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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 9, 2009 18:24:46 GMT
100 Twisted Little Tales of Torment - ed. Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg & Martin H. Greenberg (1998, Barnes & Noble)
Deep breath...
The Archer in the Arras - Lewis Spence The Atom-Smasher - Donald Wandrei Awakening - David A. Drake The Baku - Lucy Taylor "Beyondaril" - John Metcalfe The Black Godmother - John Galsworthy Bringing It Along - A. R. Morlan Broken Glass - Georgia Wood Pangborn Broken Things - Nina Kiriki Hoffman The Buried Alive - John Galt The Business of Madame Jahn - Vincent O'Sullivan Busted in Buttown - David J. Schow By the Light of the Silvery Moon - Les Daniels Cancer Alley - Nancy A. Collins Cedar Lane - Karl Edward Wagner The Clock - William Fryer Harvey Coffins for Two - Vincent Starrett Cold Spell - David Langford Crispy Notes - Nicholas Royle Crutches - Steve Rasnic Tem Dark Whispers - Richard T. Chizmar The Devil's Lottery - Mary Elizabeth Counselman Die Rache - Steven Utley Don't Get Lost - Tanith Lee Don't Take It to Heart - H. L. Gold Doorslammer - Donald A. Wollheim The Elevator - Garry Kilworth The Ex - William F. Nolan A Far-Away Melody - Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman The Feet - Mark Channing The Final Tale - Elizabeth Engstrom Fingers of a Hand - H. D. Everett Fire-Bringer! - William Brandon Food for Thought - Mandy Slater Free Hand - Fred Chappell From Beyond - H. P. Lovecraft From What Strange Land - Blanche Bane Kuder The Frontier Guards - H. Russell Wakefield The Good Husband - Evelyn E. Smith Great Expectations - Kim Antieau The Green Light - Barry Pain The Hand - Guy de Maupassant Haunted Air - L. A. Lewis Here Lies - Howard Wandrei The House - Andre Maurois (trans. Jacques Chambrun) How It Happened - Arthur Conan Doyle The Idol with Hands of Clay - Sir Frederick Treves In the Light of the Red Lamp - Maurice Level In the Straw - Edward D. Hoch The Interlopers - Saki Invisible Boy - Cliff Burns It Will Come to You - Frank Belknap Long Key to the Mysteries - Don Webb The King's Messenger - F. Marion Crawford The Little Finger on the Left Hand - Ardath Mayhar Little Old Miss Macbeth - Fritz Leiber Lucky - John Maclay The Man and the Snake - Ambrose Bierce The Man in the Bell - William Maginn The Man with the Fine Mind - Kris Neville The Mummy Buyer - Joe R. Lansdale The Music of the Moon - Thomas Ligotti Narrative of a Fatal Event - Walter Scott Night Deposits - Chet Williamson On Call - Dennis Etchison On the Leads - S. Baring-Gould On the River - Guy de Maupassant (trans. Jonathan Sturges) Onawa - Alan Ryan The Opener of the Crypt - John Jakes Out of the Night - H. Warner Munn Out of the Woods - Richard Laymon Outside the Door - E. F. Benson The Outside Man - Darrell Schweitzer Patricia's Profession - Kim Newman The Pewter Ring - Peter Cannon The Playmate - R. Chetwynd-Hayes Powers of the Air - J. D. Beresford The Prince - W. B. Maxwell The Quiet Ones - Al Sarrantonio Rising Generation - Ramsey Campbell The Room Above the Top - Hugh B. Cave A Room in a House - August Derleth Sagasta's Last - Carl Jacobi Say It with Spiders - Janet Fox Secrets - Melanie Tem Six Kinds of Darkness - John Shirley Slippage - Edward Bryant The Steps - Amyas Northcote Take Me When You Go - Joel Lane Terror's Dark Pool - Henry Treat Sperry The Thing in the Cellar - David H. Keller Those Whom the Gods Love... - Hilda Hughes Time Enough to Sleep - Thomas F. Monteleone A Time for Waiting - Michael Marshall Smith Told in the Desert - Clark Ashton Smith The Triumphant Dead - William Hines Twelve O'Clock - Charles Whibley Voice - Jessica Amanda Salmonson The Walker - Donald R. Burleson Wrapped Up - Ramsey Campbell
I've always thought these Barnes & Noble books were rather odd beasts - the general idea seems to be to gather up a somewhat disparate bundle of short stories, all under 10 pages long, stick them in alphabetical order (by title, rather than author, weirdly) and then leave the reader to try and navigate through somehow. Still, there's some good (and rare) stuff here, and it was cheap...
