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Post by dem on Apr 25, 2014 8:12:35 GMT
Yet more. This book is fabulous.  Alfred I. Tooke - The Unveiling: (Jan 1940). The paintings of Ravenoff - inspired by his terrifying childhood as the son of an Aristocrat during the Russian Revolution - are so diabolical as to have driven those who've seen them to lunacy and murder. This latest, Death, is unlikely to buck the trend. Parker brings frightfully trendy pals Ted and Patrricia to the artist's studio for the grand unveiling. Tarleton Collier - Top of the World: (Nov. 1935). A seedy souvenir shop on Flagler Street, Maine. Jones, destitute and starving, pawns his soul for a bronze ring that daily offers a glimpse into the future. Jones is particularly interested in tomorrow's racing results. That you can't place a bet without money is bad news for a well-heeled passer-by. It goes without saying that the elderly proprietor is delighted to be rid of the jinxed junk jewellery. Gans T. Field (Manly Wade Wellman) - These Doth The Lord Hate: (Jan. 1939). Set in the village of Treves, Southern France during the Burning Times. A God-fearing man denounces his beloved wife and daughter as witches after the little girl ill-advisedly boasts that she can make it rain. One freak(?) cloudburst later ... According to the text, this is Gans T. Field's dramatic reconstruction of a passage from Francesco Maria Guazzo's witchfinder's manual, Compendium Maleficarum, (1608). August Derleth - Muggridge’s Aunt: (May 1935). Aunt Edith's dying wish is that her conniving fat bastard of a nephew, Leandor Muggridge, allow Elsie the maid to live out her days in the family home. Leandor solemnly gives his word. No sooner is the old bat safely buried than he sets to getting rid of her loyal servant. It all seems to be going his way until fate ..... trips him up. |
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Post by dem on Jun 18, 2014 8:30:52 GMT
Manly Wade Wellman - The Cavern. (Sept. 1938). Swithin Quade, the famous playboy adventurer, is warned by a succession of fortune tellers all across Africa that he will meet a terrible doom in the cavern. Quade is smart enough to take heed and henceforth keeps to open spaces. Hr survives everything the dark continent can throw at him - until the fateful day he and Stoll embark on a Hippo hunt in the rain forest ...
Elliot O’Donnell - The Haunted Wood of Adoure. (July 1930). Beyonne, New Years Eve, 1900. "It is the spirits of the living that are seen tonight and they sometimes rehearse deeds and scenes that are none too pleasant." Vibert, assistant to the state executioner, is cycling through the countryside to Delapour for his next assignment. Hopelessly lost, he begs board and lodgings for the night at the riverside home of the aged Latour the wine merchant (retired, dying) and his inscrutable child-bride. That night , a terrified Vibert bears silent witness to the murder of the old-timer by Madam Latour and her lover - or so it seems. The following morning the victim is in fine fettle!
Suzanne Pickett - I Can’t Wear White . (Jan. 1953). Proper supernatural melodrama and further proof that there's gold to be found in the Dorothy McIlwraith issues. Dereck informs horrified fiancee of his other love, Opal Fenton, the beautiful phantom hitchhiker on the bridge. Every year for the past five, on the night of her anniversary, Dereck has given the teen suicide a ride home to her distraught father. Angela has a bright idea ....
Helen M. Reid - Under the Eaves. (June 1932). Hannah's spiteful tongue has driven both husband, Nathan, and daughter Judy from her life. Now Nate's skulked back again, she's almost pleased to see him, even if he has belatedly acquired a backbone. It's a terrible stormy night and there's a horrible thumping sound coming from the kitchen ....
