Hugh Lamb – Gaslit Nightmares

Hugh Lamb – Gaslit Nightmares : An Anthology of Victorian Tales of Terror (Futura, 1988)

Barry Pain – The Undying Thing
Lady Dilke – The Serpent’s Head
Hume Nisbet – The Phantom Model
Bernard Capes – The Black Reaper
Bernard Capes – The Accursed Cordonnier
Robert Barr – The Vengeance Of The Dead
Alice Rea – The Beckside Boggle
Charles J. Mansford – Maw-Sayah
Robert W. Chambers – In The Court Of the Dragon
Mrs. J. H. Riddell – The Old House In Vauxhall Walk
Charles Dickens – The Drunkard’s Death
Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman – Luella Miller
Richard Marsh – A Psychological Experiment
Dick Donovan – The Mystic Spell
Joel Chandler Harris – The Late Mr. Watkins Of Georgia
Harriet Beecher Stowe – The Ghost In The mill
J. A. Barry – A Derelict
Jerome K. Jerome – The Haunted Mill
J. H. Pearce – An Unexpected Journey
Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks – The Pride Of The Corbyns
The Countess Of Munster – The Page Boy’s Ghost
Wirt Gerrare – Mysterious Maisie

Hugh Lamb – Tales from a Gaslit Graveyard

Hugh Lamb  (ed.) – Tales from a Gaslit Graveyard (W.H. Allen, 1979, Coronet, 1980)

Introduction – Hugh Lamb

Hume Nisbet – The Haunted Station
Robert Barr – The Hour And The Man
Mrs. J. H. Riddell – Nut Bush Farm
J. H. Pearce – The Man Who Coined his Blood Into Gold
Lady Dilke – The Shrine Of Death
Lady Dilke – The Black Veil
Ambrose Bierce – The Way Of Ghosts
K. & H. Ptichard – The Fever Queen
W. C. Morrow – The Permanent Stiletto
Richard Marsh – The Houseboat
R. Murray Gilchrist – Dame Inowslad
Anon – The Mountain Of Spirits
Anon – The Golden Bracelet
The Countess Of Munster – The Tyburn Ghost
Guy Boothby – Remorseless Vengeance
Bernard Capes – The Green Bottle
Bernard Capes – An Eddy On The Floor

Hugh Lamb – Forgotten Tales Of Terror

Hugh Lamb (ed) – Forgotten Tales Of Terror  (Methuen, 1978)

Introduction – Hugh Lamb

Oswell Blakeston – The Fear From The Lake
Frederick Cowles – The Cavader Of Bishop Louis
Barry Pain – Smeath
C. D. Pamely – The Murder Of The Hunchbacked Boy
Lafcadio Hearn – The Reconciliation
Bernard Capes – The Moon-Stricken
E. F. Benson – The Chippendale Mirror
Charles Duff – The Haunted Bungalow
Robert W. Chambers – The Third Eye
Amyas Northcote – The Late Mrs. Fowke
William Hope Hodgson – The Mystery Of The Derelict
Dermot Chesson Spence – The House On The Rynek

Hugh Lamb – The Thrill Of Horror

Hugh Lamb (ed) – The Thrill Of Horror  (W. H. Allen, 1978)

Introduction – Hugh Lamb

H. Rider Haggard – Only A Dream
L. A. Lewis – The Meerschaum Pipe
A. Erskine Ellis – The Life-Buoy
Sir T. G. Jackson – The Lady Of Rosemount
John Gawsworth – How It Happened
Valerie Bryusov – In The Mirror
Joy Burnett – “Calling Miss Marker”
Dick Donovan – A Night Of Horror
L. T. C. Rolt – The Shouting
Charles Birkin – The Happy Dancers
William Hope Hodgson – The Weed Men
Frederick Cowles – Eyes For The Blind
H. R. Wakefield – Mr. Ash’s Studio
Robert Haining – Montage Of Death
Grant Allen – Pallinghurst Barrow
Eleanor Scott – Randall’s Round
E. H. Visiak – The Skeleton At The Feast
E. H. Visiak – Medusan Madness
A. C. Benson – Out Of The Sea
R. Murray Gilchrist – Witch-In-Grain
A. N. L. Munby – The Tudor Chimney
M. R. James – The Experiment

