Anon – A Century Of Thrillers: From Poe To Arlen

Anon – A Century Of Thrillers: From Poe To Arlen (Daily Express, 1934)

James Agate – Foreword

Wilkie Collins – The Traveller’s Story of a Terribly Strange Bed
Wilkie Collins – Mad Monkton
Wilkie Collins – The Biter Bit
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventure of the Speckled Band
Mary Shelley – The Mortal Immortal
Micheal Arlen – The Gentleman from America
R. H. Barham – The Leech of Folkstone
R. H. Barham – Jerry Jarvis’ Wig
R. H. Barham – The Spectre of Tappington
R. H. Barham – Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor of Divinity
Mrs Henry Wood – The Ebony Box
A. J. Alan – My Adventure at Chiselhurst
A. J. Alan – The Hair
Edgar Allan Poe – The Gold Bug
Edgar Allan Poe – The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe – The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe – The Mystery of the Marie Roget
Edgar Allan Poe – The Pit and the Pendulum
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Edgar Allan Poe – William Wilson
Edgar Allan Poe – The Masque of the Red Death
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Roger Malvin’s Burial
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Dr Heidegger’s Experiment
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Grey Champion
Sir Walter Scott – Wandering Willie’s Tale
Sir Walter Scott – The Two Drovers
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkeys Paw
J. S. Le Fanu – Sir Dominick Sarsfield
J. S. Le Fanu – Mr Justice Harbottle
J. S. Le Fanu – Green Tea
Oscar Wilde – The Birthday of the Infanta
Charles Dickens – The Trial For Murder
Charles Dickens – The Story of the Bagmans Murder
Charles Dickens – No 1 Branch Line, The Signalman
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Squires Story
J. S. Fletcher – The Lighthouse of Shivering Sand
Anthony Trollope – Malachi’s Cove
Lord Lytton – The Haunted and the Haunters
Frederick Marryat – The Story of the Greek Slave
Algernon Blackwood – The Woman’s Ghost Story
Algernon Blackwood – Secret Worship
Mrs Oliphant – The Open Door
Ambrose Bierce – The Suitable Surroundings
Ambrose Bierce – One of the Missing
Ambrose Bierce – The Affair at Coulters Notch
Ambrose Bierce – A Tough Tussle
Ambrose Bierce – A Horseman in the Sky

One of the evil clones i mentioned on an earlier Century post.  According to E. F. Bleiler (The Guide To Supernatural Fiction,  Kent State Universtity Press, 1983)

“The CENTURY volumes were one of the results of Depression newspaper wars in Great Britain in the 1930’s. Books of enormous size, they were given as premiums for subscriptions, then taken over by commercial publishing (Hutchinson’s mostly).”

And to think these days we’re happy with the occasional Belles of St. Trinians DVD ….

Anon – A Century Of Thrillers: Second Series

Anon – A Century Of Thrillers: Second Series (Daily Express, 1935)

Somerset Maugham – The Taipan
Donn Byrne – Tale Of The Piper
George Eliot – The Lifted Veil
M. R. James – Number 13
M. R. James – Rats
M. R. James – Count Magnus
G. K. Chesterton – The Queer Feet
H. G. Wells – Pollock And The Porrah Man
A. J. Alan – My Adventure In Norfolk
Sax Rohmer – Tcheriapin
J. S. Fletcher – The Ivory God
Daniel Defoe – The Apparition Of Mrs Veal
E. F. Benson – The Thing In The Hall
Guy De Maupassant – Night
Guy De Maupassant – The Drowned Man
Guy De Maupassant – Who Knows?
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Young Goodman Brown
Oscar Wilde – The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
Edgar Allan Poe – The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall Of The House Of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe – The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe – Ligeia
Bram Stoker – The Squaw
Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch – A Pair Of Hands
O. Henry – The Last Leaf
W. W. Jacobs – The Well
Charles Dickens – The Haunted Man And The Ghost’s Bargain
Ambrose Bierce – Moxon’s Master
Ambrose Bierce – The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot
Ambrose Bierce – The Damned Thing
W. F. Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers
F. Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
F. Marion Crawford – Man Overboard!
N. A. Temple Ellis – Diver’s Drops
Sydney Parkman – The Cards
Ashton Wolfe – The Knights Of The Silver Dagger
Frederick Marryat – The Werewolf
J. S. LeFanu – Shalken The Painter
J. S. LeFanu – Carmilla
J. S. LeFanu – The Familiar
Wilkie Collins – Gabriel’s Marriage
Mrs. Gaskell – The Sexton’s Hero

A Century Of Ghost Stories

Anon [Dorothy M. Thomlinson?] (ed.) – A Century Of Ghost Stories (Hutchinson, 1935)

Many thanks to Richard Humphreys who kindly provided this enchanting dust-jacket scan.