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 8, 2009 1:08:33 GMT
Apart from Lord Dunsany's classic, I don't think I've read any of these before, but there are some interesting names here. Indeed. I'd be very interested to know more about the Flann O'Brien story if you feel like sharing your thoughts once you've read this. Looks like a nicely offbeat collection. The Flann O'Brien piece is quite short, and is basically about someone who wakes up, thinks that he's a train (the 9:20 to Dublin to be precise) and then realises that he isn't. It's pretty well-written, but I'm not entirely sure why it's here. Have you read The Third Policeman, Steve?
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 6, 2009 23:45:07 GMT
Enjoyed your review of the Elizabeth Jane Howard book which has set me to digging out Perfect Love for a re-read (once I've finished the tongue-less horse nasty i'm currently preoccupied with!). Did Howard write every word of the three stories attributed to her in We Are For The Dark or was there some collaboration between the pair on each others work? Mark Samuels of this parish posted the following extract from Aickman's autobiography "The River Runs Uphill" over at Thomas Ligotti Online (hope you don't mind me pinching this Mark ): "Jonathan Cape published We Are for the Dark, a collection of six original ghost stories by Elizabeth Jane Howard and me. Though we touched up each other's contributions (the spoof obituary notice from The Times in Jane's terrifying tale Perfect Love, was written by me), three of the stories were basically hers, and three mine. The book was thus not a full collaboration. and subsequently we have both disengaged our names from the other's works....
Many of the critics somehow perceived that the book was not the product of a complete collaboration; but, having penetrated so far, they commonly attached the credit for particular stories to the wrong author. Though it was natural that Jane's marvellous Three Miles Up should be attributed to me, as it is concerned with a canal voyage, many of the other errors were almost eerie. If one examined the notices, the two authors appeared not so much to have merged as to have disintegrated. It was extremely odd and confusing."Apart from the waterway connection in "Three Miles Up", I thought that "Perfect Love" seemed like a definite precursor to Aickman's "The School Friend" and "The Visiting Star". I don't actually own a copy of "We Are for the Dark", but I've read all the stories, and it's interesting how they all seem to fit together so well - the train tickets in "The Trains" and "Left Luggage", the gender reversal between "The Trains" and "Three Miles Up", etc.
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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 6, 2009 11:21:10 GMT
19 Tales of Terror - edited by Whit and Hallie Burnett (Bantam 1957)
Return of the Griffins - A. E. Shandeling The White Quail - John Steinbeck The Two Bottles of Relish - Lord Dunsany Paul's Tale - Mary Norton Lord Mountdrago - W. Somerset Maugham The Cat - Gloria Neustadt Biggs The Young Man with the Carnation - Isak Dinesen The Foot of the Giant - Robert W. Cochran I Am Edgar - Jerry Wexler The Calling Cards - Ivan Bunin The Night of the Gran Baile Mascara - Whit Burnett The Screen - May Sarton Totentanz - Angus Wilson The Salamander - W. B. Seabrook The Murder on Jefferson Street - Dorothy Canfield Fisher John Duffy's Brother - Flann O'Brien Forever Florida - Felicia Gizycka The Blond Dog - Louis Clyde Stoumen The Childish Thing - John Metcalfe
Apart from Lord Dunsany's classic, I don't think I've read any of these before, but there are some interesting names here.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jul 29, 2009 13:23:45 GMT
Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch - Dorothy K. Haynes; illustrated by Mervyn Peake (1949; B&W 1996)
The Head The Gay Goshawk Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch... The "Bean-Nighe" The Cure* Three Times Round* Paying Guests Changeling Gas Delirium Music in the Memory Such a Beautiful Life Class Pentecost - A Flashback Tinker's Child Miss Vestal Visits The Memory Good Bairns Whuppittie Scoorie The Nest Up, Like a Good Girl* Thirst Dorothy Dean* The Trap Miss Poplar Double Summer Time It Was in the Month of January* Windfall The Peculiar Case of Mrs. Grimmond* Fully Integrated* No Cakes and Honey Vocation* The Return of the Ritchies The Sewing Machine* To Give an Illustration* A Story at Bedtime
* story added to 1996 edition
"Dear Miss Haynes,
How long I've been in answering your letter which I was so happy to get. I am most glad that you liked the drawings which I made for your book and I wish I could have done the cover for your Robin Ritchie - if its anything like your other stories in the intensity of its atmosphere. Is it published yet?
I wish I could come and see you in Scotland, but how can I get up there? What excuse can I make? We're no longer in Sark - as you can see. But do you ever come to London because DO let us know and come and see us.
I'm having a sequel (horrid word) of Titus Groan published in June called "Gormenghast" - I would love you to read it and to know if you liked it."
- Extract from a letter from Mervyn Peake to Dorothy K. Haynes, included in the 1996 edition of Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jul 23, 2009 10:02:14 GMT
Ramsey Campbell's "The Stone on the Island" is an overlooked gem - at first I assumed it was one of his very early Lovecraftian pieces, but in fact it's a lot more in the vein of his early 70s work in Demons by Daylight. Without wanting to give too much away, three quarters of the way through there's a plot twist which manages to be both funny and utterly horrific at the same time, in a way which is distinctively Campbell's.
