Bernhardt J. Hurwood - Monsters Galore

[dem bones]

Bernhardt J. Hurwood (ed) - Monsters Galore (Fawcett, 1965)

Harry Bennett

Ambrose Bierce - The Eyes Of The Panther
Thomas Preskett Prest - The Dreadful Visitor
William C. Morrow - The Monster Maker
Trad - Mohammed Bux And The Demon (adapted by Bernhardt J. Hurwood)
M. R. James - Count Magnus
Fred M. White - The Purple Terror
Frederick Marryat - The Werewolf
Sir Walter Scott - The Wer-Bear
Lafcadio Hearn - Jikininki
Trad - The Vampire Cat Of Nabeshima (adapted by Bernhardt J. Hurwood)
Pu Sung Ling - The Corpse At The Inn (adapted by Bernhardt J. Hurwood)
Pu Sung Ling - The Demon Who Changed Its Skin (adapted by Bernhardt J. Hurwood)
Trad - The Guest And The Striges (adapted by Bernhardt J. Hurwood)
Trad - A Vatanuan Cannibal Tale (adapted by Bernhardt J. Hurwood)
Trad - Four Siberian Demon Tales (adapted by Bernhardt J. Hurwood)
R. S. Breen - An Irish Vampire
Bernhardt J. Hurwood) - Peter Kurten: The Monster Of Dusseldorf
Rudyard Kipling - The Mark Of The Beast
Sir Hugh Clifford - The Were-Tiger
Henry More - Johannes Cuntius: A Citizen Of Pentsch
Dean Lipton - Hungary's Female Vampire
Captain Charles Johnson - Sawney Beane, The Man-Eater Of Eastlothian
Trad - Peter Stubbe (adapted by Bernhardt J. Hurwood)


Another personal favourite, and a top cover by the usual anonymous artist.

Hurwood dips into fiction, fact and folklore to forge a bunch of exciting horror stories. Of the less familiar stories, The Corpse At The Inn is a vampire masterpiece.

Includes:

R. S. Breen - An Irish Vampire: 18 -- ? Ireland. A dead priest, M ---, intercepts his own funeral cortege as it returns from burying him. He has swapped his shroud for his everyday apparel, his eyes are full with a strange glitter, his skin is of a deathly pallor and his gums have receded to expose ominously elongated teeth. Mourners later discover M ---'s mother unconscious on the floor of her home, having herself not long received a visit from the renegade deceased. Volunteering this history told him by eyewitnesses to the incidents "many years ago", Breene, writing in the Occult Review for October 1925, wonders "Was this a case of Vampirism? It has not been altogether unknown in Ireland."

Pu Sung Ling - The Corpse At The Inn: china. Four weary travellers arrive at the village of Yang Shin seeking shelter for the night. The landlord is only able to offer a room wherein lies the corpse of his daughter who died earlier that day. The boarders are so exhausted they fall asleep without even noticing the dead girl, all but one who, hearing a rustling and creaking coming from across the room, looks up to see the body "rising stiffly from the bier, dim light revealing the ghastly pallor of her lifeless face." Horrified, he can only watch as the girl leans over the beds of each of his sleeping friends in turn and exhales on them with her foul breath before approaching his bed and doing the same to him. When this is repeated he makes a run for it into the night, pursued by the vampire girl. He arrives at the monastery, shrieking for admittance but "the priests knew not what to make of the unexpected tumult and would not open the door. By now the corpse was only yards away ..."

Rudyard Kipling - The Mark Of The Beast: Fleete, new to India, gets drunk with the Brit ex-pats on New Years Eve and, staggering home past the Temple of Hanuman defaces the image of the monkey god by stubbing his cigar out on its forehead. As his friends Strickland and the narrator try to placate the worshippers, a leper slips from a recess and lays his hand on Fleete’s chest. He rapidly degenerates into a were-leopard …. until his mates torture the leper until he lifts the spell. The narrator at least has the grace to admit “we have disgraced ourselves as Englishmen for ever.”

Captain Charles Johnson - Sawney Beane, The Man-Eater Of Eastlothian:Sawney Beane and his clan snatch innocent travellers, drag them back to their cave then pickle and eat them. "In the conflict the poor woman fell from behind him, and was instantly butchered before her husband's face, for the female cannibals cut her throat, and fell to sucking her blood with as great a gust, as if it had been wine". As here, this exciting and incredibly gory history is usually credited to Captain Charles Johnson, although it probably wasn't new when he included it in his General History Of The Most Famous Highwaymen, etc. (1734). It's even been suggested that 'Johnson' was Daniel Defoe.

Pu Sung Ling - The Demon Who Changed Its Skin: Beautiful sixteen year old girl is in reality a demon who wears a human skin. She rips out the heart of her benefactor Wang when he discovers her terrible secret. Now disguised as a hag she encounters a wise old priest who knows how to deal with her. Wang is brought back from the dead thanks to the persistence of his devoted wife Chen who humbles herself before the town tramp, a master occultist.

Thomas Preskett Prest - The Dreadful Visitor: Our old friend, Chapter I of Varney The Vampyre, wrongly attributed to Prest. As midnight strikes and the old mill goes up in flames, Flora Bannerworth is woken from her sleep by a tapping on her window. Varney is removing the lead from her window with his spatula fingernails prior to climbing in and giving her throat a seeing to.

M. R. James - Count Magnus: Touring Sweden, the unfortunate Mr. Wraxall discovers family papers in a house in Vestgothland, charting the career of a saturnine seventeenth century noble, a dabbler in alchemy reputed to have made the black pilgrimage to Chorazin where it's said the Anti-Christ will be born. It is also the recommended haunt of those wishing to "obtain a long life, acquire a faithful messenger and see the blood of his enemies".

[weirdmonger]

admin said:

Bernhardt J. Hurwood (ed) - Monsters Galore (Fawcett, 1965)

I read this whole book aloud to Redbrain in 1967 in one sitting in Morecambe.
des

[redbrain]

weirdmonger said:

admin said:

Bernhardt J. Hurwood (ed) - Monsters Galore (Fawcett, 1965)

I read this whole book aloud to Redbrain in 1967 in one sitting in Morecambe.
des

The Monsters Galore horror orgy! Perhaps the greatest of them all. I tracked down this book on the Internet last year in loving memory of that occasion.

[dem bones]

Don't know quite where to put this until i have a list of contents, so this is as good a temporary home as any. Another top, top cover, too good not to share immediately!

Bernhardt J Hurwood - The Terror By Night (Lancer, 1963)

Thanks and Congratulations to John Mains!!

[allthingshorror]

TERROR BY NIGHT - CONTENTS

Chapter 1 - The Universality of Vampire Beliefs
Chapter 2 - Vampire Beliefs in Europe
Chapter 3 - The Climate of Superstition
Chapter 4 - Premature Burial
Chapter 5 - Blood, Superstition and Murder
Chapter 6 - Necrophillia, Cannibalism and the roots of Lycanthropy
Chapter 7 - Foxes, Cats and Human Beasts
Chapter 8 - The European tradition of Lycanthropy
Chapter 9 - Vampires and Werewolves today
Chapter 10 - The Psychological Origins
Bibliography