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Post by jonathan122 on Feb 21, 2009 17:55:06 GMT
The 8th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories - (Fontana 1972) Introduction - Robert Aickman The Haunted Haven - A. E. Ellis The Red Lodge - H. R. Wakefield Midnight Express - Alfred Noyes Meeting Mr Millar - Robert Aickman The Gorgon's Head - Gertrude Bacon The Tree - Joyce Marsh The Haunted and the Haunters - Lord Lytton Bezhin Lea - Ivan Turgenev (trans. Richard Freeborn) The Last Seance - Agatha Christie Aickman's last as editor.
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Post by dem on Jun 16, 2010 12:24:53 GMT
A. E. Ellis - The Haunted Haven: Ticlas Haven, a fishing village off St. Brides Bay. Three surly brothers drown their parsimonious uncle during a storm at sea, thinking at last they'll get their hands on his fortune. It isn't to be. Within three months of the old man's murder, each of them has met with a fatal accident. Thereafter, whenever a gale hits the South Haven, the foursome terrorise the villagers by setting out to sea in their wrecked fishing smack after dark. The doctor and the innkeeper attempt to put a stop to their ghostly capers. The zombie-like spectres resent the interference. It's such a shame Arthur Erskine Ellis (1902–1983) doesn't seem to have left behind enough ghost stories to warrant a collection to himself. An eminent conchologist and molluscan, apparently Ellis wrote his handful of genre stories several years before they saw publication, thereafter devoting his literary talent to writing about snails. - The Haunted Haven - Robert Aickman (ed.) 8th Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories, 1972; Mary Danby (ed.) Realms of Darkness, Octopus 1985
- The Chapel Men - R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) 10th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1974
- ‘If Thy Right Hand Offend Thee ...’ - Mary Danby (ed.) Frighteners, Fontana, 1974: Mary Danby (ed.) 65 Great Tales Of Horror, Sundial 1981
- The Life-Buoy - Hugh Lamb (ed.) - The Thrill Of Horror, W. H. Allen, 1975.
- Compartment 1313A - Hugh Lamb (ed.) - The Second Star Book of Horror, 1976.
- Dead Man's Barn - R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) 17th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1981
Gertrude Bacon – The Gorgon’s Head: Greek islands. Captain Brander relates the story of how The Hasler ran aground on Zante and he and Travers sneaked ashore to explore the cavern shunned by the local peasants on account of its being haunted. Like so many before him Travers is transformed into a column of black stone. Brander catches sight of Medusa’s awful reflection in a pool of water and runs screaming from the cave. Joyce Marsh – The Tree: "It's blood. The twig is bleeding." George Oxley survived a Japanese POW camp but now five years after his liberation he's dying back home in England. His Indian wife, Reite, has come to detest the grand oak tree in the garden which will stand tall long after her beloved husband has rotted in the ground. If only he had the strength of the tree .... Much to the astonishment of the medical profession, George recovers his health to such an extent that he can ditch his wheelchair in the fishpond. Just as inexplicably, the tree withers and dies .... deliciously creepy if more minor horror gem than trad ghost story. Agatha Christie – The Last Seance: Simone, the most gifted medium in Paris, is all seanced out. With each sitting she grows paler and thinner. Husband-to-be Raoul has reluctantly agreed that after today she can give it all up, but she has one last engagement with bereaved mother Madame Exe. Simone is uneasy; she dislikes, even fears Madame Exe although she’s had great success contacting her dead daughter Amelie. At the previous sitting, the ectoplasm materialised into a solid image of the child: Raoul could even touch it, but withdrew his hand when he saw how much pain it caused Simone. Now, for the last seance, Madame Exe insists that Raoul be tied to his chair to prevent any trickery …. Alfred Noyes – Midnight Express: As a twelve year old, Mortimer was terrified of an illustration in one of his father’s books depicting a man standing under a dreary lamp on a desolate railway platform, staring into a pitch black tunnel. This makes such an impression on the boy that he pins it to the facing page so as never to see it again. Thirty eight years later, he finds himself on that same railway platform after dark, and there is that ominous figure stood before the tunnel mouth. He approaches, desperate to get a look at the man’s face … H. R. Wakefield – The Red Lodge: The narrator, his wife Mary and son Tim move into the old Queen Anne house of the title, rented from an unscrupulous estate agent, Wilkes, who turns a blind eye to the numerous tragic deaths associated with the property. Before long the new residents are subjected to all manner of supernatural manifestations, beginning with the slime trodden into the carpets of many of the rooms by persons unseen and the recurrent apparition of a ‘green monkey’ sprinting toward the pond. Legend has it that, back in the early eighteenth century, the then owner bribed his servants to terrify his wife to death. They succeeded all too well, and one night she ran from the house and drowned herself. Her husband wasted no time in installing a harem at the lodge, but one by one his lovers followed her example. And so it has continued to the present day. Apparently the first ghost story Wakefield ever wrote, this has endured as a genuine creepy classic. Sequel Ghost Hunt is worth reading too.
