Readers Digest – Great Ghost Stories

Readers Digest – Great Ghost Stories (Readers Digest, 1997)

Robert Wheeler & Tony Stone

The Editors – Introduction

Robert Aickman – Ringing The Changes
Cynthia Asquith – The Corner Shop
A. L. Barker – The Whip Hand
Ambrose Bierce – A Tough Tussle
Algernon Blackwood – Transition
Ray Bradbury – The Crowd
Ann Bridge – The Buick Saloon
Rhoda Broughton – The Truth, The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth
A. M. Burrage – Smee
A. S. Byatt – The July Ghost
B. M. Croker – ‘To Let’
Robertson Davies – The Ghost Who Vanished By Degrees
Walter de la Mare – Seaton’s Aunt
Charles Dickens – No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman
Lord Dunsany – August Cricket
Elizabeth Fancett – The Ghost Of Calagou
Frederick Forsyth – The Shepherd
Shamus Frazer  – Florinda
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
Graham Greene – A Little Place Of The Edgware Road
L. P. Hartley – Someone In The Lift
William Hope Hodgson – The Gateway Of The Monster
Thomas Hood – The Shadow Of A Shade
Holloway Horn – The Old Man
Elizabeth Jane Howard – Three Miles Up
Henry James – The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes
M. R. James – The Ash Tree
Rudyard Kipling – The Phantom Rickshaw
Marghanita Laski – The Tower
J. S. le Fanu – Shalken The Painter
Penelope Lively – Black Dog
Alison Lurie – The Highboy
W. Somerset Maugham – The Taipan
Guy de Maupassant – An Apparition
E. Nesbit – Man-size In Marble
Edgar Allan Poe – William Wilson
Alexander Pushkin – The Queen Of Spades
Jean Rhys – I Used To Live Here Once
Robert Louis Stevenson – The Body-snatcher
Bram Stoker – The Judge’s House
Elizabeth Taylor – Poor Girl
H. R. Wakefield – Blind Man’s Buff
Elizabeth Walter – Dual Control
Fay Weldon – Breakages
Oscar Wilde – The Canterville Ghost
Emile Zola – Angeline, or The Haunted House

Blurb:

If you enjoy reading about elusive spirits and uncanny happenings, bizarre hauntings and malevolent ghosts, this is the volume for you. It brings together forty-six of the very best ghost stories ever written.

There are unforgettable classics from the great masters of the ghost story such as M. R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Nesbit and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Then there are wonderfully macabre tales from world-famous authors such as Charles Dickens, Alexander Pushkin, Guy de Maupassant and Graham Greene, as well as gems from some of today’s best writers including Ray Bradbury, A. S. Byatt, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Penelope Lively, Fay Weldon and Frederick Forsyth.

This is a collection to entertain and intrigue, to terrify and to tantalise … to chill you to the bone. You have been warned!

Paperback Fanatic #17

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #17 (January, 2011)

Justin Marriott – Fanatical Thoughts (editorial)
Fanatical Mail – Ste Turzymaki, Brian Bieniowski, Nigel Taylor, Bam!!, David Barraclough, Joe Kenny, Andrew Byers, Andy Boot, Andreas Decker, Johnny Mains.
Sennitt Sez … – On Acme, Roberts A W Lowdnes, Guy N. Smith and more.
Justin Marriott – Behold The Mags: A History Of New Worlds
Justin Marriott – Notes From The Underground: Interview with Langdon Jones
Justin Marriott – Strange Seductions: The Fawcett Crest Horror Pulps (including a Fawcett horror checklist)
Andreas Decker – To Out-Bond James Bond: Nick Carter, Super-spy.
Justin Marriott – Black Fury. The golden age of Blaxploitation pulp.
Justin Marriott – The Zardoz Pulp Fair

Just this minute received this, so here’s the specs for now and a reminder that you can order a copy via the Paperback Fanatic online superstore. Have also begun a thread for #17 on the Vault forum where it’s likely we’ll be ripping off huge chunks of it in near future.

The Giant Book Of Fantasy & The Supernatural

Stephen Jones & David Sutton  (eds) –  The Giant Book Of Fantasy & The Supernatural (Parragon, 1996: originally Tiger Books 1994 as The Anthology Of Fantasy & The Supernatural)

Stephen Jones & David Sutton  – Introduction: A Bazaar of the Bizarre

Tad Williams – Child of an Ancient City
Thomas F. Monteleone  – The Cutty Black Sow
Adrian Cole – Treason in Zagadar
Nancy Holder  – Fatal Age
Ramsey Campbell  – The Mouths of Light
David J. Schow  – [scribble]
Brian M. Stableford  – The Storyteller’s Tale
Nicholas Royle  – The Big Game
Alex Stewart  – The Cat in the Wall
Anne Goring – The Shadow Queen
Brian Mooney  – The Waldteufel Affair
Parke Godwin – Up Yours, Federico
Andrew Darlington – Foul Moon Over Sticklespine Lane
Mike Chandler  – The Star Weave of Snorgrud Sunbreath
Melanie Tem  – Pele
William Thomas Webb  – Alchemist’s Gold
Allen Ashley  – The Horror Writer
Laurence Staig – The Healing Game
Josepha Sherman  – The Love-Gift
David Riley – A New Lease
H. J. Cording  – A Fly on the Wall
William F. Nolan – At Diamond Lake
Randall D. Larson – Satan Claws
Dallas Clive Goffin – The Maiden & the Minstrel
Jean-Daniel Brèque – Sight Unseen (Droit de Regard).
David Andreas – The Malspar Sigil
Steve Green  – Cracking
Steve Rasnic Tem – Angel Combs
S. M. Stirling – The Waters of Knowing
Charles Wagner – Just a Visitor at Twilight
Joel Lane – And Make Me Whole
Darrell Schweitzer & John Gregory Betancourt- The Last Child of Masferigon
Samantha Lee  – Silent Scream
Garry Kilworth  – Store Wars
Earl Godwin – Daddy
Adam Nichols – The Dark Fantastic
Michael Marshall Smith  – The View
C. Bruce Hunter  – The Salesman and the Travelling Farmer’s Daughter
Peter Dennis Pautz – And the Spirit That Stands by the Naked Man

