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Post by dem on Oct 11, 2010 19:32:37 GMT
Brian J. Frost - Book Of The Werewolf (Sphere, 1973)  Josh Kirby
Brian J. Frost - The Werewolf Theme in weird fiction
Sutherland Menzies - Hugues, the Wer-wolf
Sir Gilbert Campbell - The White Wolf of Kostopchin
Ambrose Bierce - The Eyes of the Panther
Clemence Houseman - The Were-wolf
Elliott O’Donnell - Mere Maxim
H. Warner Munn - The Werewolf of Ponkert
Seabury Quinn - The Wolf of St. Bonnot
Peter Flemming - The Kill
Manly Bannister - Eena
A. Merritt - The Drone
Augustus Derleth - The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf
Beverly Haaf - Mrs. Kaye
Dale C. Donaldson - Pia!An ace, pulp heavy selection of stories but arguably the best thing about The Werewolf Book is the editor's lengthy introduction, The Werewolf In Weird fiction and a shorter essay on the 'non-fiction'. Between them, they'll tell you just about everything you're likely to want to know about the evolution of the lycanthrope yarn up to the mid-seventies from its roots in the usual fact, "fact", folklore and myth. Brian J. Frost would later attempt a similar study of the vampire in literature, this time minus any short stories, in his criminally overlooked The Monster With A Thousand Faces which, incredibly, he once told me he wasn't satisfied with. It's a sight better than most vampire bibliographies i've read! Dale C. Donaldson - Pia!: 20th Century urban life, like that of mod-suburbia, has a lot more going on than simple wife-swapping. In effect, the past is always with us - in one way or another.. - Coven 13, #2, November 1969 Writing in his superb introduction, Brian J. Frost describes Pia! as "perhaps the most gruesome werewolf story ever written." It's certainly very entertaining: When Hutch and his beautiful wife, Ruth, are told by psychic researcher Dr. Cheeves that one of their closest friends is a lycanthrope, their response is to invite their six most intimate acquaintances to the apartment at the Bell Manor Arms on the night of the next full moon. "Slung back and over the bed was Davidson .... what was left of him. His face was a gory mess, completely unrecognisable. It was as if some monstrous claw had torn his features away, only white cartilage, stringing, gave evidence as to where his nose had been. One eyeball hung loosely from a gaping socket: the other was gone, leaving only a raw, blood-filled hole."A deranged beast to be sure but which of them is it? Builds to a suitably Grand Guignol ending with several nice gory deaths along the way.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Mar 15, 2012 11:31:50 GMT
An ace, pulp heavy selection of stories but arguably the best thing about The Werewolf Book is the editor's lengthy introduction, The Werewolf In Weird fiction and a shorter essay on the 'non-fiction'. Between them, they'll tell you just about everything you're likely to want to know about the evolution of the lycanthrope yarn up to the mid-seventies from its roots in the usual fact, "fact", folklore and myth. Brian J. Frost would later attempt a similar study of the vampire in literature, this time minus any short stories, in his criminally overlooked The Monster With A Thousand Faces which, incredibly, he once told me he wasn't satisfied with. It's a sight better than most vampire bibliographies i've read! Thanks for the recommendation on this one. I completely agree that the highlight is Frost's essay, "The Werewolf Theme in Weird Fiction." He covers numerous pulp stories and novels that I'd never heard of but now want to track down and read. I was looking forward to Merritt's "The Drone" but found it a letdown--it's a slight piece. Also, it's more of a werebee story than a werewolf story. "Pia," on the other hand, was fun, particularly in how Donaldson kept piling things on in the end. The Derleth piece was the first Solar Pons story I'd read. It was enjoyable enough, though I kind of just wanted Derleth to call his knockoff "Herlock Sholmes." |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 22, 2012 17:39:39 GMT
