Jim The Coloured Transmission R. Chetwynd-Hayes Photo Gallery Bits and Pieces Something Comes in from the Garden The Humgoo The Cradle Demon The Gibbering Ghoul of Gomershal Doppelgänger Les Edwards: A Portfolio Acquiring a Family A Walk on the Dark Side Day School R. Chetwynd-Hayes: A Working Bibliography by Stephen Jones and Marc Damian Lawler Obituary *** Quick Notes: - The bibliography is over 100 pages, illustrated by many of the book covers - The R. Chetwynd-Hayes Photo Gallery is wonderful, in which you can see RCH wearing the army uniform ("Middlesex Regiment during World War II") - "Day School" is an unpublished story - An odd duplicate: "The Gibbering Ghoul of Gomershal" is also reprinted in Shadmocks and Shivers
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Post by dem bones on Jan 7, 2020 19:36:56 GMT
Quick Notes: - The bibliography is over 100 pages, illustrated by many of the book covers - The R. Chetwynd-Hayes Photo Gallery is wonderful, in which you can see RCH wearing the army uniform ("Middlesex Regiment during World War II") - "Day School" is an unpublished story - An odd duplicate: "The Gibbering Ghoul of Gomershal" is also reprinted in Shadmocks and Shivers
Thanks, Humgoo. Very much the same Greatest hits selection he announced over a decade ago - glad that it's finally seen print. Particularly looking forward to the bibliography and Day School if/ when I can find a copy.
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Post by humgoo on Jan 10, 2020 11:17:34 GMT
"Day School" turns out to be related to, if not taken directly from, RCH’s 1980 novel The Partaker: A Novel of Fantasy. I don’t have the novel, but Brian J. Frost's The Monster with a Thousand Faces gives the following synopsis: "About an ancient race of vampires still surviving today. Banded together in small, scattered communities, they partake of blood like other vampires [...] The novel's central characters, Carlos Markland, is the first boy-cub to be born to them for two hundred years; but the joy is short-lived. Things start to go wrong when Carlos' elders are forced to send him to school, where he is bullied by the other boys [...]" , which is what "Day School" is about. The tale ends with Carlos weaning himself off drinking from a bottle. I can't confirm whether this is a sort of prequel or an excerpt, and Mr. Jones only says in the introduction that the tale was originally intended to be published in the Fear magazine in the late 1980s. (On the other hand, an excerpt from The Partaker certainly appears as "The Buck" in The Vampire Stories of R. Chetwynd-Hayes.)
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Post by humgoo on Feb 15, 2020 15:09:01 GMT
Particularly looking forward to the bibliography and Day School if/ when I can find a copy. You probably don't need the book I suppose, as you've practically all the stories. The bibliography is nice, but the illustrative book covers are only black-and-while thumbnails, not the glorious Vault scans (at least before the Photobucket scandal!). It does contain some good tidbits, though. For example, 'R. Chetwynd-Hayes is credited as "Robert Chetwynd-Hayes" on the cover and inside this international edition [ Schock & Schreck] [...] To apologise for the mistake, the German publisher sent R.C-H a crate of wine—for which he had to pay £10 import duty.'
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Post by dem bones on Feb 18, 2020 10:19:48 GMT
You probably don't need the book I suppose, as you've practically all the stories. The bibliography is nice, but the illustrative book covers are only black-and-while thumbnails, not the glorious Vault scans (at least before the Photobucket scandal!). It does contain some good tidbits, though. For example, 'R. Chetwynd-Hayes is credited as "Robert Chetwynd-Hayes" on the cover and inside this international edition [ Schock & Schreck] [...] To apologise for the mistake, the German publisher sent R.C-H a crate of wine—for which he had to pay £10 import duty.' I've not yet seen a copy - are PS publications only available via their site/ paypal? It looks a strong selection of stories, but you're right, am familiar with most, if not all, likewise the interview (if it's the one from Skeleton Crew?). Main appeal for me is the biblio, as I suspect our A-Z is seriously lacking!
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Post by humgoo on Feb 18, 2020 17:39:36 GMT
The Vault RCH A-Z is quite monumental really. How many entries does it have? Mr. Jones' bibliography lists 225 short story entries. (And the interview is indeed reprinted from Skeleton Crew according to the Acknowledgements section.)
P.S. Publishing is not a publisher I'd normally buy from, with all those traycase-slipcase-signed-deluxe things, but anyone who's willing (should we say "stick their neck out"?) to publish a selection of RCH's tales deserves credit and a big thank you, I think. Anything like "Complete/Collected Stories" (even if we could envision someone willing to undertake such a task) probably won't help RCH's reputation, I suppose. A good (and perhaps a bit more generous? 20 or 25 tales?) selection is what we need.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 18, 2020 20:08:47 GMT
The Vault RCH A-Z is quite monumental really. How many entries does it have? Mr. Jones' bibliography lists 225 short story entries. Have just updated ours to include contents of Gaslight, Ghosts & Ghouls and it's approximately 220, so not quite as lacking as feared. P.S. Publishing is not a publisher I'd normally buy from, with all those traycase-slipcase-signed-deluxe things but anyone who's willing (should we say "stick their neck out"?) to publish a selection of RCH's tales deserves credit and a big thank you, I think. Anything like "Complete/Collected Stories" (even if we could envision someone willing to undertake such a task) probably won't help RCH's reputation, I suppose. A good (and perhaps a bit more generous? 20 or 25 tales?) selection is what we need. I could quite happily live without all that traycase-slipcase-signed-deluxe-signed-hermetically-sealed nonsense too, but agree, it's great they've taken the plunge on this as Mr. Jones seems to have been hawking the project around for all eternity. A 20-25 story collection - avoiding everything from the easily available Vampire Tales of ..., The Monster Club and, possibly Gaslight. Ghosts & Ghouls (I've no idea how many copies of each title PS produce, but presume they target the "collectable" market?) - would do RCH's memory no harm.
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Post by humgoo on May 20, 2022 16:03:27 GMT
Don't know the details yet, but (from PS Publishing's newsletter): The "Masters of Horror Series" mentioned above will start (as announced in the same newsletter) with NEW SUPERNATURAL STORIES by Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe (illustrated by Randy Broecker): Quoting Mr. Jones from the newsletter:
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Post by dem bones on May 20, 2022 17:05:05 GMT
Thanks Humgoo. Great to see Justin in there. He has previous with Rev. Fanthorpe in Paperback Fanatic #18, still among my all-time top five fave fanatic publications. Everything about that issue just clicked.
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Post by humgoo on May 21, 2022 9:53:34 GMT
Rev. Fanthorpe followed by RCH (in paperback!) ... Mr. Jones is full of surprises! Also sounds like they may publish a paperback edition of Basil Copper's A Life in Books, which means I will finally get to read the Count Magnus script!
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Post by dem bones on May 21, 2022 14:47:07 GMT
Rev. Fanthorpe followed by RCH (in paperback!) ... Mr. Jones is full of surprises! Also sounds like they may publish a paperback edition of Basil Copper's A Life in Books, which means I will finally get to read the Count Magnus script! Not to forget the Aidan Chambers selection. Would welcome a paperback of that one.
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Post by Swampirella on May 21, 2022 14:59:35 GMT
Sounds great; I love the vintage cover!
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