Charles Birkin – “The Happy Dancers”: Russia on the eve of the revolution. Serge, son of the Grand Duke, marries Louba, a peasant girl whose father is Boris Kerensky, a political agitator. The Duke has recently had him whipped and has threatened him with Siberia if he continues to stir up dissent.

Come 1917 and Serge is a soldier, while Louba has blossomed. As ‘Nikakova’ she is a celebrated cabaret performer at “The Happy Dancers”. She is also pregnant with the couples’ first child and is awaiting Serges return from duty to break the good news to him. The only blot on the landscape is that her father has discovered her whereabouts and his mob are fighting with the infantry on the outskirts of town. Their arrival at “The Happy Dancers” coincides with Serge’s …

Frederick Cowles- Eyes For The Blind:“I shuddered. Who had not heard of John Dangerfield? This monster had been convicted of the most vile crimes. His mania was to attack unsuspecting persons, often children, and gouge out their eyes. He had blinded five people in this manner ….”

Sydney Jackson, a young medium, holds a seance at a haunted castle in Ecclefain where a black magician had been blinded and killed in 1694 after a grave-robbing, eye-plucking spree. Guess who he becomes possessed by?

L. T. C. Rolt – The Shouting: Rolt had a brilliant collection of industrial age ghost stories, Sleep No More, published in 1948 after which he wrote nothing else in the field until Hugh Lamb tempted him out of retirement. The Shouting is an atmospheric piece set in Devon. Edward confesses the reason why he’s terrified of woods. It seems that he has witnessed a diabolical ritual by feral children to summon their God – the Green Man.

John Gawsworth – How It Happened: Surrey: Stanley Barton’s handsome elder brother and Marjery are in love. They meet every evening beneath the fir tree. Stanley isn’t happy about this at all because he also loves Marjery. She makes the mistake of laughing at him when his brother scorns “he ought to have more pride than to hang about where he isn’t wanted.”
Soon he isn’t the only one hanging about, as Stanley explains from the asylum.

L. A. Lewis – The Meerschaum Pipe: The narrator moves into ‘Heroney’, the former country residence of Harper who butchered several women and buried them in the surrounding fields. Or rather, parts of them:

“The most revolting feature of the murders was his habit of severing the head and limbs and leaving them on the scene for identification, while carrying away the trunk for addition to a sort of museum …”

In between visits to the Vicarage and brushing up on his golf handicap, the new squire takes to smoking Harper’s best pipe. The discovery of a gypsy girl’s mutilated remains in Arningham Woods signals a new reign of terror …

Hugh Lamb – Cold Fear

Hugh Lamb (ed.) – Cold Fear: New Tales Of Terror (W. H. Allen, 1981)

Foreword – Hugh Lamb
Marion Pitman – “Lullaby For A Baby Horror-story Writer”

Ramsey Campbell – In The Bag
Eleanor Inglefield – The Music In The House
Brian Lumley – In The Glow Zone
Ken Alden – The Papal Magician
Robert Aickman – Laura
Robert Haining – An Emissary For The Devil
David Sutton – A Little Bit Of Egypt
John Blackburn – Aunty Green
Kathleen Murray – All The Amenities
Adrian Cole – The Demon In The Stone
Charles Birkin – Dinner In A Private Room
Frederick Cowles – The House In The Forest
Arthur Porges – The Man Who Wouldn’t Eat
Rosemary Timperley – The Darkhouse Keeper
Ramsey Campbell – After The Queen

Adrian Cole – The Demon In The Stone: Dartmoor. Alan Steele and his wife Fiona invite journalist Ray Hammon to spend the weekend at the mansion they’re looking after for Sir Isaac Vilegarde, a man with a huge assortment of magical bric-a-brac. Hammon ruined Alan’s sister, jilting her when she fell pregnant, and thinks Steele is unaware of the fact. Not so. Steele tricks him into releasing the wind-demon by means of pumping up the stereo.

