Peter Haining - The Ancient Mysteries Reader

[dem bones]

Peter Haining (ed.) – The Ancient Mystery Reader: Strange Stories of the Unknown & The Unsolved (Gollancz, 1975: Sphere 2 vols, 1978)

Peter Haining – Introduction.

I. SUBTERRANEAN WORLDS
Edgar Allan Poe – Ms. Found in a Bottle
Edward Bulwer-Lytton – The Coming Race
II. PREHISTORIC MAN
H. G. Wells – The Grisly Folk
Lafcadio Hearn – The Mound Builders
III. MYTHOLOGY
Arthur Machen – The Shining Pyramid
H. P. Lovecraft – The Call of Cthulhu
IV. LOST RACES
A. Merritt – The Moon Pool
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Terror of Blue John Gap
V. ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
Sax Rohmer – The Valley of the Sorceress
B. Traven – A New God Was Born
VI. LEGENDARY CONTINENTS
Geoffrey Household – The Lost Continent
Clark Ashton Smith – An Offering to the Moon
VII. MYSTERIOUS MONUMENTS
Harry Harrison – The Secret of Stonehenge
Robert Bloch – The Bald-Headed Mirage
VIII. MONSTERS
William Sambrot – Creature of the Snows
Leslie Charteris – The Convenient Monster
IX. GODS FROM THE SKIES?
Theodore Sturgeon – The Cave of History
Gerald Kersh – Men Without Bones

Blurb:
Poe, Bulwer-Lytton, H. G. Wells, Lafcadio Hearn, Machen, Lovecraft, Merritt, Conan Doyle , Sax Rohmer, B. Traven, Geoffrey Household, Harry Harrison, Robert Bloch, Leslie Charteris, Theodore Sturgeon, Gerald Kersh .... Subterranean worlds, prehistoric man, lost races, mythological races, ancient civilisations, legendary continents, mysterious monuments, the reality of monsters, beings from beyond our planet ....

This time Peter Haining, already famous for his collections of tales of fantasy and horror, has assembled eighteen brilliant stories, most of them by famous writers, on themes relating to our basic mysteries: the formation of the world, the emergence of man, the nature of myth, what may lie beyond ...
It makes a unique collection, searching, chilling and challenging.

Not to be confused with:

Jan 9, 2013 12:25:41 GMT dem bones said:

Peter Haining - Ancient Mysteries (Hutchinson Australia/ Sidgewick & Jackson, 1977)

Acknowledgements
Introduction
I. THE HOLLOW EARTH
Extract from The Hollow Earth by Dr Raymond Bernard
II LOST WORLDS
Extract from The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
III WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA?
Extract from St Brendan's account of his voyage to America
IV. THE STONE COMPUTERS
Extract from Beyond Stonehenge by Gerald S. Hawkins
V. SUBMERGED CONTINENTS
Extract from Plato's Timaeus
VI. PHANTOM ISLANDS
Extract from the log of the Atrevida kept by Captain J. de Bustamente, January 1794
VII. THE SECOND RACE
Extract from The Shining Pyramid by Arthur Machen
VIII. ABOMINABLE CREATURES
Extract from Abominable Snowman: Legend Come to Life, by Ivan T. Sanderson
IX. MONSTERS OF THE DEEP
Extract from The Story of the Loch Ness Monster by Tim Dinsdale
X. VISITORS FROM OUTER SPACE?
Extract from `I Believe in Extra-Terrestrial Beings' by Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding

Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

Picked up another of Peter's non-fiction titles on Sunday (am kind of addicted), evidently a companion volume to his The Ancient Mysteries Reader anthology (Gollancz, 1975, Sphere [2. Volumes] 1978), and again very judicious in its use of illustrated material. My main gripe with his The Dracula Centenary Book was an over-reliance on film stills we've seen over and over, but more thought went into this one, and the chapter on the Loch Ness Monster is a particular joy. Especially welcome is the reproduction of an attractive London Illustrated News feature from January 1934 depicting the monster's public appearances to date. We also get to meet Mr. Frank Searle, "who has spent 20, 000 hours watching the Loch and claims 24 sightings."