J. Sheridan Le Fanu – The Familiar
J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Green Tea
Cecil Binney – The Saint And The Vicar
Sir Walter Scott – The Tapestried Chamber
Anthony Gittins – Gibbet Lane
Mrs Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
M.R. James – The Residence At Whitminster
M.R. James – A Warning To The Curious
Sir Edward Bulwer- Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters
Walter De La Mare – The Green Room
Miss Braddon – Eveline’s Visitant
Edith Wharton – Afterward
Ambrose Bierce – The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot
F. Marion Crawford – Man Overboard!
Shane Leslie – In A Glass Dimly
Shane Leslie – The Lord-In-Waiting
Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest
E.F. Benson – Expiation
E.F. Benson – Pirates
Algernon Blackwood – The Woman’s Ghost Story
Percival Landon – Thurnley Abbey
Oliver Onions – The Rosewood Door
Vernon Lee – The Virgin Of The Seven Daggers
Mrs Oliphant – The Library Window
Ann Bridge – The Song In The House
Violet Hunt – The Operation
Ex-Private X – The Sweeper
Ex-Private X – The Running Tide
W.L. George – Perez
——————–
R. H. Barham – The Spectre Of Tappington
Amelia B. Edwards – The Phantom Coach
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Grey Champion
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Young Goodman Brown
Wilkie Collins – The Dream Woman
Frederick Marryat – The Werewolf
Charles Dickens – The Story Of The Bagman’s Uncle
E. Nesbit – John Charrington’s Wedding
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Frederich Von Schiller – The Ghost-Seer
Alan Cunningham – The Haunted Ships
Ludwig Tieck – The Klausenburg
R. S. Hawker – The Bothanon Ghost
George Eliot – The Lifted Veil

A Century Of Ghost Stories (1936) is a much extended edition of the previous year’s Fifty Years Of Ghost Stories which includes only the stories listed above the dotted line (i.e., from Le Fanu’s The Familiar through to W. L. George’s Perez).

Detail from cover of 50 Years Of Ghost Stories provided by All Things Horror

The Hutchinson ‘Century’ Books

Hutchinson ‘Century of’ Omnibuses: 26 volumes, 1934-1938

Grateful thanks to Richard Humphreys who provided us with beautiful dust-jacket scans of the relevant entries. Mr. Humphreys’ Dennis Wheatley site was a forerunner to Bob Rothwell’s, and both can be found at Dennis Wheatley Info. It’s Richard’s listing i’ve referred to for dates and various snippets of information.

1934

• Creepy Stories
• Humour (ed. P. G. Wodehouse)
• Evening Standard Book Of Strange Stories
• Sea Stories (ed. Rafael Sabatini)

1935

• Love Stories (ed. Gilbert Frankau)
• Detective Stories (introduced by G. K. Chesterton)
• Famous Trials (ed. 1st Earl Of Birkenhead)
• 1001 Wonderful Things (ed. Walter Hutchinson)
• Book Of The King’s Jubilee (ed. Sir Philip Gibbs)
• Horror (ed. Dennis Wheatley)
• Boys Stories (ed. Francis Brett Young)
• 50 Years of Ghost Stories
• Girls Stories (ed. Ethel Boileau)
• Historical Stories (ed. Rafael Sabatini)

1936

• Western Stories (ed. George Goodchild)
• Ghost Stories [ed. Dorothy M. Thomlinson ?]
• Holiday Omnibus For All Seasons
• Holiday Omnibus For Christmas
• 2nd Century Of Humour (ed. ‘Fougasse’)
• Cavalcade Of History (ed. Claud Golding)

1937

• Evening Standard 2nd Book Of Strange Stories
• Nature Stories (ed. J. W. Robertson Scott)
• 2nd Century Of Creepy Stories (ed. Hugh Walpole)

1938

• The Fireside Omnibus
• 2nd Cavalcade Of History (ed. Claud Golding)
• More Famous Trials (ed. 1st Earl Of Birkenhead)

Even in those instances where an editor is credited, E. F. Bleiler warns against taking the attribution too seriously, so although Dennis Wheatley’s name found it’s way onto the cover of A Century Of Horror he may have had little to do with it beyond providing an introduction. From what we know of his “involvement” in the Dennis Wheatley Library Of The Occult series for Sphere forty years later, this doesn’t sound altogether unlikely. Intriguingly, Bleiler also wonders if Cynthia Asquith had some hand in compiling a few of them, in which case the prime suspect would be A Century Of Creepy Stories. Essentially, …. Creepy compiles the contents of Asquith’s The Ghost Book, When Churchyards Yawn and The Black Cap, loans Oscar Cook and ‘Flavia Richardson’ from the Not At Night series, and throws in a number of genre classics to keep everybody happy.

A Century Of Ghost Stories (1936) is a much extended edition of the previous year’s Fifty Years Of Ghost Stories. The more generous of the uncredited editors is often cited as Dorothy M. Thomlinson.

The Daily Express tried to muscle in on the Century action with two clones A Century Of Thrillers From Poe to Arlen and A Century Of Thrillers – Second Series (Odhams, 1934, 1935)