An ace, pulp heavy selection of stories but arguably the best thing about The Werewolf Book is the editor's lengthy introduction, The Werewolf In Weird fiction and a shorter essay on the 'non-fiction'. Between them, they'll tell you just about everything you're likely to want to know about the evolution of the lycanthrope yarn up to the mid-seventies from its roots in the usual fact, "fact", folklore and myth. Brian J. Frost would later attempt a similar study of the vampire in literature, this time minus any short stories, in his criminally overlooked The Monster With A Thousand Faces which, incredibly, he once told me he wasn't satisfied with. It's a sight better than most vampire bibliographies i've read! Thanks for the recommendation on this one. I completely agree that the highlight is Frost's essay, "The Werewolf Theme in Weird Fiction." He covers numerous pulp stories and novels that I'd never heard of but now want to track down and read. This morning, I ordered a copy of The Monster with a Thousand Faces. By coincidence, an hour or so later I was in the library looking for another book (S. T. Joshi's The Weird Tale, about which I have mixed feelings) and happened to notice this sitting on the shelf nearby: [/img][/center] The book includes an excellent introductory essay by Frost that's similar to his essay in The Werewolf Book--informative, opinionated, and engaging. At one point, he discusses Anne Rice, Norman Mailer, and the Goosebumps series all within the span of a few pages. The rest of it is taken up by brief profiles of mummy-themed novels, short stories, nonfiction works, and films. |
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Post by dem on May 23, 2012 10:05:03 GMT
Thanks so much for putting us on to that, CB. Shame there' doesn't appear to be a paperback edition as that Scarecrow Press hardback costs a pretty penny. To the library with you, demonik!
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 23, 2012 11:10:22 GMT
Shame there' doesn't appear to be a paperback edition as that Scarecrow Press hardback costs a pretty penny. True, that. I was all set to buy a copy until I saw the prices. Also worth mentioning: In 2003, Frost published The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature, which I assume expands on his essay in Book of the Werewolf. |
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Post by dem on Feb 4, 2017 10:26:21 GMT
A. Merrit - Drone: (Fantasy Magazine, Sept. 1934). The seasoned gentlemen of the Explorers Club debate the feasibility of man into beast transformation. Hewitt, a renowned botanist, offers first hand experience of an encounter with an Abyssinian Leopardman. MacLeod, curator of the Asiatic Museum, shares his reminiscences of Ferguson the were-bee.
August Derleth - The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf: (The Memoirs of Solar Pons, Mycroft & Moran, 1951). Pons and Parker are hired by wealthy Octavius Grayle to investigate a series of grisly murders at Tottenham in Yorkshire. In the past twelve months the killer has struck three times on a night of the full moon. Two men, one of them Grayle's uncle, and a little girl have had their throats torn out. Grayle's brother, Septimus, is tainted by hereditary madness. He believes himself a werewolf, and is currently under house arrest. Septimus is prone to barking like a dog, running around on all fours and having a funny turn whenever anyone mentions the word "mad." It seems the police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the crimes. Pons rules him out as too obvious a suspect and instead turns his attention to he or she who stands to gain financially from the crimes. There's smarmy cousin Randall for starters, whose return from Canada coincided with the murder spree. And what of Miss Regina Gray, jilted by the first victim who first fleeced her financially. Can we even be sure that Octavius is all the ticket? A humble bathroom utensil proves instrumental in solving the mystery.
And some 'non-fiction.'
Elliott O'Donnell - Mère Maxim: (Werewolves, 1912). Blois, France. Henri 'Big nose' Sansfeu is having a tough time of it. Bad enough that Beatrice, the girl of his dreams, has chosen another, worse that his misery should be celebrated in verse as Sansfeu the Ugly: or, Love Unrequited, courtesy of the village wit! Even Beatrice finds it hilarious. How he hates her now! Vengeance. It's all he has to live for!
Henri turns to the witch of the forest for assistance. Mère Maxim knows her stuff. She tells Henri to patch things up with Beatrice, feign delight that she's marrying such a good chap, and make her a wedding gift of a skin belt and a box of delicious sugarplums. After that, just sit back and enjoy the fireworks.
Mère Maxim is a brilliant witch. But nobody said she was honest.
