Mary Danby – 65 Great Tales Of Horror

[dem]

Mary Danby – 65 Great Tales Of Horror (Sundial 1981)

Adam Sands

Villiers de L’isle Adam – The Salvationists (The Torture Of hope)
Honore de Balzac – The Mysterious Mansion
E. F. Benson – Negotium Perambulans
Charles Birkin – Text For Today
Robert Bloch – Return To The Sabbath
Sydney J. Bounds – Hothouse
Ray Bradbury – The October Game
Joseph Payne Brennan – The Horror At Chilton Castle
Anthony Burgess – An American Organ
Thomas Burke – The Bird
Hortense Calisher – Heartburn
Truman Capote – Miriam
R. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Monster
Agatha Christie – The Last Seance
John Collier – De Mortuis
William Wilkie Collins – A Terribly Strange Bed
R. C. Cook – Green Fingers
Roald Dahl – The Landlady
Mary Danby – Nursery Tea
Monica Dickens – Activity Time
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Brazilian Cat
Stanley Ellin – The Speciality Of The House
A. E. Ellis – If Thy Right Hand Offends Thee
H. H. Ewers – The Spider
Elizabeth Fancett – Someone In The Room
William Faulkner – A Rose For Emily
C. S. Forester – The Man Who Didn’t Ask Why
Jane Gaskell – Jane
Terry Gisbourne – The Quiet Man
John B. L. Goodwin – The Cocoon
Patricia Highsmith – The Snail-Watcher
Fanny Hurst – Guilty
Henry James – The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes
Gerald Kersh – Comrade Death
Henry Kuttner – The Salem Horror
David Langford – Cold Spell
L. A. Lewis – The Meerschaum Pipe
H. P. Lovecraft – The Hound
Philip MacDonald – Our Feathered Friends
Roger Malisson – The Thirteenth Kestrel
Frederick Marryat – The Werewolf
Richard Matheson – No Such Thing As A Vampire
Guy de Maupassant – The Hand
Clive Pemberton – The Will Of Luke Carlowe
Hal Pink – The Screaming Plant
Edgar Allan Poe – The Black Cat
Seabury Quinn – The House Of Horror
Jane Rice – The Refugee
Robert Silverberg – Back From The Grave
Frances Stephens – Claws
Bram Stoker – Dracula [extract]
Theodore Sturgeon – It
Terry Tapp – See How They Run
Bernard Taylor – Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake
William F. Temple – The Whispering Gallery
Harry E. Turner – Now Showing At The Roxy
R. E. Vernede – The Finless Death
Evelyn Waugh – The Man Who Liked Dickens
Philip Welby – Buffy
H. G. Wells – Pollock And The Porroh Man
Edward Lucas White – Lukundoo
T. H. White – The Troll
Henry S. Whitehead – The Lips
Angus Wilson – Mummy To The Rescue
Alexander Woollcott – Moonlight Sonata

As with the other coffin table anthologies in this series, the bulk of the stories had previously appeared in Fontana's Ghost, Horror and Tales Of Terror books, though again, there are a handful of originals and reprints from other sources.

Warning: Spoilers aplenty

Fanny Hurst – Guilty: Mr. Jett's wife and daughter believe him to be a were-fish. Emma, the mother, died giving birth to Ann Elizabeth, who is a relatively run of the mill girl up until the eve of her wedding. As her father enters the room she attacks him with a knife, shrieking “Don’t touch me! You can’t! You haven’t got any arms! Horrible gills!” Eventually she turns the blade on herself, plunging it into her throat. The unfortunate Mr. Jett is tried for murder.

Villiers de L’isle Adam – The Salvationists: Aka The Torture Of Hope: Having endured Segovian torture chambers for a year without once renouncing his faith, Rabbi Aser Abarbanel is told that he will be burned alive at tomorrow’s auto de fe. No sooner has the Grand Inquisitor broken this cheering news, than the Rabbi realises his tormentor has forgotten to lock the cell door behind him …

Jane Gaskell – Jane: Girl prone to fits is neglected by parents who favour Jane, a boa constrictor. The snake, in its dotage, attacks and devours the father.

Clive Pemberton – The Will Of Luke Carlowe: By the terms of the Professor's will, his detested nephew Cyril will inherit the entire estate on condition that he agree to enter the burial vault a month to the night following his death. Only then will Carlowe – in spirit form – present him with the document of entitlement, confounding those who take him for a credulous old fool into the bargain.

Charles Birkin – Text For Today: Rev. Herbert Wessel and wife May are on missionary work in Namavava. The living is idyllic until a rapist is murdered by members of the victim’s outraged family. The killers are caged awaiting trial when one of the Reverend’s boys has a Biblically-inspired bright idea that will surely help the Holy couple overcome their language difficulties …

C. S. Forester – The Man Who Didn’t Ask Why: Prescience is a double-edged blade. Carpmael has an unerring ability to predict the future, which is how he’s amassed a fortune as a notorious gambler and speculator. But how long will it last? When and how will he die? The doom he envisions while bedridden in hospital is is so awful, he blows his brains out on the spot. That is, he attempts to.....