Elsewhere, Leiber's "The Black Gondolier" didn't really work for me, although I generally like his stuff a lot, and the tale is well-regarded. Metcalfe's "The Renegade" is as funny and well-written as always, but it doesn't have much of a plot, and the ending is a bit too arch for my liking. Still, any story containing a dream sequence featuring a vampiric were-rhino in a top hat must be doing something right...
I tend not to bother even looking at the Derleth-as-Lovecraft stories, but the Robert E. Howard piece completed by John Pocsik was actually a lot of fun, in a very pulpy way.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jul 23, 2009 9:28:06 GMT
There was a partial reprint of this as Creepy Stories (1996, Leopard). No editor is listed. Contents were:
Hugh Walpole - The Snow, The Tarn, A Little Ghost, Mrs. Lunt Arthur Machen - The Islington Mystery, The Cosy Room, Opening the Door, Munitions of War Flavia Richardson (Christine Campbell Thomson) - The Red Turret Oscar Cook - When Glister Walked, Si Urag of the Tail, The Great White Fear, Boomerang Oliver Onions - Two Trifles, The Smile of Karen, "John Gladwin Says..." E.F. Benson - The Hanging of Alfred Wadham Shane Leslie - As in a Glass Dimly, The Hospital Nurse, The Lord-in-Waiting Barry Pain - A Considerable Murder Lady Cynthia Asquith - The Lovely Voice, The Playfellow D.H. Lawrence - The Rocking-Horse Winner, The Lovely Lady W.B. Maxwell - The Prince, The Last Man In C.H.B. Kitchin - Dispossession, Beauty and the Beast Hilda Hughes - Those Whom the Gods Love, The Birthright May Sinclair - The Villa Desiree Daniel Defoe - The Apparition of Mrs. Veal Denis Mackail - The Lost Tragedy Clemence Dane - Spinster's Rest Edgar Wallace - Circumstantial Evidence Edgar Allan Poe - A Descent into the Maelstrom Charles Whibley - Twelve O'Clock Washington Irving - The Spectre Bridegroom Mary Webb - Mr. Tallent's Ghost Ann Bridge - The Buick Saloon W.S. Morrison, M.P - The Horns of the Bull Philip Macdonald - Our Feathered Friends Ambrose Bierce - The Stranger A.J. Alan - My Adventure in Norfolk Honore de Balzac - The Mysterious Mansion Algernon Blackwood - The Stranger
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 29, 2009 22:28:44 GMT
Fantastic Tales - ed. Italo Calvino (Italian version - Arnoldo Mondadori Editore 1983; English version - Random House 1997, Penguin 2001, 2009)
Introduction - Italo Calvino
I: The Visionary Fantastic of the Nineteenth Century
The Story of the Demoniac Pacheco (from The Manuscript out of Saragossa) - Jan Potocki Autumn Sorcery - Joseph von Eichendorff The Sandman - E. T. A. Hoffmann Wandering Willie's Tale - Sir Walter Scott The Elixir of Life - Honore de Balzac The Eye with No Lid - Philarete Chasles The Enchanted Hand - Gerard de Nerval Young Goodman Brown - Nathaniel Hawthorne The Nose- Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol The Beautiful Vampire (Clarimonde) - Theophile Gautier The Venus of Ille - Prosper Merimee The Ghost and the Bonesetter - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
II: The Everyday Fantastic of the Nineteenth Century
The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe The Shadow - Hans Christian Andersen The Signal-Man - Charles Dickens The Dream - Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev A Shameless Rascal - Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov The Very Image - Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam Night: A Nightmare - Guy de Maupassant A Lasting Love (Amour Dure) - Vernon Lee Chickamauga - Ambrose Bierce The Holes in the Mask - Jean Lorrain The Bottle Imp - Robert Louis Stevenson The Friends of the Friends - Henry James The Bridge-Builders - Rudyard Kipling The Country of the Blind - H. G. Wells
Originally published in Italy, so the familiarity of some of the English-language stories can probably be forgiven. I was slightly surprised that no Italian authors made the cut - in his introduction, Calvino suggests that they just weren't good enough. Of the lesser-known stories, Balzac's ultra-gory "The Elixir of Life" really takes the biscuit.
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 23, 2009 14:38:09 GMT
I don't know if Wordsworth have the rights to any more of Marjorie Bowen's work (apart from The Bishop of Hell), but if they did I would certainly buy a copy.
Also, a quick mention for Arthur Gray's Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramyre - Gray died in 1940, so the copyright should be up soon...
Anything by Ronald Firbank would be very welcome as well (although I realise that he would probably count as a mainstream author rather than "Mystery and Supernatural").
