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Post by Steve on Feb 2, 2008 15:16:55 GMT
Sorry for the interpolation, but are you the Steve I used to regularly meet among a group of people in a Colchester pub some years ago? PS: (edit) I just noticed I've become a Slime Beast! des That's it, des... rub your newly acquired slime in my lowly Devil's Coach Horse face! As far as I recall, I've never been to Colchester - so, unless I was very, very drunk at the time, it must have been some other Steve. (phew, that was close! I thought for a minute he was going to ask me for all those drinks I owe him...)
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Post by Steve on Feb 2, 2008 14:10:52 GMT
What I'm wondering now is was Vampires At Midnight his first book to be published in the US? Apparently not. By some accounts The Gentlewomen of Evil was published in the US by Taplinger in 1967, which would be the same year Robert Hale published it here. Can't be sure though. Popular Library published US paperbacks of The Evil People, The Unspeakable People and, as mentioned at the top of this thread, The Midnight People under its original title. You've given a date of 1970, but I've found earlier dates mentioned (1968 for Evil and Midnight, 1969 for Unspeakable) although these could refer to their original publication in the UK. i30.photobucket.com/albums/c341/horrorinmyhead/evil-1.jpgThe Evil People, Popular Library, New York, 1968?Doubleday did The Witchcraft Reader in, I believe, 1970. Not sure if this was before or after Grosset & Dunlap's Vampires At Midnight. Also The Satanists was published in the US, by Taplinger again, around the same time. Taplinger actually put out quite a few of his books in the early 70s. This might suggest that the 1967 date for their Gentlewomen of Evil is suspiciously early, as you'd expect them to be grouped more closely together.
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Post by Steve on Feb 2, 2008 12:52:50 GMT
For the Haining biblio freaks among us, this confirms that there was an earlier US edition. "Published in the United States (as Vampires At Midnight) in 1970 by Grosset & Dunlap" And this is what it looked like; i30.photobucket.com/albums/c341/horrorinmyhead/VampiresAtMidnight.jpgVampires At Midnight (Formerly titled The Midnight People) Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1970Classy cover.
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Post by Steve on Nov 24, 2007 20:17:44 GMT
It would have to be The Unspeakable People for me. It's such a great idea to have an anthology of stories which push the boundaries of what's considered acceptable subject matter for the horror genre, or any other genre come to that. And I've always had a fondness for the cover on the 1974 Ensign reprint that I have; Certainly beats the psychedelic Quasimodo affair on the Leslie Frewin original. Sure, there's no great need for the excerpt from "The Monk" (although I'm not sure how widely available it was at the time), and what "The Raven" is doing in there is beyond me, but there's so much wonderful stuff on offer that any criticism of Haining's selections is really no more than minor quibbling. (I probably wouldn't have included the Ray Bradbury story myself either, but anyway...) "The Loved Dead" is a classic of deviant behaviour, with "A Thing Of Beauty" (mortuary attendant gets rather too fond of one of the bodies entrusted to his care) not far behind. Many don't rate "The Bird Woman" but I've always thought it was an under-rated, and genuinely affecting, obscurity. "Bianca's Hands" is another one which seems to evoke a bit of a mixed response - for my money it's a beautiful piece of writing and probably my favourite from a very strong collection. "The Head And The Feet" is a genuine surprise coming from the pen of C. S. Forester, and Henry S. Whitehead's "Williamson" makes you wonder why more writers haven't explored the whole 'being raped by a gorilla' thing. "The Graveyard Rats" is one of those stories I can read over and over without ever tiring of it, wonderfully morbid atmosphere, and John Wyndham's "The Cathedral Crypt" is perhaps lesser known, but similarly fine (Lovecraft's "The Outsider" is also a classic, but not one I necessarily feel the need to come back to that often). "The Idol Of The Flies" is brilliant stuff with wonderful characterisation, "The Copper Bowl" and "The Feast In The Abbey" should keep fans of torture and cannibalism (respectively) more than happy, and Kudos also to Peter Haining for including a Tennessee Williams story - not an especially popular choice perhaps, but certainly a brave and interesting one. Admittedly there is some, for want of a better word, 'filler' ("My Own Tale", "A Night At A Cottage") but I'll never turn my nose up at a bit of Dennis Wheatley. And the whole thing finishes marvellously with Haining giving Laurence James his first break. Thank you, Peter. A bit of a personal reminiscence to finish - Several years ago, I was teaching English in Italy and was desperate for something to read (being heartliy sick of The Classics of English Literature). One day I was sorting out the book cupboard at the school where I worked and, stuffed down the back, I found a copy of the 1975 Everest edition of The Unspeakable People. I believe I may actually have wept with emotion. (I also found one of Michael Avallone's pseudonymous Gothic Romances which my friend borrowed and subsequently declared to be one of the worst books he'd ever read, but why lower the tone...) The Unspeakable People - blinding indeed.