Hortense Calisher – Heartburn: Psychiatrist walks into a Doctor’s surgery and says “I have some kind of small animal lodged in my chest …”

It began when a troublesome boy arrived at the school and boasted of his special ability. He could swallow animals and regurgitate them whole. Obviously, nobody believed him and when one of the kids said as much, the ‘gift’ transferred to him. Soon it has passed from one boy to the next. The shrink dismisses it as some kind of collective mania …

You can see the end coming a mile off but that doesn’t detract from the powerful strangeness of the thing.

[ripper]

The Horror of Chilton Castle: Payne Brennan takes centre stage as narrator in this creepy tale. On a trip to England, researching his ancestors, he arrives at a country inn close to Chilton Castle, home of some distant maternal relatives. He tells us about the legend that a terrible secret lies in one of the castle's rooms; a secret revealed only once per generation when the heir becomes of age. Who should walk in at that moment is the castle's Factor, who tells Brennan that the heir is due to have the secret revealed to him that very night, but as the heir's father had died the Factor was seeking a third person to accompany them. On learning of Payne Brennan's family connection, the Factor persuades him to join them. Well, if you can overlook the initial coincidence, this is a pretty creepy story, and by the end, neither the narrator nor the heir will ever be the same again. It uses that old chestnut of a dark secret hidden away and revealed to someone when they reach maturity, which has been around for quite some time, possibly the most famous legend being that of the supposedly secret room at Glamis Castle. There was also a rarely-seen film which used a variation of the theme entitled 'The Maze' made in 1953.

[dem]

Richard Matheson - No Such Thing As A Vampire: Set in the foothills of the Bihor Mountains, Romania: Dr. Petrie Gheria is a broken man. Each night he sits by the bedside of his ailing wife, Madam Alexis, but to no avail. At some time during the night, a vampire always gets to her lovely throat. All of the servants have quit their posts bar the faithful butler, Karel - God bless that old faithful! - and Solta is fast becoming a ghost town. In "desperation", he prevails upon his handsome young colleague, Dr. Michael Vares, to travel from Cluj for a consultation. Truly, grimly fiendish!

Clive Pemberton - The Will Of Luke Carlowe: Why would a demented old coot like Professor Carlowe leave his entire estate to despised nephew, Cyril? Answer: to prove to the obstinate young sceptic that the dark occult is not mumbo jumbo! To get his hands on the deeds, Cyril must spend a night in the gloomy family vault where the Professor has vowed to greet him in person. Cyril is not the least fazed at the prospect, and after all, what harm can a dead eccentric do?

[fritzmaitland]

May 25, 2015 8:39:21 GMT dem said:

[Harry E. Turner – Now Showing At The Roxy

Barking mad and extremely tasteless tale , dating from 1977 but set in 2028 in a lawless, rat-overrun, crumbling, riot-torn town. Two cinema owners, Stan Rabble of The Roxy and Lou Rouser of The Luxor show increasingly delirious films in a desperate attempt to enliven their downtrodden and desensitised clientele. When the films don't do it, they resort to lunatic stunts that would put William Castle to shame (Every 100th ice-cream contains bubonic plague! etc). Stan thinks he has the upper hand, but Lou commands huge queues when he turns the tables and puts on a double-bill of The Sound Of Music & Mary Poppins. Surely something else is going on?

This left me almost speechless. Especially the rapists.

[dem]

Sept 20, 2019 12:12:36 GMT fritzmaitland said:

May 25, 2015 8:39:21 GMT dem said:

[Harry E. Turner – Now Showing At The Roxy

Barking mad and extremely tasteless tale , dating from 1977 but set in 2028 in a lawless, rat-overrun, crumbling, riot-torn town. Two cinema owners, Stan Rabble of The Roxy and Lou Rouser of The Luxor show increasingly delirious films in a desperate attempt to enliven their downtrodden and desensitised clientele. When the films don't do it, they resort to lunatic stunts that would put William Castle to shame (Every 100th ice-cream contains bubonic plague! etc). Stan thinks he has the upper hand, but Lou commands huge queues when he turns the tables and puts on a double-bill of The Sound Of Music & Mary Poppins. Surely something else is going on?

This left me almost speechless. Especially the rapists.

Ah yes.

Only at the Roxy Will a Genuine Rapist Mingle with the Audience and Savagely Assault Defenceless Women while they Innocently Enjoy BLACKBEARD's JOURNEY INTO THE INTESTINES OF A WHALE

Cinemascope

Dubious marketing tactics for sure, but Stan Rabble is onto a winner. "The Roxy was besieged by cinema-goers - mostly middle-aged women and the occasional male hairdresser - to savour the thrills of this unique package deal."