Just wanted to say, for the benefit of anyone at Wordsworth who's reading this, that the new WF Harvey book is fantastic. Thanks!
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Post by jonathan122 on Jun 15, 2009 8:16:18 GMT
Dem, I am with you when it comes to choosing between PC and CL. IMHO PC was the better actor of the two. Sadly, acting ability seems to have precious little to do with who gets the "arise" treatment from HMQE. Caroline, I think that is exactly right. Horror films are not seen as "proper" films, so those who star in them cannot be "proper" actors. Personally, I think the powers that be missed a golden opportunity to give PC a well-deserved knighthood in 1977 when his profile was raised following his appearance in Star Wars. To be fair, I think it's broader than that - until fairly recently film acting in general wasn't seen as "proper" acting, so no knighthoods or dameships for (amongst others) David Niven, Dirk Bogarde, James Mason, Deborah Kerr, George Sanders, Claude Rains, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Margaret Lockwood, Robert Donat, Jack Hawkins, etc.
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Post by jonathan122 on Apr 16, 2009 17:26:11 GMT
Nocturnes - John Connolly (2004, Hodder and Stoughton)
The Cancer Cowboy Rides Mr Pettinger's Daemon The Erlking The New Daughter The Ritual of the Bones The Furnace Room The Underbury Witches The Inkpot Monkey The Shifting of the Sands Some Children Wander by Mistake Deep Dark Green Miss Froom, Vampire Nocturne The Wakeford Abyss The Reflecting Eye: A Charlie Parker Novella
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Post by jonathan122 on Apr 16, 2009 16:51:18 GMT
Madder Mysteries - Reggie Oliver (2009, Ex Occidente Press)
Stories
Baskerville's Midgets The Wig: A Monologue for an Actor Tawny The Head The Devil's Funeral A Donkey at the Mysteries The Game of Bear (by M. R. James, completed by Reggie Oliver) The Devil's Number
Diversions
The Ghost Stories of Another Antiquary, Montague Summers and the Supernatural Tale The Scholar and the Story Teller: Aspects of M. R. James Religion, Evil and Obsession in the Ghostly Stories of Henry James Putting on the Surrealist Hat: The Decadent Aesthetic of Juules Charnier
The Cabinet of Curiosities
The Sleeping Portrait of Monkshood Hall Temporary Disappearance of a School The Destruction of the Great Empires by Trees Mrs Midnight's Animal Comedians A Boiled Egg Called Lowestoft A Cautionary Tale Concerning Beards The Romantic Ruin at St Botolph's The Rev. Arthur Gasport and His Daemonograph "I Uomini di Burro" by Ugo Sossigi Soren Unting and His Philosophy
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Post by jonathan122 on Apr 16, 2009 16:00:31 GMT
Ancestral Shadows - Russell Kirk (2004 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)
Ex Tenebris Behind the Stumps Uncle Isaiah The Surly Sullen Bell Balgrummo's Hell Lex Talionis What Shadows We Pursue The Cellar of Little Egypt Fate's Purse The Princess of All Lands Sorworth Place Saviourgate The Last God's Dream The Peculiar Demesne of Archvicar Gerontion There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding Watchers at the Strait Gate The Reflex-Man in Whinnymuir Close The Invasion of the Church of the Holy Ghost An Encounter by Mortstone Pond A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale
Russell Kirk (1918 - 1994) was best-known in America as a prominent conservative thinker, and there's a very strong moralistic side to a lot of his stories which I must confess leaves me slightly cold... However, he has a very strong reputation amongst "people who know" as one of America's greatest writers of traditional ghost stories, so I should probably give this another go sometime soon.
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Post by jonathan122 on Apr 15, 2009 22:22:44 GMT
Oops, I think I gave some misleading information - I looked again today, and my Waterstones does have some Hutson books - about 4 or 5, which seems to put him on roughly the same level as Brian Lumley, Lovecraft, Richard Laymon and Shirley Jackson (who probably doesn't get mentioned in the same sentence as Shaun Hutson very often). I guess I just automatically censored his books out when scanning the shelves originally. Either that or he should try using a different font on the book spines. Other results from my rigorous scientific survey - Stephen King has a whole three shelves, which puts him comfortably ahead of nearest rivals Dean Koontz and Kelley Armstrong (no, me neither ), who have about a shelf each. James Herbert comes a pretty distant fourth.
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Post by jonathan122 on Apr 14, 2009 23:29:08 GMT
When / if I ever work out how to use a scanner I shall try and get my cover scanned in, but I wouldn't hold your breath My cover is credited to R A Brandt, and, as far as I can tell, depicts somebody falling. Please, don't all rush at once... No date, but it's definitely post-1963, and it was apparently published "almost exactly" 30 years after Alan Griff's "The House of Desolation" first appeared.
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