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Post by marillionboy on Oct 28, 2010 15:39:52 GMT
Midnight Express is one of my all time favourites. Its an utterly bizarre story but fascinating. And all within just five pages.
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Post by dem on Oct 28, 2010 20:52:23 GMT
Hi, marillionboy, thanks for joining us - glad to have another anthology man aboard! Yes, Midnight Express is very effective. I can identify with the main character because, as a kid, I taped two pages of a book together because an illustration, depicting a train with an angry facial expression, gave me a full-on, woke-up-drenched-in-sweat nightmare. Would you believe it was one of the Thomas The Tank Engine books?  |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 6, 2011 13:58:25 GMT
Another train trip to London and another Fontana GGS to help pass the time. This one was more interesting because it's the only one I read as a little 'un (well, I was 12!).
So here's what I thought this time around:
The Haunted Haven - A. E. Ellis. Nice little Cornish opener. The vengeful zombies on their way to get the doctor raised a few chills when I first read it and the story had held up well over the years. Oh, and hurrah for Vault, as I only have to look up a couple of posts and there is his contribution to Frighteners - I had completely forgotten he had written that, and it's a decent little tale as well.
The Red Lodge - H. R. Wakefield. This one scared me silly back in the day and I have to say it was an absolute pleasure to rediscover it. A properly scary haunted house story. What the hell is going on? What's that green monkey thing? Is that woman being scared to death and drowning herself why the place is haunted or not? Classic stuff and it makes me very unhappy indeed that I have virtually nothing else by Wakefield EXCEPT 'They Return at Evening' which I understand was his first collection. In her introduction Barbara Roden writes 'he may not have been the kind of person one would have wanted to spend much time with at a party' but having read the first tale in that book last night I think he might well have been a blast of the Birkin variety. "I have few vices, although I suppose pushing my wife down a flight of stairs must be considered one of them" and some very non-PC comments about Latin American countries suggest the table talk would be nothing if not lively. Some more thoughts on Wakefield as I get through that book, I think.
Midnight Express - Alfred Noyes. As above, this one scared me when I was a boy as well and it still works - very well indeed
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 6, 2011 14:59:54 GMT
Meeting Mr Millar - Robert Aickman. A long Aickman story and I have to confess that by the end I still wasn't really sure what was going on. Mr Millar moves into the building where our hero Roy is having an affair with Maureen the married mother of two. Mr Millar gets lots of odd callers, and he's rather strange himself, lying down in Maureen's flat with all the lights out (and paying her for her trouble) and behaving rather strangely when he calls on people. There's some talk of his callers all being ghosts but whether he's actually dead or alive himself I wasn't too sure by the end. Not a bad story at all, but a bit impenetrable! For all I know this may have been the reason why someone at Fontana said 'I still don't know what Aickman's playing at. And we've warned him before. Is that Monster Club bloke still available?'
The Gorgon's Head - Gertrude Bacon. Much more straightforward seafaring tale of young Captain's encounter with said petrifying item.