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Post by dem on Feb 8, 2017 23:01:20 GMT
H. Warner Munn - The Werewolf Of Ponkert: ( Weird Tales , July 1925).  Andrew BrosnatchFirst hand account of the lycanthrope's unhappy lot, recorded over four pages and bound in the author's skin. Hungary, Fifteenth Century. Returning home through the forest after another successful business transaction, Wladislaw Brenryk, jeweller, tight wad, married with baby daughter, etc., is set upon by the seven strong pack. With no option but to go down fighting, Wladislaw kills one of the werewolves with an iron bar, whereupon the Master offers him a stark choice between a protracted death or joining the pack in lieu of their dead comrade. Wladislaw chooses what he initially believes the lesser of two evils. So begins his enslavement to the Master. Wladislaw soon learns that feasting upon rich folk is good for the wallet if not his conscience. He fast accumulates a fortune - the pack divide the spoils among themselves, the Master alone having no use for gold. Wladislaw strongly suspects his leader is an immortal wampyr. Abhorring every aspect of his dual existence, Wladislaw attempts to stir up a revolt against the Master, but the solitary female of the pack, old Mother Molla, turns supergrass. As punishment, the Master has Wladislaw devour his own wife and abduct their daughter for the werewolves feast. It is all too much for Wladislaw's troubled soul to bear. He surrenders to the military and volunteers his vast insider information so they might best prepare an ambush. For their part, the authorities generously postpone his execution by excruciating torture for long enough to allow his participation in the final reckoning. Wladislaw is happy to endure the grisliest fate just so long as The Master is destroyed .... The first of Munn's 'Tales of the Werewolf Clan' is total proper pulp gold.
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Post by dem on Feb 9, 2017 18:09:22 GMT
 Hugh Rankin: ( Weird Tales, Dec. 1930). When a power cut does for the Fleetwoods' house-warming celebrations, over-indulged nuisance Mazie Noyer, 40, proposes a seance. Preposterous baggage! Doesn't she realise that tonight marks the 350th anniversary of Gilles 'The Hermit of St. Bonnot' Garnier's execution at Dôle? Contact is established with the other side. A wolf howls in the night. And young Hildegarde Fleetwood answers in kind before collapsing across the table! Within days a panicked Norvel Fleetwood consults Dr. Samuel Trowbridge over Hildegarde's erratic behaviour. Dr. Trowbridge diagnoses pregnancy, but de Grandin knows there's more to it than that. Hildegarde has taken to sneaking from her room at night, "howlin' an' yellin' an' carryin' on like she wuz a dawg her own se'f" according to the Fleetwood's "coloured maid." She has been seen in the company of a huge white wolf. More troubling still, she is implicated in the desecration of a freshly dug grave at St. Roses RC cemetery. Had Miss Monica Doyle, 16, been buried without her crucifix, there's no question Garnier and Hildegarde would have feasted on her corpse! Can de Grandin put an end to these outages before Hildegarde loses her human soul? Seabury Quinn evidently drew inspiration from Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book Of Werewolves (1865), whose Chapter VI, 'A Chamber of Horrors, details the adventures of "deluded maniac" Gilles Garnier who was convicted of multiple child-murder and cannibalism and burnt at the stake in 1573 (de Grandin gives the date as November 26th). Court records have it that Garnier confessed to trafficking with Satan and considered himself a werewolf.  Hugh Rankin: ( Startling Mystery Stories #11, Winter 1968) . Karen, MAD ARTIST, is convinced the reclusive Mrs. Kaye is a werewolf. Neighbour Anne has the most terrible premonition that something dreadful is going to happen to her small daughter. |
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Post by mcannon on Feb 10, 2017 5:47:32 GMT
 Hugh Rankin: ( Weird Tales, Dec. 1930). When a power cut does for the Fleetwoods' house-warming celebrations, over-indulged nuisance Mazie Noyer, 40, proposes a seance. Preposterous baggage! Doesn't she realise that tonight marks the 350th anniversary of Gilles 'The Hermit of St. Bonnot' Garnier's execution at Dôle? Contact is established with the other side. A wolf howls in the night. And young Hildegarde Fleetwood answers in kind before collapsing across the table! Within days a panicked Norvel Fleetwood consults Dr. Samuel Trowbridge over Hildegarde's erratic behaviour. Dr. Trowbridge diagnoses pregnancy>> I know that he's a beloved local practitioner who has overseen the health of half of Harrisonville from cradle to grave. However incidents such as this, along with his other wild misdiagnoses after various supernatural attacks, make me suspect that Dr Trowbridge gained his medical degree by sending ten dollars to some fly-by-night mail order "College". Mark |
