Anon - Fifty Strangest Stories Ever Told

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Anon (ed.) - Fifty Strangest Stories Ever Told (Odhams, 1937)

Alexander Woolcott - Moonlight Sonata
J. G. Lockhart - The Terrible Story Of The Mary Russell
Axel Munthe - The Corpse-Conductor
Roger Courtney - The Mountain Of God
Andrew Lang - The Story Of Kasper Hauser
William Roughead - The Siren And The Sorcerer
Mabel Smyth - Consolation
Axel Munthe - La Saltperiere
Anon - Eight Days In An English Snowdrift
Charles Low - Mysteries Of The Elephants
Sir Algernon E. Aspinall - The Moving Coffins
Hector C. Bywater - The Haunted Submarine
Heron Lepper - The Thugs
S. Baring Gould - The Disappearance Of Bathurst
Henry de Monfried - Smuggling Hashish
John V. Trevor - The Celestial Fire
S. Baring Gould - The Snail Telegraph
Sergei Kournakoff - A Caucasian Riding Lesson
Margery Lawrence - Queer Happenings
J. G. Lockhart - The Tragedy Of The Seven Hunters
S. Baring Gould - The Murder Of The Countess Goerlitz
Noel Martin - Many Waters
Jack McLaren - On "Thirsty" Island
Daniel Defoe - Three Crusoes In Epping Forest
Morris Markey - The Case Of The Poisoned Bun
Andrew Lang - The Man In White
Francis K. Pease - Gripped By An Iceberg
William Roughead - The Ordeal Of Philip Stanfield
Andrew Lang - Across The Australian Desert
De Valda - In The Shadow Of Death
Margery Lawrence - Queer Disappearances
Richard Huson - The Phantom Schooner
John Timbs - Some English Eccentrics
Edwin T. Woodhall - The Dark Age Killer
Oscar Cook - Si Urag Of The Tail
Rafael Sabatini - The Night Of Witchcraft
Eric Bennett - The Hell-Fire Monks Of Medmenham
Oscar Cook - When Glister Walked
Nigel Straight - Waltz Before Twilight
Achmed Abdullah - Eastern Sorcery
Harold Dearden - Man Or Woman
Harold Dearden - The Original Bluebeard
Harold Dearden - A Murderer In The Force
Anon - The Bogus Princess
John May - The Musselburgh Miracle
H. Ashton-Wolfe - The Mystery Of The Floating Bodies
H. Ashton-Wolfe - The Mystery Of Orly Highway
R. T. Gould - The Devil's Hoofmarks
R. T. Gould - Vampires In The Philippines
Edwin T. Woodhall - Crime And The Supernatural

Another 700 pager from Odhams which purports to be an omnibus of 'true' stories. Plenty in here for lovers of the macabre - Woolcott's gory miniature getting things off to an excellent start (but is it really a true story?). Vampires In The Philippines proves that not all of the days commentators on matters undead were as hysterical and credulous as Montague Summers, and the fabulously named Heron Lepper gives a credible history of the Thuggee cult. Elsewhere there are fine accounts of Gilles de Rais, Black Magic in the Court of the Sun King, the hunt for Jack the Ripper, tailed savages and man-eating trees in Borneo, Sir Francis Dashwood ...