The Tree - Joyce Marsh. Possibly the inspiration for the rubbish Joan Collins episode of Tales that Witness Madness, or possibly not. Woman's husband exchanges health with a tree but then he begins to develop a fondness for standing in the garden.
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Post by dem on Jun 10, 2011 12:26:03 GMT
For all I know this may have been the reason why someone at Fontana said 'I still don't know what Aickman's playing at. And we've warned him before. Is that Monster Club bloke still available?' Best days work they ever did, he says, hiding behind the sofa. Very glad to see you've got right stuck in on this one, Lord P., as I reckon it's one of Aickman's strongest selections. My understanding of it is that Fontana wanted him to use more contemporary authors (having dug himself a hole by insisting there were only a handful of decent ghost stories in literature, he didn't have much option). A. E. Ellis was a real find and Joyce Marsh knocked out some terrific creepy horrors for Mary Danby, so he left them on a good note. I'd be interesting to know if sales went up or down during the satanic reign of RCH ? |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 10, 2011 12:40:52 GMT
i'd be interesting to know if sales went up or down during the satanic reign of RCH ? Presumably they must have done ok as RCH ended up editing the next 12 in the series! |
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Post by ropardoe on Jan 13, 2017 13:27:42 GMT
A. E. Ellis - The Haunted Haven: Ticlas Haven, a fishing village off St. Brides Bay. Three surly brothers drown their parsimonious uncle during a storm at sea, thinking at last they'll get their hands on his fortune. It isn't to be. Within three months of the old man's murder, each of them has met with a fatal accident. Thereafter, whenever a gale hits the South Haven, the foursome terrorise the villagers by setting out to sea in their wrecked fishing smack after dark. The doctor and the innkeeper attempt to put a stop to their ghostly capers. The zombie-like spectres resent the interference. It's such a shame Arthur Erskine Ellis (1902–1983) doesn't seem to have left behind enough ghost stories to warrant a collection to himself. An eminent conchologist and molluscan, apparently Ellis wrote his handful of genre stories several years before they saw publication, thereafter devoting his literary talent to writing about snails. - The Haunted Haven - Robert Aickman (ed.) 8th Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories, 1972; Mary Danby (ed.) Realms of Darkness, Octopus 1985
- The Chapel Men - R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) 10th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1974
- ‘If Thy Right Hand Offend Thee ...’ - Mary Danby (ed.) Frighteners, Fontana, 1974: Mary Danby (ed.) 65 Great Tales Of Horror, Sundial 1981
- The Life-Buoy - Hugh Lamb (ed.) - The Thrill Of Horror, W. H. Allen, 1975.
- Compartment 1313A - Hugh Lamb (ed.) - The Second Star Book of Horror, 1976.
- Dead Man's Barn - R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) 17th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1981
Has anyone noted yet that a collection of A.E. Ellis's tales, comprising all those which were published in various anthologies in the 1970s, has recently been published by Phantasm Press? The Haunted Haven and Other Ghost Stories is edited by Richard Dalby and is a small book (97pp) at a small price (£7.50). A number of Ellis's tales are in the M.R. James tradition, and I'd say this is an essential for any Jamesian library (though I haven't actually seen a copy myself yet, so I can't say whether any tales not on the list above are included). The book isn't listed on the Phantasm Press site so far, but it is out, and can be bought from Phantasm via Amazon. |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jan 13, 2017 13:44:17 GMT
A. E. Ellis - The Haunted Haven: Ticlas Haven, a fishing village off St. Brides Bay. Three surly brothers drown their parsimonious uncle during a storm at sea, thinking at last they'll get their hands on his fortune. It isn't to be. Within three months of the old man's murder, each of them has met with a fatal accident. Thereafter, whenever a gale hits the South Haven, the foursome terrorise the villagers by setting out to sea in their wrecked fishing smack after dark. The doctor and the innkeeper attempt to put a stop to their ghostly capers. The zombie-like spectres resent the interference. It's such a shame Arthur Erskine Ellis (1902–1983) doesn't seem to have left behind enough ghost stories to warrant a collection to himself. An eminent conchologist and molluscan, apparently Ellis wrote his handful of genre stories several years before they saw publication, thereafter devoting his literary talent to writing about snails. - The Haunted Haven - Robert Aickman (ed.) 8th Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories, 1972; Mary Danby (ed.) Realms of Darkness, Octopus 1985
- The Chapel Men - R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) 10th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1974
- ‘If Thy Right Hand Offend Thee ...’ - Mary Danby (ed.) Frighteners, Fontana, 1974: Mary Danby (ed.) 65 Great Tales Of Horror, Sundial 1981
- The Life-Buoy - Hugh Lamb (ed.) - The Thrill Of Horror, W. H. Allen, 1975.