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Post by Steve on Nov 24, 2007 16:39:26 GMT
I didn't even know there was a Xanadu edition. Is it another facsimile edition with the ads etc.? Any chance of a cover scan, he asks in usual scroungy mode? Weird Tales: A Facsimile Selection From The World's Greatest Fantasy Magazine Xanadu, 1990 Introduction by Peter Haining "The Man Who Returned" by Edmond Hamilton "Black Hound of Death" by Robert E. Howard "The Shuttered House" by August W Derleth "Frozen Beauty" by Seabury Quinn "Haunting Columns" by Robert E. Howard (poem) "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" by H. P. Lovecraft "The Garden of Adompha" by Clark Ashton Smith "Cordelia's Song from The King in Yellow" by Vincent Starrett (poem) "The Horns Of Elfland" by Virgil Finlay (illustration) "Beyond the Phoenix" by Henry Kuttner "The Black Monk" by G. G. Pendarves "The Passing of a God" by Henry S. Whitehead "They Run Again" by Leah Bodine Drake (poem) "The Eyrie" Readers' Letters from May 1939 "The Valley Was Still" by Manly Wade Wellman "A Weird Prophecy" by Ken Gary "Winter Night" by Alice Olsen "San Francisco" by Caroline Evans "The Heart of Atlantan" by Nictzin Dyalhis "The Phantom Slayer" by Fritz Leiber "The Eyrie" Readers' Letters from July 1942 "The Beasts of Barsac" by Robert Bloch "Bang! You're Dead!" by Ray Bradbury "The Eyrie" Readers' Letters from July 1945 "Cellmate" by Theodore Sturgeon "The Familiars" by H. P. Lovecraft (poem) "The Pigeon-Flyers" by H. P. Lovecraft (poem) "Roman Remains" by Algernon Blackwood "Displaced Person" by Eric Frank Russell "To the Chimera" by Clark Ashton Smith (poem) "From the Vasty Deep" by H. Russell Wakefield "The Shot-Tower Ghost" by Mary Elizabeth Counselman "Take the Z Train" by Allison V. Harding "Weirdisms" by Lee Brown Coye, from July 1951 "The Little Red Owl" by Margaret St. Clair "Ooze" by Anthony M. Rud The Locus Index to Science Fiction says of the Xanadu reprint; "This claims to be a ‘revised’ edition, but the changes are not immediately apparent." However there are differences if you compare the two contents lists closely. Mostly additional articles, and more poems by REH, HPL, CAS, etc...
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Post by Steve on Nov 20, 2007 20:00:21 GMT
Lost for words really. Probably the best tributes to Peter Haining are the many and seemingly endless lists here and elsewhere of titles he was responsible for, and the fact that these hardly begin to tell the story of his inestimable contribution to the British horror anthology, which forms the heart of The Vault, and so much more which makes up the body of this board. Like many of us I'm sure, I probably wouldn't be here now writing this if it wasn't for Peter Haining. Very best wishes and thoughts to his wife, family and friends at this time.