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Post by dem on Aug 1, 2014 18:50:01 GMT
 Boris Dolgov: : (Jan 1950). Artist Shawn Kennedy's last painting before he went insane was a depiction of Róisín Dubh, the sainted rose of Ireland, as seductive vampiress. Rex Moynaham, a New Yorker visiting Limerick, makes a rather unfortunate remark to the effect that he would willingly give his body and soul to the beauty in the painting. And now it's the night of his honeymoon. Blushing bride Marcia is getting very excited at the prospect of tonight's adventure. And them she hears him scream. Some readers evidently prefer Seabury Quinn's non-de Grandin horror tales and this is certainly among the better ones if i'm any judge. Carl Jacobi - The Last Drive: (June 1933). Jeb Waters is driving the body of local hero Philip 'Race' Carr home to Marchester by night after the "driving fool" was mangled in a 300 mph smash up. When the van is caught in a snowdrift, Jeb shifts the coffin into the front seat so he can stretch out at back .... Some i made earlier .... B. W. Sliney - The Man Who Was Saved: (May 1926). The seven man schooner The Scudder is becalmed for days in the middle of the ocean. One evening, the crew are intrigued by some unseen thing that causes a great disturbance in the water. They realise they're in trouble when it sucks down a huge whale, reducing it to a bloody pulp. The monster - "a horrible mess of pulsating green matter" - attacks The Scudder, oozing across the deck and decimating the crew. The single survivor is picked up by The Pacific Belle where his story is met with a certain amount of incredulity, although some of the men mutter darkly that there are such things. And then they run across the stranded schooner ... R. Anthony - The Witch-Baiter: (Dec 1927). Justice Mynheer van Ragevoort tries and condemns 'witches' with commendable impartiality: one a confession has been tortured from them, they're hung and quartered in keeping with the law. Comes the night when he's blindfolded and bundled from his home by the men of the village to preside over the trial of 'the witch of witches'. E. F. Benson - The Witch-Ball: ( Woman’s Journal, Dec 1928 ; Weird Tales, Oct. 1929). Another junk shop find, this time by Margery Kingwood while shopping in Tillingford, Sussex, with cousin Bill. As both saw the witch-ball at the same time, they toss a coin for its ownership. Margery wins but her husband, Hugh, a psychic, wishes she hadn't. The following day, Margery finds her dream home on the marsh. Hugh likes it even less than the witch ball. "There's a wicked, unquiet atmosphere in the kitchen garden particularly: it's steeped in horror of some sort." The house, known as 'Beetles', has but recently been put on the market by Mr. Woolaby, whose wife disappeared, presumed drowned, two years ago. Hugh and Bill use the witch-ball for a spot of crystal-gazing, and sure enough, the glass first bubbles black then clears to show the garden out back of 'Beetles' and a woman entangled in the roots of a willow tree. She doesn't remain there for long .... A variation on The Chippendale Mirror plot. The ghost - one of Benson's ghastliest - is well worth waiting for. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 6, 2014 18:55:02 GMT
Boris Dolgov: Seabury Quinn - Dark Rosaleen: (Jan 1950). Artist Shawn Kennedy's last painting before he went insane was a depiction of Róisín Dubh, the sainted rose of Ireland, as seductive vampiress. Rex Moynaham, a New Yorker visiting Limerick, makes a rather unfortunate remark to the effect that he would willingly give his body and soul to the beauty in the painting. And now it's the night of his honeymoon. Blushing bride Marcia is getting very excited at the prospect of tonight's adventure. And them she hears him scream. Some readers evidently prefer Seabury Quinn's non-de Grandin horror tales and this is certainly among the better ones if i'm any judge. This is one of the first Quinn stories I ever read--maybe the very first--and it's still one of my favorites among his. |