Charles Birkin – Dinner In A Private Room: Something of a departure for Birkin in what seems to have been his final story(?). The modern-day incarnations of some of the most notorious characters in history are invited to dine with Mr. Nasat. Nero, Judas Iscariot, Cesare Borgia and de Rais are commended on their past achievements, but are reminded they could all have done better. Natas has decided to move into the movie industry: “We’ll be showing the Nazarene as he really was, and that is as a failure and a two-bit agitator. He was a muddled and hysterical homosexual and those twelve disciples of his – well, we’ll slant them as a kind of Touring Company for Gay lib. The Magdalene’s a Pansy’s Moll. Get the idea?”

Kathleen Murray – All The Amenities: Martin Sower, self-confessed bastard and thief, takes his wife on holiday to a guest house on the advice of Jeremy, a partner he swindled whose brother hung himself rather than face bankruptcy. From the beginning of his stay, Sower is the victim of ‘accidents’ which see him scalded and stabbed through the hand. Are the females at the establishment merely clumsy, or is there a conspiracy afoot?

Brian Lumley – In The Glow Zone: After the bomb, two-headed mutants survive on a diet of rats, cats & co. In short, anything they can find that isn’t contaminated. Men come after them with shot-guns. The mutants fight back with axes but are eventually overcome as their mother had been before them.

Ken Alden – The Papal Magician: Medieval Rome: A crippled priest, sympathetic to the Borgia dynasty, summons forth an angel when taunted to do so by a cynic during a pub argument. Unfortunately, it’s of the fallen variety, and a decidedly unpleasant fucker to look at.

Eleanor Inglefield – The Music In The House: cornwall. Archaeologist Simon Kent unadvisedly steals a prehistoric disk in some way connected to Sun worship. Ancient forces duly punish him for his crime.

Hugh Lamb – The Taste Of Fear

Hugh Lamb (ed.) – The Taste Of Fear (W. H. Allen, 1976: Coronet, 1977)

Introduction – Hugh Lamb

Frederick Cowles – Three Shall Meet
David Sutton – The Fetch
W. F. W. Tatham – Manfred’s Three Wishes
William Hope Hodgson – From The Tideless Sea
Michael Sims – Benjamin’s Shadow
John Blackburn – The Final Trick
E. H. Visiak – The Queen Of Beauty
A. C. Benson – The Uttermost Farthing
Ramsey Campbell – Ash
L. T. C. Rolt – The House Of Vengeance
Les Freeman – Late
Erckmann-Chatrian – The Crab Spider
Roger Parkes – Interim Report

Unusually for Hugh, he serves up a selection of stories from the Victorian age through to the (then) present day. A few of the moderns to be getting along with …

Les Freeman – Late: Darlington. Doug returns to a hotel he visited 20 years ago on a Ghost Hunt and discovers that the room he occupied on that occasion, no 75, has a reputation for being haunted and has rarely been used since.
The spectre he’d sought out on the first visit was that of a WWII pilot who died crashing his plane into the sea rather than bail out and risk it hitting a house. Whenever anyone sees his face, they die. Doug’s about to find out whether or not that’s true.

David Sutton – The Fetch:Campus horror. Finch hides behind a tombstone on Halloween night intent on scaring the students who, at the instigation of self-confessed ‘black magician’ Cookson, plan to hold a ceremony among the graves. Finch is horrified when they split open a coffin, even moreso when, during the ritual, the corpse is addressed by his name …

Michael Sims – Benjamin’s Shadow: Cornwall. An old lady leaves the narrator her entire fortune provided he spends the rest of his life on her estate, otherwise the will is declared null and void. The place is haunted by all manner of apparitions – a tiny spectral hand, mewling voices, the bath-water turning to blood, a couple dressed in the attire of a previous century, etc.
When, one morning, he sees the wall ‘rippling’ as he shaves, he decides it’s time to investigate. He discovers a child’s bones, gives them a decent burial, but still the haunting persists.