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Post by Steve on Dec 21, 2007 16:03:13 GMT
I'll agree to changing the name of Filthy Creations...
but only if we can change it to As Gay As Cheese: Random Tales of Terror & The Supernatural!
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Post by Steve on Nov 24, 2007 18:54:08 GMT
When the court issued a restraining order after that unfortunate business with the wasps' nests...
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Post by Steve on Nov 24, 2007 16:51:53 GMT
Let me through... I'm a necrophiliac!
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Post by Steve on Nov 19, 2007 2:09:54 GMT
I wonder who Sidney Carroll was/is? As far as I've been able to work out, his is the only story that doesn't seem to have been published prior to its inclusion in Pan Horror #3? I think I can shed a bit of light on this one for you. "A Note for the Milkman" was first published in Today's Woman, of all places, in 1950. Later collected in Timeless Stories For Today And Tomorrow (Bantam, 1952), edited by Ray Bradbury. Carroll has another story, "None Before Me", in the same book. Now there was a Hollywood screenwriter named Sidney Carroll (1913-1988), quite well thought of in his day - won a few awards and nominated for an oscar for his work on the Paul Newman film, The Hustler. Also did a fair bit of TV work, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents and even an episode of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected ("Stranger in Town"). I assume it's the same chap. Trivia fans may be further interested to hear that he was father of the novelist Jonathan Carroll (who incidentally is the half-brother of minimalist composer Steve Reich but I digress...), author of Outside the Dog Museum, which won the British Fantasy Award, and the collection of short stories, The Panic Hand, which won him a Bram Stoker.
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Post by Steve on Nov 10, 2007 14:13:26 GMT
"Boozy bat" isn't pictured over at Trash Fiction or in this thread and I feel it might be hampering his chances a bit... so here he is; Some might not find him particularly horrific - but wait until you've woken up one morning, looked in the mirror, and seen this staring back at you... terrifying...
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Post by Steve on Nov 10, 2007 9:47:12 GMT
Hmm, so we've got another Pan artist with a bit of previous involving cats, interesting... Sax may be a possible suspect for #1, but I think we've got Boldero bang to rights for #2. Have a look at the signature in the bottom left hand corner of this and see what you reckon...
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Post by Steve on Nov 10, 2007 8:39:14 GMT
Cover seems to be signed S R Bolden First published 1955; this Pan, 1964 Rog's post on The Third Ghost Book, above, got me thinking about the mysterious artist of those first two painted covers. I believe this is our man. S R Boldero was the name, and he did a lot of work for Pan in the fifties and sixties. Could be wrong but I'm reasonably confident that "Fangy Cat" and "Eyeballs!" are his work.
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Post by Steve on Nov 8, 2007 15:58:37 GMT
Cover artist on the 3rd Pan Book ("Critter from the crypt") was W. Francis Phillipps. Also #4 ("Spectres") & #6 ("Rat on the skull").
#24 ("Worms!") is Peter Geissler.
#27 ("Cleaver!") is Stuart Bodek.
Photo covers for #28 & #29 ("Decomposition!" & "Flower Arrangement") were done by John Knights.
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Post by Steve on Feb 17, 2008 12:33:10 GMT
Great going, Sean. Of course I'm sick with jealousy. Yeah, I don't think suspicion and paranoia are going to become a problem at Vault as much as jealousy... Sean's going to be in 'All Hallows' Craig was selected for the prestigious 'American Writers' I was cruelly rejected by 'The Thinking Man's Crumpet' on the grounds of genital differences (not the first time I've been rejected by women because of my genitals admittedly...) Frankly, I'm chartreuse with a hint of olive (and possibly even a bit myrtle) Nice one, Sean. Here's to many more acceptances in future, for you and all of us.
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