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Post by dem on Aug 7, 2014 14:14:10 GMT
This is one of the first Quinn stories I ever read--maybe the very first--and it's still one of my favorites among his. Brevity suits him. Of the non-de Grandin's, I prefer the short ones like this and The Last Man over the novellas. Roads in particular is way too long. Rex Dolphin - Off the Map: (July. 1954). The solitary Weird Tales appearance of the author of the Guardians adventure, The Vampires of Finistere. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the existence of a tiny hamlet in the English countryside. Why does Wychburne no longer feature on the map and why has all mention of the place been excised from the records? Our narrator resolves to find out for himself. He eventually arrives in the main street during what he takes to be some kind of historical re-enactment, the community all decked out in seventeenth century finery. It is like a throw back to the years of prosperity immediately prior to the outbreak of the Great Plague. Our man makes the mistake of informing his friendly hosts that he's arrived from London. Garnett Radcliffe - The Gloves: (Jan. 1953). A train crash at Minchley. Eyewitness Joe Larkin, first on the scene takes advantage of the chaos to loot the dead and dying. Among his haul, a pair of hogskin gloves with a murderous life of their own ... Merle Prout - Masquerade: (Feb. 1937). Donald's dance with glamorous mystery woman Leonorra Starr is interrupted by Ozaman, a skeleton cloaked in the robes of an Ancient Egyptian priest. When Ozaman pulls a knife on Miss Starr, Donald gallantly intervenes - just as they'd planned he would. Fritz Leiber - Mr. Bauer and the Atoms: (Jan 1946). "The way he looked at it, a real man had three legitimate interests - business, bars and blondes. Everything else was for cranks, artist and women." Advertising exec Frank Bauer chances upon the discovery that with all the energy contained in the atoms that constitute a human body, every man, woman and child is a walking bomb. What would happen if ones nervous system went into revolt? Frank Bauer thinks too much. Johns Harrington - The Teakwood Box: (March 1938). it's said to be cursed, but now housebreaker San Pedro Joe has gone to the trouble of stealing it along with the rest of the widow Wright's trinkets, he might just as well open the teakwood box before tossing it in the trash. |
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Post by dem on Aug 11, 2014 14:14:26 GMT
Loretta Burrough - What Waits in Darkness: (March 1935). After Duncan's death, Christy married his friend, Roger Tenniel, on the rebound and has been miserable ever since. Each dawn she wakes screaming from a dreadful dream involving a sharp knife, a bloodstained nightdress and a corpse.
Clark Ashton Smith - The Last Incantation (June 1930). Malygris, universe-weary master of black sorcery, conjures forth the spirit of Nylissa, the only woman he ever loved, who died tragically young. His trusty familar assures him that all will be well.
On a similar theme;
Seabury Quinn - The Last Man: (May 1950). Juanita can't decide between the twenty-six brave young soldiers so vows to give herself to the last of them to perish. Fifty years later, Roger Mycroft, the only survivor of the Last Man Club, consults the powerful medium, Monsieur Toussant, to track down his bride.
Ralph Allen Lang - On Top: (Nov. 1933). Swingle, ruthless killer turned self-appointed Marshal of Red Dog, shoots a prospector in the back and takes over his claim. Now there is just the matter of burying a man who always came out "on top."
Carl Jacobi - A Pair of Swords: (Aug. 1933). A museum visitor is imposed upon to referee a duel between Musketeers for the hand of the Lady Constance.
Julius Long - The Pale Man: (Sept. 1934). A convalescent fixates upon a mysterious hotel guest who keeps changing rooms, ever drawing nearer to his own. After receiving a smile from the milky white man, an old lady is carried away in a Hearse. Will our narrator be next?
