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Post by dem bones on Jan 25, 2009 16:54:45 GMT
'Sean Richards' is yet another Peter Haining pseudonym and one I was unaware of until reading Mike Ashley's article on his anthologies in Paperback Fanatic #6. As Mr. Richards', Haining edited The Elephant Man & Other Freaks for Futura (1980), which seems to be a variation on The Freak Show substituting many of the stories and adding a photo inset. Needless to say we'd be obliged if anyone provide additional info/ cover scan/ list of contents?
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Post by mrhappy on Sept 18, 2014 1:51:37 GMT
Several years late but here you go Dem! Introduction - Sean Richards The Elephant Man - Sir Frederick Treves The Bird Woman - H. Spicer The Reptile Man - Richard Marsh Bal Macabre - Gustav Meyrink The Ghouls of the Marquis D'Outremort - Maurice Renard Spurs - Tod Robbins Dr. Cyclops - Henry Kuttner The Bagheeta - Val Lewton The Secret of Château de Hirtzheim - Maurice Sandoz Hop-Frog - Edgar Allan Poe Unheavenly Twin - Robert Bloch Heavy Set - Ray Bradbury
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Post by dem bones on Sept 18, 2014 7:02:59 GMT
Thank you for putting this one to bed, mr. happy. So, Spurs and Hop-Frog apart, not the Freak Show doppelgänger envisioned after all.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 14, 2019 10:44:10 GMT
Sean Richards (Peter Haining) [ed.] - The Elephant Man and Other Freaks (MacDonald Futura, 1980) Peter Haining - Introduction
Sir Frederick Treves - The Elephant Man Henry Spicer - The Bird Woman Richard Marsh - The Reptile Man Gustav Meyrink - Bal Macabre Maurice Renard - The Ghouls of the Marquis D'Outremort Tod Robbins - Spurs Henry Kuttner - Dr. Cyclops Val Lewton - The Bagheeta Maurice Sandoz - The Secret of Château de Hirtzheim Edgar Allan Poe - Hop-Frog Robert Bloch - Unheavenly Twin Ray Bradbury - Heavy-Set Blurb: ‘The showman pulled back the curtain and revealed a bent figure crouching on a stool and covered by a brown blanket. The thing rose slowly and let the blanket that covered its head and back fall to the ground. There stood revealed the most disgusting specimen of humanity that I have ever seen ...' So begins Sir Frederick Treves’ account of his true life association with John Merrick, known as THE ELEPHANT MAN. Deeply moving, always fascinating and often horrifying, it introduces a new collection of classic stories of the unusual, the hideous and the macabre, published now in a special edition to coincide with the film starring John Hurt.Maurice Renard - The Ghouls of the Marquis d'Outremort: ( M. d'Outremort et autres histoires singulières, 1913). Young, reclusive mad genius the Marquis Savinien d'Outremort is sensitive on the subject of his ancestors. He has never forgiven the local peasantry for storming the hilltop castle, lynching ambassador Francis-Joseph and his sister, the Canoness, during the bloodiest days of the Terror, though, all things considered, they got off relatively lightly. Now, a century on, the Marquis learns a statue is to be erected of Houlon, the wild patriot who did for them. This insult must be avenged! In the month leading up to the event, Savinien busies himself in preparation, subjecting a beloved red double-phaeton to a radical custom job and paying several visits to the family crypt. The day of the great unveiling draws a crowd of 5,000 to the tiny village. The red vehicle begins its descent from the castle ... What a brilliant story! Little or nothing much to do with "Freaks" that I can see, but well played Mr. Haining for finding an excuse to include it! Robert Bloch - Unheavenly Twin: ( Strange Stories, June 1939). During the winter months, the circus freaks put up at Malone's Boarding House, the proprietor, a barker made good, being sympathetic to their needs. Harry 'Count Vomer' Reester remains aloof from the crowd, insisting meals are served to his room, which does not sit well with his colleagues. But the Count is no snob, but a man trapped in a living Hell: he is being drained of his lifeblood by an evil conjoined twin. "It had arms and legs, but very tiny ones, and a head about the size of an infants. But the real oddity of the creature was alive .... It ate, too - and that was why Vomar did not dine with the rest of us ...."Respect to the Armless Wonder who speed-typed the story with his toes.