Ramsey Campbell – Ash: Lloyd, researching local customs and folk tales in the Cotswolds, temporarily moves into a house which has a reputation for being “tragic”, although the only recent history attached to it concerns a couple who had a dreadful flare-up, with the guy burning all his girl’s possessions before moving out. Before long Lloyd detects a presence about the place trailing ash into the rooms, and a woman’s voice interupts his tape-recordings and telephone calls to his girlfrind, Anthea. When he inspects the furnace in the cellar, he learns the dreadful truth …

Erckmann-Chatrian – The Crab Spider: The hot springs at Spinbronn are popular with gout sufferers until one day they flood and a heap of animal skeletons are washed out of a nearby cave, and with them that of a little girl who died five years earlier. What is responsible? All is revealed when Sir Thomas Haverchurch decides to have a swift skinny dip …

At their best, E&C’s stories are way ahead of their time, but if any of their tales warrants a “shocking”, I’d say it’s The Child-Stealer. Really nasty. Hugh compiled a
Best Tales Of Terror Of Erckmann-Chatrian (Millington, 1981).

Roger Parkes – Interim Report: Began life as a script for Crown Court but was rejected on the grounds that it was too grim. The Spiteri twins start behaving oddly from the day the family move into Stone Gables, nattering in their sleep and sitting like zombies before the TV during the day. Their parents get it into their minds that the house is haunted and the kids are possessed. An exorcism fails and even leaving the house for a caravan site doesn’t shift the “demons”, so Mrs. Spiteri takes drastic measures …

Thanks to Ade for scanning this striking cover to the Coronet edition. 

Frederick Pickersgill – Horror 7

Frederick Pickersgill (ed.) – Horror 7 (Corgi 1965)

John B. L. Goodwin – The Cocoon
Joseph Payne Brennan – Slime
M.R. James – A View From The Hill
Richard Davis – The Inmate
Charles Beaumont – You Can’t Have Them All
V.S. Pritchett – The Upright Man
Gouverneur Morris – Back There In The Grass

Thanks to Andy for providing the scan and contents.

See also the Horror-7 thread on Vault Of Evil.

Frederick Pickersgill – No Such Thing As A Vampire

Frederick Pickersgill (ed.) – No Such Thing As A Vampire  (Corgi, 1964)

Richard Matheson – No Such Thing As A Vampire
Davis Grubb – The Horsehair Trunk
Stanley Ellin – The Speciality Of The House
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Saki – The Music On The Hill
Richard Davis – A Nice Cut Off The Joint
Robert Aickman – The Trains
Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle – The Case Of Lady Sannox.

Graham Masterton – Scare Care

Graham Masterton (ed.) – Scare Care  (Tor, 1989)

Foreword – Graham Masterton

Kit Reed – Mommy
James Robert Smith – Things Not Seen
Ramsey Campbell – The Ferries
D. W. Taylor – Good Night, Sweet Prince
Celeste Paul Sefranek – Printer’s Devil
Bruce Boston – Mammy and the Flies
John Burke – The Tourists
Roald Dahl – The Wish –
J. N. Williamson – Monstrum
James Herbert – Breakfast
Darrell Schweitzer – Clocks
Steve Rasnic Tem – The Strangers
William Relling, Jr. – Table for None
Peter Valentine Timlett – Little Miss Muffet
C. Dean Andersson – Night Watch
Peter Tremayne – The Last Gift
James Kisner – Manny Agonistes
Jeff Gelb – Family Man
Giles Gordon – A Towpath Tale
Marc Laidlaw – Mars Will Have Blood
William F. Nolan – My Name Is Dolly
Alan Rodgers – The Night Gil Rhys First Met His Love
John Maclay – Models
Guy N. Smith – Crustacean Revenge
Roderick Hudgins – Sarah’s Song
Harlan Ellison – The Avenger of Death
Frank Coffey – Cable
Felice Picano – Spices of the World
David B. Silva – Down to the Core
Stephen Laws – Junk
John Daniel – The Woman in the Wall
Ruth Rendell – Loopy
Gary A. Braunbeck – Time Heals
Brian Lumley – David’s Worm
Chris B. Lacher – The Pet Door
Charles L. Grant – By the Sea
Graham Masterton – Changeling
Roland Masterton – In the West Wing