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Post by dem on Dec 16, 2014 15:56:17 GMT
 Moll: ( Nov 1952). Lieutenant Joshua Falter, US marine, falls madly in love with Oriental beauty Chicoro and she him. But when his head is swayed by the next girl of his dreams, a blonde nurse from back home, the jilted party, who has already been ostracised by her people for fraternising with the enemy, kills herself. Now Joshua feels her phantom hands caressing his body - all the way up to the throat. Dr. Taimai, "without question, the best psychiatrist in the East," is on the verge of convincing the patient that it's just his guilty conscience playing up, when .... Frances Garfield - The High Places: (April 1939). Katharine much reach Chicago in double-quick time or miss her brother's wedding. It's a nervy prospect. She's a thousand miles from her destination and has not flown since her fiancé, the dashing pilot Erin Graf, was incinerated when his plane exploded during a test flight. Julius Long - The Late Mourner: (March 1934). It's the day of the funeral and - blast! - John Sloan has overslept. He can't remember who has died, but it's obviously someone very special to him. This one is actually cute. |
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Post by dem on Oct 9, 2016 19:40:59 GMT
 Lee Brown Coye: (Sept. 1949). Patricia Eldbridge moves into her new dream cottage on the outskirts of Bellemore village. It's a shame husband Ray can't make it until after work but she mustn't be nervous, country folk are very caring, friendly people, and you won't find any psychopathic killers around here! But hardly has she time to boil a kettle than someone or something slips in through the door and stalks her around the house. Patricia flees into the wood, stumbles, bashes her head. When Patricia regains consciousness, she's propped up on a toolbox receiving attention from a taciturn fellow in a police uniform. Looking around his small outpost, Patricia decides her Good Samaritan is a hunter, what with all those cruel traps decorating the walls. He eventually mutters a few words. Yes, he knows her cottage. It's terrible what happened to the previous owners ..... Gene Lyle III - The Hunch: (Nov. 1939). John McCassey, managing editor of the Chicago Call, always acts on his wild hunches. Just McCassey luck that his latest premonition of doom occurs aboard an express train to Albuquerque. His fellow passenger, an eminent surgeon, assures him on his word as a SANE SCIENTIST that such morbid fancies are mumbo jumbo, there's nothing in them at all. Immediately after delivering this sermon, the medic falls asleep, whereupon a panic-stricken, spectral girl attempts to wake him with an urgent message that he pull the emergency chord before the train reaches the bridge .... |
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Post by dem on Oct 10, 2016 8:55:52 GMT
Mark Of The Devil souvenir vomit bags at the ready for; Thorp McClusky - The Other Santa: (March 1949). A radio station's cynical, "feel-good" festive publicity stunt involving a cute little crippled gal and deserving poor young parents goes puke-provokingly right thanks to a mass-outbreak of public goodwill. Worse than your very worst Red nose day/ Children In Need nightmare. Even the narrator comes close to throwing up.  G. O. Olinick: (March 1927). Old John Dorsey is an industrious, kindly old gent, natural habitat, the Hospital's "emergency parlor" where he works tirelessly to save the lives of the most hopeless cases. Sometimes he performs near miracles, but mostly it is a case of "too late, boys." Old John has another trick up his sleeve: thanks to his great invention - a low-tech device utilising a net and a bottle - he can "rescue" souls at the moment of death! Alas, the captive souls - row upon row of 'em - resent the intervention and plot his grisly demise. Renier Wyers - The Finishing Touches: (June-July 1931). "Too long the world has been blinded by illusions of piety and goodness - lies. You and everyone else striving for 'beauty' will be forgotten when I'm worshipped. There is no 'beauty' in real life or real art. There's only pain, and cruelty, and horror -that's what I'm painting." Tandriv, barking-MAD ARTIST, invites his once-friend, Blake, to view his life's work, a massive, misanthropic panorama depicting all the sin, vice, and sadistic violence he has dredged from his black soul, the whole presided over by a monstrous Lucifer. Just a few more dabs of the master's brush and it can be unleashed upon the Parisian public! Some ace descriptive passages. Will have to read more of this chap's work. The Robert S. Carr story is also v. entertaining.
