Spectral Tales

[dem]

Thanks to all who've contributed scans and comment to the fanzine section which is fast becoming a personal favourite. It just seems right to commemorate these 'zines and small press publications in some small way as they all have much to commend them. That's certainly the case with the two issues of Spectral Tales (Cryptic Publications, USA) edited by Robert M. Price.

Spectral Tales #1 (1988)

Jason C. Eckhardt

Invocation - Robert M. Price

Dr. John Warwick Montgomery - God's Devil
Peter Cannon - An Episode In Prep School History
Frederick Cowles - The Thing From The Sea
Jason C. Eckhardt - A Tale Of A Lonely Island
Lin Carter - Fear (verse)
S. T. Joshi - M. R. James And The Limitations Of The Ghost Story (article)

Spectral Tales #2 (December 1989)

Bruce W. Timm

Editorial Shades - Robert M. Price

Roger Johnson - The Clues
Peter Cannon - A New England Story
John Glasby - The Dark Boatman
Shawn Ramsey - The Unquiet Grave (verse)
Frederick Cowles - Treasure Trove
Mike Ashley - The Ghosts of the Empty House: Some Facts in the case of Algernon Blackwood - Ghost Hunter (article)
Lin Carter - Druid Hill (verse)

Revenant Review
Letters from Lichen

I won't make my oft-repeated mistake of trusting to memory, so no comments on the stories until I've reread them although I've convinced myself I recall The Thing From The Sea and The Dark Boatman as though I only just finished them. One thing is immediately apparent: Price put together an impressive line up.

Some notes for now:

Hugh Lamb and Michel Parry had whetted our appetites for more Frederick Cowles so these reprints were particularly welcome as his work had yet to be collected. John Glasby made almost as many contributions to the legendary Supernatural Stories as Lionel Fanthorpe, similarly under a variety of pseudonyms, and is generally considered to be the more consistent author. The Glasby stories Richard Dalby exhumed for his Christmas ... books certainly bears this out.

Along with (among others) David Rowlands, Ron Weighell and A. F. Kidd, Roger Johnston was one of the great Ghosts & Scholars/ Haunted Library regulars.

The letters page was entirely given over to an amusing "frank exchange of views" between Rosemary Pardoe, James Rockhill and S. T. Joshi over the latter's somewhat incendiary article in issue 1.

And then it was gone.