- Compartment 1313A - Hugh Lamb (ed.) - The Second Star Book of Horror, 1976.
- Dead Man's Barn - R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) 17th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1981
Has anyone noted yet that a collection of A.E. Ellis's tales, comprising all those which were published in various anthologies in the 1970s, has recently been published by Phantasm Press? The Haunted Haven and Other Ghost Stories is edited by Richard Dalby and is a small book (97pp) at a small price (£7.50). A number of Ellis's tales are in the M.R. James tradition, and I'd say this is an essential for any Jamesian library (though I haven't actually seen a copy myself yet, so I can't say whether any tales not on the list above are included). The book isn't listed on the Phantasm Press site so far, but it is out, and can be bought from Phantasm via Amazon. And here's the cover:  |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jan 13, 2017 13:56:25 GMT
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Post by mrhappy on Jan 13, 2017 16:29:17 GMT
Has anyone noted yet that a collection of A.E. Ellis's tales, comprising all those which were published in various anthologies in the 1970s, has recently been published by Phantasm Press? The Haunted Haven and Other Ghost Stories is edited by Richard Dalby and is a small book (97pp) at a small price (£7.50). A number of Ellis's tales are in the M.R. James tradition, and I'd say this is an essential for any Jamesian library (though I haven't actually seen a copy myself yet, so I can't say whether any tales not on the list above are included). The book isn't listed on the Phantasm Press site so far, but it is out, and can be bought from Phantasm via Amazon. And here's the cover: View AttachmentI would definitely like to see a TOC for this title as I am curious if if it contains any previously unpublished material. Phantasm has released a couple of nice titles and I wish they were more readily available here in the States. Mr Happy |
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Post by ropardoe on Jan 14, 2017 14:55:32 GMT
I would definitely like to see a TOC for this title as I am curious if if it contains any previously unpublished material. Phantasm has released a couple of nice titles and I wish they were more readily available here in the States. JB I would think probably not - given that the book is only 97 pages long, and there are six previously-published stories, I shouldn't think there would be room for any aside from these. |
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Post by mrhappy on Jan 14, 2017 16:41:08 GMT
I would definitely like to see a TOC for this title as I am curious if if it contains any previously unpublished material. Phantasm has released a couple of nice titles and I wish they were more readily available here in the States. JB I would think probably not - given that the book is only 97 pages long, and there are six previously-published stories, I shouldn't think there would be room for any aside from these. You are probably correct. Still, having all six stories gathered together with (hopefully) one of Dalby's always excellent introductions is something to b3 excited about. Mr. Happy |
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billyc
New Face In Hell
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Post by billyc on Jan 21, 2017 15:43:07 GMT
Hi,
I tried to order the book from Amazon but ordering from the Netherlands is a no go....
So I tried contacting them through Amazon with the question to change their settingson Amazon. No reply.
Tried their contact form on their webpage. No reply.
So I tried the E-mail adress on their site...... No reply.
Apparently the don't want to sell the book?
It's not that I need it as I just recently collected the books that included the stories from several Amazon dealers.
Some of them are not in the best of state but The 10th Fontana Book of Ghost Stories held a very nice surprise.
It was signed: With kind regards A. E. Ellis
I presume it is genuine and it cost me GBP 4.49
Well it still would be nice to own a copy of the collection.....
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