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Post by dem on Oct 10, 2016 17:14:53 GMT
For the occupant of the fifth grave the choice fell between two men - the murderer himself, or the fifth of his victims.  Joseph Eberle: (Jan. 1951). The victims to date share a connection. All were meaningfully involved in the construction of the Cathedral at Veere and commemorated in gargoyle form. Inspector Ter Horst deduces that the architect will be next, but how to prevent his death when the murders seem to be the work of some supernatural agency? The Burgomeister, Jon Kheer van Berendonk, has already had the grave prepared to save on expenses. Say what you like about the prevaricating old windbag, he is very budget conscious where the public purse is concerned. Joseph McCord - The Girdle: (Feb. 1927). World War I. Some irresponsible oaf discards a belt in a loft for Lieutenant Pelham to find. From the allies point of view this is no bad thing as "the girdle" - fashioned from human skin - transforms the wearer into a werewolf. Maddened by it's mere touch, Pelham leaps from the trench and tears out the throats of five Bosche infantrymen before he's cut down. As revived by Christine Campbell Thomson for You'll Need A Nightlight (Sept. 1927) Ewen Whyte - Murder Man: (Nov. 1949). "There are millions of Max Vollmers .... Each, of course, as with all of mankind, thinks himself quite different, endowed with superior qualities than those of his fellow creatures who, in turn, feel the same way about him. It is man's inbred sense of individuality that enables him to survive - for mostly he does - the cogwheel, assembly-line, loud and ill-mannered absurdity that is present day life." This Max Vollmen really is different in that he has identified the single source of all his misery and has concieved a foolproof plan to eradicate him, right under the noses of the police, tools of the despised authorities who suck all joy from life. Collar raised, blade in pocket, he sets off for the pier.
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Post by dem on Oct 11, 2016 6:47:31 GMT
 C. C. Senf: (Jan. 1930). Victim is his skinflint of an uncle, but the old miser is too tight-fisted to die - or that's the way it appears when he won't let go of an incriminating cigarette case. A pesky cat also prominently involved. H. P. Lovecraft - Hypnos: (May-June-July 1924). A carver of statues and full-time drug fiend seeks knowledge and power from the Great Old Cosmic Ones who lurk beyond the walls of sleep. The revelations drive him insane. Jay Wilmer Benjamin - Eric Martin’s Nemesis: (March 1937). A bent banker, awaiting transfer to the state pen where he is due to serve ten years for embezzlement, makes a run for it, accidentally killing his kindly jailer, Old man Brennan, in the process. Martin jumps a freight train, hobo style, but the feeling persists that he's being followed by person unseen. Eventually they come face to face. The madhouse claims another hopeless imbecile. |
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Post by dem on Oct 12, 2016 6:44:07 GMT
Sardinossa's bride lay dead in the tomb, while Sardinossa lurked in ambush for the young gallant who came to visit her. Hugh Rankin: (Nov. 1928). The beautiful Signora Beatrice lies dead by her own hand. Husband, Sardinossa, one of the most powerful men in Naples, is distraught to learn that his dubious "love" for her was not reciprocated. Pressurised into marriage by grasping parents, Beatrice yearned not for wealth and titles but her beloved, Don Orlino. Sardinossa commands that none but he shall pay homage to the Signora's memory in the family vault, but nightly, the devoted Don Orlino disobeys. Which pleases the hateful Sandinossa no end, having vowed to afford the young man an unspeakable, lingering death straight out of Edgar Allan Poe. Helen M. Reid - Under the Eaves: (June 1932). Eventually Hannah's constant whining and fault-finding drove away Nate, her easy going husband, swiftly followed by Judy, their only child. This stormy night, she is cursing both as ingrates when Nate lets himself in, casual as you please, and rests his sodden bones in favourite chair. The old shrew's inevitable outburst is tempered by her relief at having him back. She comes close as that to almost apologising for her behaviour .... until Nate vanishes before her eyes. And all the while something thumps against the outer wall. Captain George H. Daugherty, Jr. - The Death Mist: (Sept. 1932). As the only survivor of his platoon after a disastrous foray in the Argonne forest, Lieutenant John Blackmer of the US Infantry knows he faces disgrace and court martial for deserting his men in the thick of battle, him having some previous in this department. The least he can do is retrieve the neck-tags from the mangled soldier by the smoking crater over yonder .....