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Post by Middoth on Dec 14, 2019 11:12:26 GMT
The mysterious "The Secret of Château de Hirtzheim". Is there original title in the book?
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Post by dem bones on Dec 14, 2019 19:03:51 GMT
Maurice Sandoz - The Secret of Château de Hirtzheim: No date, no details of previous publication. Set in 1898. With his parents gallivanting across North Africa, young Maurice and nurse Fanny are invited to tea by friend of the family, Madame de Bellerive. The hostess lays on party games for local children, one of which, 'the Black Beast', is an inversion of hide and seek - one player hides, the others try find them. Maurice takes it all very seriously and, when he's nominated for the Beast, hides in an orangery. Finding a key to the locked door at back, he investigates, to be confronted by .... A rationalised "ghost" story of sorts. Madame de Bellerive's late mother-in-law positively refused to be buried beneath the soil on account of her morbid fear of being devoured by worms - such indecency! Her son contrived an ingenious ... solution. Henry Spicer - The Bird Woman: ( Strange Things Among Us, 1863). A Woman places a newspaper advertisement offering her services as nursemaid to "an invalid, infirm or lunatic person." She hits the jackpot with a human parrot. Recycled from 1967's The Unspeakable People. Ray Bradbury - Heavy-Set: ( Playboy, Oct. 1964). From the introduction: " .... This is a story of a man isolated from society by his grotesqueness - yet he's still a man endowed with the same feelings and emotions as any normal person. It is a moving and salutary tale, the moral of which will not be lost on the reader, I feel sure. Haining clearly didn't contemplate attracting readers dim as me. Moral - who knows? What do you gain from achieving physical perfection at the expense of having a life? Whatever Bradbury was getting at, this is a distressing story for sure. William - aka Heavy Set, Samson, or Sammy - is 31 and still living with his mother, who dotes on him while at the same time wishing away with him as he's clearly as emotionally stunted as he is muscle-bound. William obsessively body builds, surfs, and, for the most part, shuns company. We reach crisis point after he reluctantly accepts an invitation to a Halloween party. Bad mistake. The popular kids have better places to go, and he's the only fool bothered with a fancy dress costume. The final paragraphs, creepy and pathetically sad at the same time, make for uncomfortable reading.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 15, 2019 15:27:31 GMT
Much as was the case with Poltergeist, on scanning the contents list I wasn't expecting to particularly enjoy this selection, but to date have been favourably impressed. Amos Sewell Gustav Meyrink - Bal Macabre: ( Strange Tales, Oct. 1932: Translator: Udo Rall). " ... All at Once a Strange-Looking Acrobat was at Our Table."A recruitment drive by the Amanita Club, a society of cataleptics who, for years at a time lie insensate within a mansion, their bodies tidily stacked away in rows of morgue drawers. Tonight, as Spotted Apron, their strange, hunchbacked guardian, looks lovingly on, these amateurs of death seduce the patrons of a fashionable nightclub. "I took the whitest of flowers to cheer my darkest hours ...."
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 15, 2019 16:27:01 GMT
Gustav Meyrink - Bal Macabre: ( Strange Tales, Oct. 1932: Translator: Udo Rall). A recruitment drive by the Amanith Club..." That should be Amanita, as in Amanita muscaria. I don't think I've read much of Meyrink's short stories - and I couldn't read much of The Golem even when trying (I managed about half before giving up).