[cauldronbrewer]

Dec 17, 2019 20:53:34 GMT dem bones said:

Peter Haining (ed.) – The Ancient Mystery Reader: Strange Stories of the Unknown & The Unsolved (Gollancz, 1975: Sphere 2 vols, 1978)

I thought I owned a copy of this, but a close examination of my bookshelves has revealed that this was a false memory.

In my defense, Haining edited a lot of anthologies.

[dem bones]

Dec 18, 2019 0:04:34 GMT cauldronbrewer said:

I thought I owned a copy of this, but a close examination of my bookshelves has revealed that this was a false memory.

In my defense, Haining edited a lot of anthologies.

Sphere reissued it over two volumes in paperback. Book 1 (1978) reproduces the eight stories comprising sections I - IV.

Have fond memories of The Ancient Mysteries Reader. Back in the late 'eighties it was one of the half dozen or so titles comprising the 'horror' section in the lovely Cubitt Town Library on the Isle of Dogs. The others were Haining's Terror, Basil Copper's Here be Daemons and When Footsteps Echo, and a hardcover of Hardy & Shaffer's The Wicker Man. I'm certain there was a Kurt Singer anthology involved too, but for some reason, I avoided it. The rest I loaned over and over. Eventually the Copper's were withdrawn: it's those same copies provide the cover scans on this board.

[dem bones]

Leo Summers

Robert Bloch - The Bald-headed Mirage: (Amazing Science Fiction Stories, June 1960). The four great heads loomed in the desert ... offering riches, threatening doom .... could they be sentient, or were they merely THE BALD-HEADED MIRAGE. Mismatched space travellers Barwell and Chuck touch down on an asteroid of shifting sands. They are lured to destruction by an emerald-eyed local equivalent of the Easter Island statues.

William Sambrot - Creature of the Snows: (Saturday Evening Post, 29 Oct. 1960). Ed McCale investigates an alleged sighting of a Yeti colony in the Himalayas. After two months of nothing, expedition leader Dr. Schenk, the world-famous zoologist, is all for returning to civilisation, but Ed is determined to give it one last shot. Great story, albeit the snowmen, women and children are anything but "abominable."

Leslie Charteris - The Convenient Monster: (The Saint Detective Magazine, March 1959). Simon Templar versus the Loch Ness Monster! There's a bit more on The Saint thread. (I'm sure I read somewhere that Charteris employed a ghost-writer for this one?)

Harry Harrison - The Secret of Stonehenge: (MFSF, June 1968). The mystery of Stonehenge - that great prehistoric structure whose purpose has long baffled and fascinated archaeologists - is here deftly telescoped into a compact entertainment. Dr. Lanning and trusty Chronostasis Temporal Recorder visit Stonehenge to "find out the truth, why this thing was built." He succeeds, too.

Arthur Machen - The Shining Pyramid. (The Unknown World, 15 May 1895). Early Machen fairies on the rampage masterpiece sees Vaughan and his occult investigator friend Dyson investigate the disappearance of a little girl in South Wales. As featured in Michel Parry's splendid The Supernatural Solution, though Peter Haining got there first.

[dem bones]

Arthur Conan Doyle - The Terror Of Blue John Gap: (The Strand, Aug. 1910). Told in journal form. To fend off boredom while convalescing with the Misses Allerton's at their Derbyshire farmhouse, Dr. James Hardcastle explores the Roman mine known as Blue John Gap, where he encounters, and is fortunate to escape, a hulking sheep-eating troglodyte ("in size it was far larger than the largest elephant ..."). No professional body will believe him, but the local population are less sceptical and seal up the entrance.

Harry Harrison - The Secret of Stonehenge: (MF&SF, June 1968). A second read of this brings another interpretation. Dr. Lanning's experiment in time stasis on Salisbury Plain succeeds only in introducing another mystery. Does time run backward? Which came first - Stonehenge or his his electronic apparatus?