Penguin Book of Horror Stories - Cuddon

[jonathan122]

The Penguin Book of Horror Stories - ed. J. A. Cuddon (Penguin 1984)

Introduction
The Monk of Horror, or The Conclave of Corpses - Anon.
The Astrologer's Prediction, or The Maniac's Fate - Anon.
The Expedition to Hell - James Hogg
Mateo Falcone - Prosper Merimee
The Case of M. Valdemar - Edgar Allan Poe
La Grande Breteche - Honore de Balzac
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes - Henry James
Who Knows? - Guy de Maupassant
The Body Snatcher - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Death of Olivier Becaille - Emile Zola
The Boarded Window - Ambrose Bierce
Lost Hearts - M. R. James
The Sea-Raiders - H. G. Wells
The Derelict - William Hope Hodgson
Thurnley Abbey - Perceval Landon
The Fourth Man - John Russell
In the Penal Colony - Franz Kafka
The Waxwork - A. M. Burrage
Mrs. Amsworth - E. F. Benson
The Reptile - Augustus Muir
Mr. Meldrum's Mania - John Metcalfe
The Beast with Five Fingers - William Fryer Harvey
Dry September - William Faulkner
Couching at the Door - D. K. Broster
The Two Bottles of Relish - Lord Dunsany
The Man Who Liked Dickens - Evelyn Waugh
Taboo - Geoffrey Household
The Thought - L. P. Hartley
Comrade Death - Gerald Kersh
Leiningen Versus the Ants - Carl Stephenson
The Brink of Darkness - Yvor Winters
Activity Time - Monica Dickens
Earth to Earth - Robert Graves
The Dwarf - Ray Bradbury
The Portobello Road - Muriel Spark
No Flies on Frank - John Lennon
Sister Coxall's Revenge - Dawn Muscillo
Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch... - Dorothy K. Haynes
The Terrapin - Patricia Highsmith
Man from the South - Roald Dahl
Uneasy Homecoming - Will F. Jenkins
The Aquarist - J. N. Allan
An Interview with M. Chakko - Vilas Sarang

[H_P_Saucecraft]

I've only briefly dipped into this one, but found the final story, An Interview With M. Chakko very memorable & quite chilling, a well written piece, & wouldn't have been out of place in the pan horrors.

I Really must return to it again, it's just a case of it nearly pulls your arms off with the weight

[dem bones]

Interview With M. Chakko is memorably surreal, but this very trad suspense tale sure worked for this reader.Might try bouncing between the less familiar stories in this and Cuddon's companion Ghost Stories volume once my epic struggle with Theodore Roszak's magnificent Flicker is at an end.

Will F. Jenkins (Murray Leinster) - Uneasy Homecoming: (Weird Tales, April 1935): Connie returns from a fortnight's holiday to an empty house and the distinct feeling that something's wrong. Husband Bob isn't due home 'til midnight, so she calls neighbour Mrs. Wigston who is less than reassuring. The district has seen a series of break-ins, and it is still touch and go whether or not an elderly cashier will pull through after being battered comatose when he disturbed the burglar. Connie wished she hadn't asked. She never has liked Mrs Wigston whose violent, dim-witted son, Charles, forever in trouble with the police, makes her flesh creep. And it gets worse. Connie notices one of her windows is broken. Somebody has been sitting on her bed, smoking fags! It takes all of her courage to peek under the bed - and find a hold-all containing all the stolen loot. Footsteps on the stairs, She has to get out of there! Fortunately, Connie is not one of those "neurotic women" frightened of their own shadow thanks to the constant intimidation of men and sensibly burns down the house.