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Post by dem on Oct 13, 2016 7:50:03 GMT
Slowly but surely, we're getting there.  Boris Dolgov; (Sept. 1948). Sheila, unhappily married to Jason, first noticed the phenomena at her sister's engagement party. The cracks in one of the sun porch floor tiles have taken on a resemblace to a saturnine, Pan-like face, now sneering cruelly but, from another angle, shedding very real salty tears. The face begins to assert it's influence - "Don't fight me. Just listen to my music." The aforementioned Jason is a drunken womaniser, who can turn on the charm at a moment's notice, but from that night on it appears that, this time, he truly is a reformed character. Sheila is delighted, Pan less so. This wasn't part of his destructive plan. He ups the ante. As Sheila, seduced by the Pan pipes, loses her sanity, so his power grows until he is ready to destroy Jason in a feast of blood! Johns Harrington - The Teakwood Box: (March 1938). Nasty crook San Pedro Joe - speciality: preying upon the weak - steals the macabre, curiously carved trinket during his burglary of the widow Wright's place. Lucky for us, he doesn't believe any of the late Mr. W's baloney about the box being "cursed" and sets to opening it. Maybe the feeble old bat keeps her jewels hidden within or something. His fingers locate the hidden catch, the lid springs open, and ... Decent build up to disappointing low-key anti-climax. |
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Post by dem on Oct 13, 2016 17:04:57 GMT
Re Dorothy Quick's The Cracks Of Time. Particularly like this paragraph. "There was a fairy tale I remember from my youth and Andrew Lang's coloured fairy books. It was called Elves' Ointment as I recollect, and it was the story of a midwife brought to attend the birth of an elf. Given ointment to put on the new baby's eyes she had inadvertently gotten some on her own, and had seen everything different thereafter - that is, until the elves caught on and took her new sight away from her, with quite tragic results, as I remembered." If only she could ghost my synopses we might get somewhere. Arlton Eadie - Warning Wings: (Sept. 1929). How a ship was saved from disaster by the timely intervention of a ghost moth with a masterly flair for morse code. More accomplished than it sounds, but falls short of Mr. E's very best work. Paul Ernst - The Tree of Life: (Sept. 1930). A peculiar story is this, about a tree whose leaves could revivify a corpse.To prove he's an adult, Will, sixteen, volunteers to stay behind and watch over the corpse of Mrs Whilom while his dad accompanies old Ab Whilom through the snow to fetch the undertaker. Lured by the warmth of the fire, a pair of rats creep into the cabin. Will kills one outright with a well aimed boot, whereupon the second covers it's colleague with a green leaf. Where can the rodent have found that during the freezing winter? No sooner has the leaf been applied than the dead rat is returned to life! Will wonders what would happen if he repeated the same process on the late Mrs. Whilom ...  Uncredited illustration |
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Post by dem on Oct 14, 2016 16:50:46 GMT
The icy fingers of an ancient fetor reached for the life of the scheming Wesson Clark.  Virgil Finlay The Fifth Candle: (May 1952). Mr. Brunof, BLACK SORCERER, departs this world cursing his five sons for their profligacy and lack of respect for his high pitched voice. For the next five years, on the anniversary of his death, his spectre will visit the family home and light a candle. As it burns away to nothing, so one of them will die! Naturally Ivan, Dimitrie, Sergie, Boris, and our narrator, Alexie, shrug this off as a typically empty gesture on the part of the credulous old turd. Their laughter soon dries up. Richard F. Searight - The Sealed Casket: (March 1935). " And I do hereby bequeath to my one-time friend, Wesson Smart, the ancient coffer of Alu-Tor: and urge him only to leave the leaden seal thereon intact, as I have done for thirty years."And Clark thought scientists were supposed to be smart! All those months he was carrying on with Nonna, Old Martucci's hot young trophy wife, and the silly fool leaves him a rare and potentially priceless antique in his will! Now, let's see what's inside ... Almost certainly the inspiration for John Harrington's weaker The Teakwood Box. Star of the show is a foul-smelling, slithering invisible entity of cosmic malevolence. Author possibly a fan of H. P. Lovecraft.
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