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Post by dem on May 3, 2014 9:06:30 GMT
Anonymous (ed.) – The Premature Burial (Corgi, 1966)  George Underwood
Frederick H Christian – I’ll Kiss You Goodnight
Robert Louis Stevenson – Thrawn Janet
James Pearson – Cat
A.J.Ronald – The Flesh of the Devil
Henry James – Sir Edmund Orme
Richard Hengist – A Dream of Crows
Sheridan Le Fanu – CarmillaBlurb: Four stories of horror from the pens of famous writers of the past
Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, Sheridan Le Fanu.
And four spine-chilling never-before-published tales by new masters of terror and the supernatural
Frederick H. Christian, James Pearson, A. J. Ronald, Richard Hengist.Cheers, what an amazing artist - why aren’t the cover artists credited more often?! Out of the two anthologies it looks like Cold Embrace gives the better value - Premature Burial is a slim 150 pages long, with half of those taken up by Carmilla. There are three other classics and four never-before-published stories: I’ll Kiss You Goodnight – Frederick H Christian A short but well written story about a man who gets hit by a bus, then transformed into a vampire via what was supposed to have been a life-saving blood transfusion. Then the donor turns up on his doorstep and his troubles really begin... Cat – James Pearson It’s the winter of 1854 during the Crimean war. A captured soldier jumps off a train and escapes into the forest. Feverish, half starved and badly wounded by a gun shot wound to the knee, he crawls through the undergrowth before finding sanctuary in an abandoned old hut where he is befriended by a cat with a silver bell around her neck. The cat becomes his protector, keeping him warm and even bringing him smelly old bandages to dress his wounds with. He seems to be getting better – but the stronger he gets the more the cat seems to resent him. Why? I must say, the ending took me completely by surprise and was pretty gross in an understated kind of way. The Flesh of the Devil – A. J. Ronald A man on his wedding night gets possessed by an evil entity haunting the hotel room where he is honeymooning. Powerless to resist the demonic force taking over his body, he knocks his wife unconscious then opens a cupboard by the wardrobe. In it is a spider – the size of a dinner plate and covered with wispy hair-like antennae. The spider hops up on to the bed where his wife is sleeping and starts crawling over her body, sucking the life out of her. Regaining his senses the man finds a knife and attacks the spider just as it nestles into her throat. He hacks and hacks away at it – only to find himself standing over his wife’s torn up body. Of course he is declared insane and sent to Broadmoor - it’s an open and shut case, the only question at trial being the nature of the strange grey sticky stuff found on the murder weapon, a substance as yet unidentified.... A Dream of Crows - Richard HengistAnother man moves into a new house with his wife and starts dreaming about crows. Lots of crows. His dreams and hallucinations become increasingly bizarre – culminating in a night of terrifying sleep-paralysis where all he can do is lie helpless and watch while his wife is ravished by a man-sized, repugnantly smelly crow. Her eyes get pecked out. Thankfully he wakes up – only to find himself covered in blood, a knife in his hand... his wife’s body on the bed... This was the strangest of the lot for me. I’m not sure if the complete lack of explanation or back story (was the house built on an ancient crow burial ground? Did he run over a crow on the way home and neglect to stop?) added to or detracted from the overall creepiness of the story - I think perhaps the former. I don't know what it is about the day's Corgi horror anthologies that I find so attractive. Almost without exception, they are lazy compilations of over-familiar, presumably out of copyright classics supplemented by the odd original ( The Premature Burial is unusually generous in in this department with four), and they cut corners on the Syd Bentlif compilation to the point where they can't even be bothered to waste inspiration on a title. But how I wish we had the equivalent today! Anyway, Sarah did such a job on The Premature Burial that you are best advised to reread her comments and leave it at that. Edgar Allan Poe - The Premature Burial; The master of morbidity relates details of several well documented cases of "what is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality," i.e., consignment to the coffin before one's time. Ever the cheerful sod, he goes on to enthuse that "Scarcely, in truth, is a graveyard ever encroached upon, for any purpose, to any great extent, that skeletons are not found in postures which suggest the most fearful of suspicions," before sharing a personal experience of inhumation. Oddly, Poe not only survives, but henceforth turns his back on miserable meditation and is restored to full health as a consequence. All that hype and what a lightweight he turned out to be. Frederick H. Christian - I’ll Kiss You Goodnight: Narrator in daydream, steps in front of lorry, winds up in plaster from head to toe but miraculously survives. On his return from hospital, his personality has altered so radically that lovely wife Elizabeth, a former nurse in a mental hospital, is at a loss to understand his sudden aversion to garlic, daylight and religious symbolism. A visit from the local vicar has him frothing at the mouth. Finally, he receives a midnight visit from vampire who is household name. The King of the undead reveals that he has turned blood donor in latest attempt to conquer mankind. James Pearson - Cat: Crimea war. An escaped English prisoner holed up in a hut in the Nevinnomyssk forest with a very dead man decomposing on the floor - and a cat. The cat would prefer if his new owner be more like his last, who dressed in filthy rags and wore a bell around his neck ...
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Post by dem on Oct 9, 2018 16:27:23 GMT
Would love to know who ghost-edited this collection. Having re-read the four originals last night - and A Dream of Crows is deeply unpleasant in the best possible way - am pretty sure they were all written by the same hand. All are copyrighted to Transworld Ltd., as opposed to the individual authors - Frederick H. Christian, James Pearson, Richard Hengist and A. J. Ronald - who, evidently, arrived from nowhere (no previous credits) and went straight back there (no subsequent credits *). It's all supposition on my part, not a shred of evidence to support it, but would not be the least surprised if we were to discover that I'll Kiss You Goodnight, The Cat, The Flesh Of The Devil and A Dream Of Crows were all the work of one talented hack. Wild stab in the dark. Richard Davis?
* Ok, so not quite accurate. Phil Harbottle reprinted I'll Kiss You Tonight in Fantasy Adventure #10 (Cosmos/ Wildside 2004) which I've not seen. If Mr. Harbottle provided any kind of introduction/ biographical info would appreciate any details.
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Post by bluetomb on Oct 9, 2018 22:45:37 GMT
Can make no promises but there is a possibility of information on this one somewhere at my work. I like this kind of mystery so I'd be happy to have a bit of a ferret around on my spare time.
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Post by dem on Oct 10, 2018 8:17:28 GMT
Can make no promises but there is a possibility of information on this one somewhere at my work. I like this kind of mystery so I'd be happy to have a bit of a ferret around on my spare time. Thank you, Mr. Tomb! Have since heard from Justin Fanatic of House of Fanatic/ Marriott Escort Agency Enterprises.  Had forgotten all about that! Sure enough, A Visual Guide to Corgi in PF #33 includes the following snippet. "Fred Nolan, who ran the western list and went on to become a successful thriller writer, produced "I'll Kiss You Goodnight" as Frederick H. Christian over one night." Kind of puts paid to my "all by the same hand" nonsense, though we still need to find those responsible for the other three. |
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