A Century Of Thrillers - From Poe To Arlen

[lukemorningstar]

Has anyone else seen, heard of, or read the above? There is a copy over at my Mum's house. It was given to Auntie Agnes (bless her - still going strong at 87) as a gift in the mid 1930s and has been at Mum's for as long as I can remember. There are some really spooky illustrations - I can remember looking at these before I could even read.

Here is a web-link to a site that will give the contents of the book (if you scroll down a bit!)

www.philsp.com/homeville/msf/t1.htm

All the best

Colin

[dem bones]

I've got A Century Of Thrillers - From Poe To Arlen and A Century Of Thrillers - Second Series: could've sworn I'd put the contents and covers up some place but can't find 'em now. They were published by the Daily Express in 1934 and '35 and given away gratis if you took out a subscription for the newspaper! The first runs to 1088 pages but they scrimped on the second which is a miserly 896 - makes you wonder why they even bothered. As to the content, mostly familiar stuff from 19th century big-hitters: Poe, Bierce, Hawthorne, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mary Shelley, Scott, Maupassant, Stoker, W. W. Jacobs ...

There was a trend for these bulky collections prior to WWII and one of my favourites from the period is J. M. Parrish & John R. Crossland (eds.) The Mammoth Book Of Thrillers, Ghosts & Mysteries (Odhams, 1936)

[Craig Herbertson]

Think I have that but the old library looks like apocalypse now or even apocalypse yesterday and last week...

[allthingshorror]

CONTENTS

Wilkie Collins

The Traveller's Story of a Terribly Strange Bed
Mad Monkton
The Biter Bit

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Speckled Band

Mary Shelley

The Mortal Immortal

Micheal Arlen

The Gentleman from America

R H Barham

The Leech of Folkstone
Jerry Jarvis' Wig
The Spectre of Tappington
Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor of Divinity

Mrs Henry Wood

The Ebony Box

A J Alan

My Adventure at Chiselhurst
The Hair

Edgar Allan Poe

The Gold Bug
The Cask of Amontillado
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Mystery of the Marie Roget
The Pit and the Pendulum
Berenice
William Wilson
The Masque of the Red Death

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Roger Malvin's Burial
Dr Heidegger's Experiment
The Grey Champion

Sir Walter Scott

Wandering Willie's Tale
The Two Drovers

W W Jacobs

The Monkeys Paw

Sheridan Le Fanu

Sir Dominick Sarsfield
Mr Justice Harbottle
Green Tea

Oscar Wilde

The Birthday of the Infanta

Charles Dickens

The Trial For Murder
The Story of the Bagmans Murder
No 1 Branch Line, The Signalman

Elizabeth Gaskell

The Squires Story

J S Fletcher

The Lighthouse of Shivering Sand

Anthony Trollope

Malachi's Cove

Lord Lytton

The Haunted and the Haunters

Frederick Marryat

The Story of the Greek Slave

Algernon Blackwood

The Woman's Ghost Story
Secret Worship

Mrs Oliphant

The Open Door

Ambrose Bierce

The Suitable Surroundings
One of the Missing
The Affair at Coulters Notch
A Tough Tussle
A Horseman in the Sky

[mattofthespurs]

I very nearly bid on this exact copy on eBay last week.
Obviously I passed.

[allthingshorror]

If we're on about the same person who was selling this - I talked them into letting go of 17 books for a reasonable price. As my Dad was fond of saying - a battered copy is better than no copy at all.

[mattofthespurs]

Oh absolutely.
The only reason I did not bid in the end was that I was in the process of getting over 20 books from different buyers and was reaching my limit for that week.

Sounds like you scored though.

[allthingshorror]

These are the ones I managed to wangle off the ebay seller.


Classics Of The Supernatural Edited By Peter Haining
Masterpieces Of Terror and The Supernatural Tanith Lee
65 Great Tales Of Horror Bram Stoker Edgar Allan Poe
The Second Target Book Of Horror Edited By Kurt Singer
Cutting Edge Charles L Grant Robert Bloch Peter Straub
Deadly Nightshade ~ Robert Bloch Ray Bradbury
Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery Algernon Blackwood
nightfrights Robert Bloch M R James Ray Bradbury
A Century of Thrillers - From Poe to Arlen
The Book of Horror Stories
Dark Fantasies Brian Stableford Ramsey Campbell
Ghostly Laughter ~ Joan Aiken Rosemary Timperley
The Ghoul Peter Haining H P Lovecraft Edgar Allan Poe
Tales of Horror And Mystery Saki H G Wells Bierce Poe
Horror For Christmas Robert Bloch Basil Copper W Jacobs
Realms of Darkness Ambrose Bierce E F Benson Bloch
A Treasury Of American Horror

[mattofthespurs]

Good score.