Hamlyn Horror Stories for Boys-did it exist? What was in it?

[hammerlyn]

My brother owned a copy of a book with a title like that.  I am not sure of the publisher but I remembered the title as Horror Stories for Boys. After finding Supernatural Stories for Boys, Adventure Stories for Girls, Mystery Stories for Girls, my memory of the title is at least consistent with Hamyln's naming practises. I wondered for years if there was a Horror Stories for Girls book but apparently not. Evidently in the 70s and 80s girls weren't allowed to read horror stories.

The copy my brother owned did not have a dust jacket. It had a glossy wrap around cover illustration in shades of dark blue pasted to the boards. The spine was squared off, not round. The publishing date was prior to 1986. It was purchased in New Zealand which at that stage shared a lot of book trade with the UK. UK editions of books (covers, publishers, imprints) and books not really seen in the USA were often seen in NZ.

The book was a horror anthology. I remember details of only two stories.

One story involved two boys of different races, one of whom was poorer or whose parents may have been servants/worked for the richer boy's parents. The poorer boy is maltreated and some sort of curse or bad fortune is made for the richer boy who it is predicted will die laughing.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Die laughing}The poorer boy gives the richer boy a small box. The richer boy is scared as inside it are scorpions (spiders? snakes?) but he laughs when he realises they are rubber. He then trips down stairs or an escalator and breaks his neck.

Another story involved a man who, for some reason, broken down vehicle or whatever, spends the night in a secluded house where his host seems a bit too macarbe and obsessed with the works of Edgar Allen Poe, even to the point of trying to tie the man to a table on under a giant pendulm with a blade on it.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Pit and Pendulum}The man escapes, possibly having strapped the host to the the table under the pendulum, the house burns down, and the host is revealed to have been the tortured spirt of Poe.

I have searched for several years on various book sites, about every 6 months scrolling through hundreds of pages of search results for "horror" and/or "boy" but am yet to find anything like it. If you know the title of the anthology, or the names or the short stories and their authors, I would be most curious to learn them.

edit: These Photos show the cover for an Australian version of Adventure Stories for Boys. Despite the different title and entirely different contents, the illustration vaguely reminds me of the cover for the horror stories and may have been reused, possibly slightly recoloured.

[dem]

Think it might be Hamlyn's Spine Chilling Tales for the Dead of Night, which includes both a Pit & the Pendulum variation (The Poe Fanatic), and a 'die laughing' story (Banana Revenge), though the cover art is different to Adventure Stories for Boys.

[hammerlyn]

Thank you for the details.

I haven't managed to find a copy but the pit and the pendulum picture on the page you linked to is one I remember and I recalled the "rubber scorpion abuse" too. (Well put.) While the cover of that book is blue as I remember, and I had the revenge stories confused (I thought both main characters were young) showing my memory is less than perfect, that title is not at all familiar and the publishing date is a little difficult as my brother went through some major life changes in 86. Yet the details of the two stories I would like to read again are correct, and assuming you listed the stories in the order they appear, Banana Revenge is at the back of the book where I remember flipping to it to re-read it the last time.

[dem]

Apr 4, 2021 6:37:17 GMT hammerlyn said:

Thank you for the details.

I haven't managed to find a copy but the pit and the pendulum picture on the page you linked to is one I remember and I recalled the "rubber scorpion abuse" too. (Well put.) While the cover of that book is blue as I remember, and I had the revenge stories confused (I thought both main characters were young) showing my memory is less than perfect, that title is not at all familiar and the publishing date is a little difficult as my brother went through some major life changes in 86. Yet the details of the two stories I would like to read again are correct, and assuming you listed the stories in the order they appear, Banana Revenge is at the back of the book where I remember flipping to it to re-read it the last time.

Have just checked, and the contents appear in the order given above, but .... "This edition produced for BHS London by the Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited, 1986," suggests either a reprint of the original Hamlyn edition (your Adventure Stories for Boys?) or maybe even an edited version of same.