[fritzmaitland]

May 25, 2015 8:39:21 GMT dem said:

E. F. Benson – Negotium Perambulans

Another winner! Remote insular community in Cornwall aids the convalescence of our narrator, who's uncle is a bit of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, who has some rather odd carved wooden panels in his church ; one in particular depicting a cross-bearing priest confronting (or is he?) a rather disgusting Wheatleyesque slug-like creature. A nearby mansion was built from a destroyed church and all manner of blasphemies take place therein - the master of the house is becoming more dissolute (not to mention pissed) but has a horror of darkness, and in a fit of inebriated pique smashes the carving. The holy uncle is all for calling the rozzers but his neighbour is wiped out in a horrible fashion during a supernatural power cut, and the wood panel is miraculously (?) reconstituted. The narrator grows up, becomes a successful barrister , and having made enough to live on, is drawn back to his earlier Cornish haunt. There's something rather odd about this tale, that holds the interest. There's a lot of Internet babble that links it to Lovecraft. Not quite sure why it appealed to me, but it did.

[fritzmaitland]

May 25, 2015 8:39:21 GMT dem said:

Roald Dahl – The Landlady

Perfect short story. The realisation of what is going on is so well timed, and the actual happenings left to the imagination. Rushed to the Tube of You for Tales Of The Unexpected version. Intro by the Master himself, we've moved on from 1959 to 1979, a room in a B&B has gone up from 5/6 to £4.00 but it's bang on otherwise. Not sure about the tacked on ending that hammers home what Roald hinted at before withdrawing. I note there's an Alfred Hitchcock Presents version too, with Dean Stockwell and scripted by Robert Bloch.

[fritzmaitland]

May 25, 2015 8:39:21 GMT dem said:

Sydney J. Bounds – Hothouse

Mary Danby – Nursery Tea

Two nifty tales here recreating that magic period of English horror that kind of merges the 50s through to the 70s where anything can happen. The Bounder's Hothouse combines the flora horror with an element of General Sternwood in Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, although instead of a private eye, this military horticulturalist entertains a fertiliser salesman. The stuff that's not only organic but contains lots of blood. Of course, if there's any that has a higher percentage of the red stuff, that's all to the good. You know some people come to look like their pets? Well, there's something to be said for getting lost in your gardening. And it's pretty terrifying.

Mazzie D takes a couple of upper middle class siblings whom life is rapidly passing by, and pits them against their childhood nemesis, Nanny. Everyone thought Nanny a bastion of goodness and rectitude. Everyone apart from her two former charges - now middle-aged, insular and still burning with resentment at the torture and humiliation Nanny dished out. Let's recreate the old Nursery Tea, where they can provide bread and butter before letting the old baggage have a taste of her own medicine. Let's hope it doesn't go wrong...

[fritzmaitland]

May 25, 2015 8:39:21 GMT dem said:

Truman Capote – Miriam
Hal Pink – The Screaming Plant
Evelyn Waugh – The Man Who Liked Dickens

Old Hal Pink doesn't stand a chance sandwiched between those two, does he? The Screaming Plant is just that. Lasting a mere four or so pages (SPOILERS coming up)a narrator has a pal who has an old book about gardening and a mandrake seed. Said seed is planted in the basement and the little bugger begins to grow, and doesn't stop until it's literally man-sized. The gardener had ignored the narrator's warnings, but manages to summon our storyteller to join him in a fight to the finish with the blood-lusting psychotic flora. I wanted to diss this but the more I think about it, the absurdity and brevity make it quite fun.

Truman Capote and Evelyn Waugh in a bumper compendium of horror stories? Both men seem to be whom the word 'waspish' was created for and the US version's story is certainly spooky enough, with a spinster trying to cope with the apparition of a young girl. As for the GB entrant, he's a bit at sea with his tale of a hapless husband bunking off on a South American expedition to escape his faithless wife. The trip is so badly organised our man is soon adrift alone in merciless jungle, but manages to stagger into a small Indian encampment, lorded over by an English speaking eccentric who can't read but has a small library of the works of Charles Dickens, slowly being eroded by insects and weather. As the useless explorer recovers from his ordeal, he reads the likes of Bleak House and Little Dorrit to his saviour, who gradually morphs into a gaoler. Our man is not the first talking book this madman has utilised...not exactly horrific but, as you might expect, well told.

[fritzmaitland]

Aug 26, 2015 20:32:48 GMT dem said:

Richard Matheson - No Such Thing As A Vampire: Set in the foothills of the Bihor Mountains, Romania: Dr. Petrie Gheria is a broken man. Each night he sits by the bedside of his ailing wife, Madam Alexis, but to no avail. At some time during the night, a vampire always gets to her lovely throat. All of the servants have quit their posts bar the faithful butler, Karel - God bless that old faithful! - and Solta is fast becoming a ghost town. In "desperation", he prevails upon his handsome young colleague, Dr. Michael Vares, to travel from Cluj for a consultation. Truly, grimly fiendish!

For Oct 3rd I've got in early. Nice tale, brilliant build up, groanworthy 'cheat' ending, but living up to the title, and an EC flourish. Will the butler do it,so to speak?

[fritzmaitland]

Henry James - The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes. Oh dear. This does turn into a horror story with the last line, but it's a bit of slog to get there.