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Post by dem bones on Dec 15, 2019 17:41:45 GMT
Gustav Meyrink - Bal Macabre: ( Strange Tales, Oct. 1932: Translator: Udo Rall). A recruitment drive by the Amanith Club" That should be Amanita, as in Amanita muscaria. I don't think I've read much of Meyrink's short stories - but i couldn't read much of The Golem even when I was really trying (about half before giving up). Amanita Club. You are so right - it has come to something when my spidery scrawl has become indecipherable even to me. Will change it in the original post. Have a feeling I've read the deliciously decadent Bal Macabre before - maybe in a copy of the Gothic Society's Udolpho magazine (can't get at them just now - they're buried behind the shelves of shame). It certainly reads like something they'd be into. Come to think of it, it reads like a report on one of their gatherings ...
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 15, 2019 19:38:27 GMT
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Post by dem bones on Dec 16, 2019 19:04:04 GMT
C. C. Senf Val Lewton - The Bagheeta: ( Weird Tales, July 1930). A fascinating tale of the Caucasus Mountains and a curious superstition about a were-leopard. The alleged were-creature - half beast, half beautiful woman - is prowling Ghizikhan, feasting on sheep and terrifying the locals. According to Davil the minstrel (he's written self-serving ballads on the tradition), "only a pure youth who can resist her blandishments can kill a Bagheeta." Alone among the youths, sixteen-year-old Koyla qualifies for the post and proudly sets forth into the forest, sword at the ready. To complicate matters, Koyla receives conflicting information from Rif'Khas the huntsman - who despises Davil for an "impotent old rimester" - as to the exact nature of Black Baghetta and how best to kill he/ she/ it.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Dec 16, 2019 21:32:16 GMT
C. C. Senf Val Lewton - The Bagheeta: ( Weird Tales, July 1930). A fascinating tale of the Caucasus Mountains and a curious superstition about a were-leopard. The alleged were-creature - half beast, half beautiful woman - is prowling Ghizikhan, feasting on sheep and terrifying the locals. According to Davil the minstrel (he's written self-serving ballads on the tradition), "only a pure youth who can resist her blandishments can kill a Bagheeta." Alone among the youths, sixteen-year-old Koyla qualifies for the post and proudly sets forth into the forest, sword at the ready. To complicate matters, Koyla receives conflicting information from Rif'Khas the huntsman - who despises Davil for an "impotent old rimester" - as to the exact nature of Black Baghetta and how best to kill he/ she/ it. I read this one in Marvin Kaye's Weird Tales anthology and was struck by its cynical tone. I'm surprised it's not more famous, given that it's a sharply observed tale and that Lewton wrote it.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 23, 2020 9:18:54 GMT
Uncredited Henry Kuttner - Dr. Cyclops: ( Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1940). Dr. Thorkel, a MAD SCIENTIST holed up in the Peruvian jungle, turns murderous towards four nosy American ologists and their mule-driver when they discover his vast reserves of pitchblende. Trapping the team in a radiation chamber, Thorkel shrinks them to approximately six inches in height. "I am conducting an experiment for Germany - my Fatherland" he chuckles evilly while plunging a syringe into the tiny Dr. Bulfinch, killing him outright. The four surviving microfolk hide in a cactus patch, eventually making a break for the trees, Thorkel (armed with butterfly net) and his cat, Satanas, in pursuit. Can the plucky amazing shrunken people triumph over both the killer boffin and the many perils of the jungle? Will reformed bad boy mineralogist Bill Stockton find love with Dr. Mary Phillips? Paul Orban Richard Marsh - The Reptile Man: When thieves fall out. A heavily disguised Douglas Colston, long presumed murdered, contrives a ludicrously convoluted revenge on his would-be killer, a former confederate with morbid fear all things cold-blooded, creepy and crawly. Essentially, this involves Colston first paying a visit to a toy shop and then transforming himself into a walking herpetarium. Very insane!
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Post by humgoo on Jan 25, 2020 14:38:03 GMT
Much as was the case with Poltergeist, on scanning the contents list I wasn't expecting to particularly enjoy this selection, but to date have been favourably impressed. Another market find? This one looks even rarer than Poltergeist. And you've made them so very attractive! Some of Mr. Haining's books have obviously become collector's items!
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