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Post by dem on Feb 10, 2017 10:06:28 GMT
I know that he's a beloved local practitioner who has overseen the health of half of Harrisonville from cradle to grave. However incidents such as this, along with his other wild misdiagnoses after various supernatural attacks, make me suspect that Dr Trowbridge gained his medical degree by sending ten dollars to some fly-by-night mail order "College". Mark To give the great man his due, friend Trowbridge is spot on - de Grandin seconds his diagnosis and sends Norvel Fleetwood on his way a happier man. Dr. Trowbridge is mightily relieved to find his colleague seemingly in agreement that Hildegarde is afflicted by a bad case of prenatal depression with zero goblin involvement. "I was in a perfect ague for fear you'd spring some of that occult hocus pocus of yours and scare the poor lad until we'd have two of 'em to treat instead of one." He'll never learnI Could be that Prohibition is finally getting to him but Jules de Grandin is atypically tetchy throughout. It is all he can do not to punch out the (admittedly infinitely slapable) Mazie Noyer when she huffily storms in on seance MK. II, and a hostile exchange with Mr. Fischer, the cemetery warden, can have done little for French-German diplomatic relations. |
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robah
New Face In Hell
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Post by robah on Sept 25, 2018 11:44:02 GMT
I’ve read two versions of The Wolf of St Bonnot, which have rather significant differences in places, The version in the “Hellfire Files Of Jules de Grandin” anthology is rather streamlined, with various pieces of dialogue altered from the Book of the Werewolf version or even totally omitted, such as de Grandin’s insult to Fischer: “Merci beaucoup, Monsieur l’allemand-transplante”, and the ending is much changed from the other version in which Maisie, disgusted by de Grandin’s skewering of the tiny werewolf, slaps his face and is then driven from the room as he angrily advances on her ... in “Hellfire Files” de Grandin isn’t struck by her, but is so angry that he threatens to kill her with the knife he’s just used to stab the wolf, and afterwards admits to Trowbridge that he’s unsure whether he wouldn’t have done so if she hadn’t fled! Obviously either Quinn or some editor decided to make some changes, but I’’m unsure which version came first ...
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Post by dem on Sept 25, 2018 15:08:30 GMT
I’ve read two versions of The Wolf of St Bonnot, which have rather significant differences in places, The version in the “Hellfire Files Of Jules de Grandin” anthology is rather streamlined, with various pieces of dialogue altered from the Book of the Werewolf version or even totally omitted, such as de Grandin’s insult to Fischer: “Merci beaucoup, Monsieur l’allemand-transplante”, and the ending is much changed from the other version in which Maisie, disgusted by de Grandin’s skewering of the tiny werewolf, slaps his face and is then driven from the room as he angrily advances on her ... in “Hellfire Files” de Grandin isn’t struck by her, but is so angry that he threatens to kill her with the knife he’s just used to stab the wolf, and afterwards admits to Trowbridge that he’s unsure whether he wouldn’t have done so if she hadn’t fled! Obviously either Quinn or some editor decided to make some changes, but I’’m unsure which version came first ... Hi Robah The Wolf of St. Bonnot was among the ten stories Quinn "revised and updated" prior to their publication as The Phantom Fighter: Ten Memoirs of Jules de Grandin by Mycroft & Moran in 1966, and I believe it is this later version appears in Brian J. Frost's anthology. The idea was to transplant the stories from the Prohibition era and - I think - tone down any passages which may possibly cause needless offence to a contemporary readership (e.g., Sergeant Costello was no longer allowed to call anyone a "bozo.") |
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robah
New Face In Hell
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Post by robah on Sept 25, 2018 17:12:49 GMT
Ah, thanks, well it makes sense that he removed the reference to de Grandin being apparently ready to stab Mazie Noyer as there's no way it could've been justified even to Costello, and it was also a good idea to add a paragraph at the end in which we're told Hildegarde is OK now. Rather bothering, though, that this later version had de Grandiin making that "allemande-transplante" jibe to Fischer when it wasn't there before!
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