An American publisher but what the Hell. Masterton compiled this massive anthology as a means of funding his commendable Scare Care Trust project, with the profits being donated to neglected and abused children. It’s been a while since I read it, but one story that leapt out at me immediatly was Stephen Law’s Junk, which features murder and mayhem in the ominous setting of a car-crushing plant. John Burke’s The Tourists sees a vivisectionist couple become the failed experiment of alien invaders. Herbert’s story is a chapter written for, but then deleted from Domain. Masterton’s Changeling originates from the spicy Hot Blood series, and has a Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde theme to it, while his son weighs in with his first ever story. Mars Will Have Blood revolves around a squirm-inducing production of “The Scottish Play” and a prank that goes horribly wrong. You don’t need me to tell you what Crustacean Revenge is all about.

Bryan Netherwood – Medley Macabre

Bryan A. Netherwood (ed.) – Medley Macabre: An Anthology of Stories of the Supernatural, Being Ghosts, Psychic Phenomena, Psychical Phenomena, Uncanny Mysteries  (Hammond Hammond, 1966, 1970)

Introduction – Bryan A. Netherwood

Malign Influences, Sorceries, Evil Powers.

M. R. James – The Stalls Of Barchester Cathedral
Ralph Adams Cram – No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince
Arthur Machen – Out Of The Picture
H. G. Wells – The Red Room
E. F. Benson – Negotium Perambulans
Algernon Blackwood – Smith: An Episode In A Lodging House
William F. Harvey – The Ankardyne Pew
H. Russell Wakefield – Lucky’s Grove
H. Russell Wakefield – Or Persons Unknown
M. P. Dare – “Bring Out Your Dead”
Noel Langley – The Bone Bead Necklace
Nigel Kneale – Minuke

Phantoms And Ghostly Visitations

A. M. Burrage – The Green Scarf
Mrs. Catherine Crowe – Seventh Evening
Edith Wharton – The Eyes
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch – A Pair Of Hands
R. H. Benson – Father Macclesfield’s Tale
Elliott O’Donnell – The Grey Piper And The Heavy Coach Of Donaldgowerie House, Perth
Elliott O’Donnell – The House Of The Ghostly Tap-Dancing
Oliver Onions – The Cigarette Case
Thomas Burke – The Lonely Inn
William Croft Dickinson – Return At Dusk

Possession By Evil Influences

F. Marion Crawford – For The Blood is The Life
E. and H. Heron – The Story Of The Grey House
L. P. Hartley – Feet Foremost
Dennis Wheatley – The Case Of The Long Dead Lord

Prediction And Doom

Robert Hichens – Demetriadi’s Dream
Violet Hunt – The Barometer
E. F. Benson – The Bus Conductor
Sir Andrew Caldecott – Seated One Day At The Organ
William F. Harvey – August Heat

Spiritualism And Magic

Ambrose Bierce – The Realm Of The Unreal
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – Playing With Fire
J. B. Priestley – The Other Place

Witchcraft And Satanism

M. R. James – The Ash Tree
E. F. Benson – The Sanctuary
Algernon Blackwood – May Day Eve
R. H. Malden – A Collector’s Company
Amyas Northcote – The Late Mrs. Fowke
R. Ellis Roberts – The Hill
H. P. Lovecraft – The Haunter Of The Dark