Sebastian Wolfe – The Little Book Of Horrors

Sebastian Wolfe – The Little Book Of Horrors (Xanadu, 1992)

All lovers of the grim and grisly will relish this tiny tome of terrific tales. It is a collection of very short and extremely nasty stories and poems, most only a couple of pages long, but guaranteed to appall and amuse in the best tradition of horror.

Which says it all, really. Plenty of old friends. Joe R. Lansdale, Ornella Volta (whose contributions have all been surgically removed from The Vampire), Ambrose Bierce, Jeffrey Scott from Tales Of Unease, a couple exhumed, from the Pan Horror books, some amusing ‘factual’ accounts from The Police Gazette or some-such … Probably the pick of the bunch is Richard Christian Matheson’s Red, truly one of the most shocking horror stories ever written and all over and done in two pages! It’s an ideal book to have around when you’re too lazy to attempt anything as strenuous as a Sydney J. Bounds marathon.

Here’s the run-down. It goes on for ever.

Sebastian Wolfe – Foreword

Roald Dahl – In The Ruins
John Lennon – Randolf’s Party
Richard Christian Matheson – Red
A Wide Driven Mad By A Husband Tickling Her Feet (fact)
Alexander Woolcott – Moonlight Sonata
Alistair Sampson – Untitled
George D. Painter – Meeting With A Double
Ambrose Bierce – John Mortonson’s Funeral
E. H. Visiak – The Skeleton At The Feast
Ornella Volta – Untitled
Colin West – Cousin Jane
Alistair Sampson – Untitled
Jeffrey Scot – Out Of The Country
Stephen Gallagher – Mousetrap
Singular Method Of Execution (fact)
Robert Bloch – The Model Wife
John Lennon – Good Dog Nigel
Joe R. Lansdale – Dog, Cat And Baby
Edward Gorey – Untitled
Kingsley Amis – Mason’s Life
William Plomer – The Dorking Thigh
Ornella Volta – Henri Blot (fact)
Charles Dickens – Captain Murderer
F. Scott Fitzgerald – Untitled
Joe R. Lansdale – Chompers
James Malcolm Rymer – Varney, the Vampire
Gina Haldane – Grocery List
Lafcadio Hearn – Mujina
Raymond Chandler – At Parting
Richard Middleton – Love At First Sight
W. R. Hodder – The Vampire
Singular Attempt At Suicide
Ambrose Bierce – One summer Night
Aubrey Davidson – The Edinburgh Landlady
Alistair Sampson – Delighted Deb’s Lament
Ornella Volta – Sergeant Bertrand
Richard Christian Matheson – The Near Departed
Edward Lauterbach – A Warning For Certain Victorian Ladies
John Lennon – a Surprise For Little Bobby
Ambrose Bierce – Oil Of Dog
Edward Bryant – A Functional Proof Of Immortality
Pricilla Marron -My Dear, How Dead You Look And Yet You Sweetly Sing
Horrible Cannibalism (fact)
Frederic Brown – Nightmare In Red
Alistair Sampson – Essay
M. A. Lyon – American Gothic
Liao Chai – The Corpse Rises
Dannie Plachta – Revival Meeting
Alphonse Allais – Anything They Can Do …
Jean Cocteau – The Look Of Death
Frederic Boutet – Pierre Torture (fact)
Tomasso Landolfi – Untitled
A Horrible Discovery (fact)
Gerald Atkins – The Midnight Lover
K. C. Mann – A Tale The English Used To Tell
Franz Kafka – Before The Law
Gloria Orlick – Hell Hath No –
Mark Twain – The Five Books Of Life
Arthur L. Samuels – Mass Without Voices
Lord Dufferin’s Story (fact)
Richard Christian Matheson – Deathbed
W. B. Yeats – ‘Magdalene’
Martin Gardner – Thang
Shutting A Woman’s Head In A Box (fact)
Robert Kurosaka – a Lot To Learn
Jessica Amanda Salmonson – Angel’s Exchange
Derek Pell – How To Write The Suicide Note

Acknowledgements