Peter Cushing – Tales Of A Monster Hunter

Peter Haining & Peter Cushing (eds.) – Tales Of A Monster Hunter (Futura, 1978)

Peter Cushing – How I Became A Monster Hunter

Alexandre Dumas – The Masked Ball
Mary Shelley – The Mortal Immortal
Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest
Josef Nesvadba – In The Footsteps Of The Abominable Snowman
Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle – The Ring Of Thoth
Gertrude Bacon – The Gorgon
Robert Bloch – The Man Who Collected Poe
Michael Arlen – The Ghoul Of Golders Green
James Blish – There Shall Be No Darkness

Unusually generous (13 page) introductory essay from the great man, and a neat selection too. As with the various Christopher Lee compilations (see Haining, Parry), the idea was to collect stories featuring villains and monsters that the Cush had encountered during his glorious career. The Michael Arlen story has dated badly, but full marks for reviving James Blish’s extraordinary werewolf novella, while Robert Bloch’s EC-like creation is always welcome.

The dedication “To Helen, Who is always with me”, even brings a lump to the throat of the evil demonik, who isn’t a great big fairy as everybody knows.

Republished as Peter Cushing’s Monster Movies, (Robert Hale, 1994)