illustrations by Allen Koszowski,  Dave Carson, Randy Broeker, Alan Hunter, Dallas Goffin, Harry O. Morris, Russ Nicholson, Russell Morgan, Jim Pitts, Mark Dunn, Charles Dougherty, Martin McKenna, John Stewart, Alfred R. Klosterman.

It’s not unlikely the original stories were intended for Fantasy Tales before it went to the wall. As a non-fantasy man i’m not sure i will ever be able to get along with something called The Star Weave of Snorgrud Sunbreath but delighted to find stories i’ve not previously read from Michael Marshall Smith, David Riley, Brian Mooney and Ramsey Campbell among others.

see also the Giant Book Of Fantasy & The Supernatural thread on the Vault forum.

Bedabbled!: British Horror and Cult Cinema # 1

Martin Jones (ed.) – Bedabbled!: British Horror and Cult Cinema # 1 (B!, Feb. 2011)

Rik Rawling: image taken from Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly.

Martin Jones – Editorial

Martin Jones – Whatever Happened To Tony Chestnut. The very English Gothic of Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly.

Sean Crossey – It’s Only A Game: The atmospheric tale of demon worship, self-mutilation and murderous children that is Blood On Satan’s Claw

Julian Upton – Never Never Land: Social realism meets something like horror in Bloody Kids.

Johnny Mains – Further Tales Of Unease: interview with prolific tie-in novelist John Burke.

i’m currently reading through a low-res pdf proof copy and thought i’d best prepare you for the coming of Bedabbled!. Martin Jones’s new publication will appeal to our many British Horror film fiends, particularly those who, all these years later, still carry a torch for Vanessa ‘Girly’ Howard and the scary skull with the wandering eye from Blood On Satan’s Claw. The debut is a ‘Bloody kids’ special (#2 is Cult of Satan!) – and Martin writes in his introduction:

“The canny amongst you may have already guessed that Bedabbled! isn’t going to venture much further than, say, An American Werewolf In London in terms of years covered. You’d be right. Sorry, no Hellraiser, Dust Devil, etc. I can’t speak for other contributors, but it’s my intention to create a new mythology of British screen horror, and within these pages it’ll be done through what I consider to be the most interesting periods of film production this country ever encountered. Aside from the well-documented ‘big three’ (Hammer, Tigon, Amicus), there is a wealth of imaginative material to mine from countless movies (and TV productions) and the insane figureheads of this mag – Mumsy, Vampyres. Goodbye Gemini, Deep End, The Shout – will be featured in some form or another, alongside other works familiar and surprising.”

With the recent British Fantasy Journal howler fresh in mind, i’m not gonna attempt any kind of “review” until i know hard copies have made their way into the customers’ clutches, but i’m predicting a big future for this lively 32 pager. Our friend and colleague, Justin ‘Paperback Fanatic’ Marriott looks after the layout and print management duties, but he’s keen to stress that Bedabbled “is most definitely Martin’s baby” and as babies go, this one has more than a touch of the It’s Alive!‘s about it.

The magazine has no internet presence just yet, but you can order a copy from Martin from:

bedabbledAThotmail.co.uk (as ever, substitute the AT with an @)

Price is £3.50 post-paid UK/ £6.00 world-wide

Death To 2011!

Belated Happy New Year, dear reader.

The Vault forum kept me plenty occupied in 2010 hence lack of so many updates on here, but will try and knuckle down over coming months. There’s a hefty backlog of stuff to go on the Fontana pages and i’m determined to bring the long threatened saucy paperback section (back) to life this year along with a few more tasty treats.

so concludes this big Vault rubbish announcement!

thank you for your continued support! :)

dem/ gloomy sundae

John Edgell – Ghosts

John Edgell (ed.) – Ghosts (Firefly, 1970)

John Edgell – Introduction

John Edgell – The Funeral
John Edgell – May I Join You?
John Edgell – All Change
John Edgell – Skin Deep
John Edgell – For Appearance’s Sake
John Edgell – The Screaming Skull
John Edgell – The Number Thirteen Bus
John Edgell – Summons From Altica
John Edgell – Nightwatch
John Edgell – Just Married
John Edgell – The Hallowe’en Party
John Edgell – The Last Programme
John Edgell – Old Wine In New Bottles
John Edgell – Dead – And Buried?
John Edgell – Four Twenty-Four Previously
John Edgell – Dead Line
John Edgell – A Night With The Mummies
John Edgell – Purr
John Edgell – The Perfect Murder
John Edgell – Night Flyer
John Edgell – The Invitation
John Edgell – The Diary Of John Pilgrim
John Edgell – Walking On Your Grave
John Edgell – Bookworm
John Edgell – The Summer House On The Lake
John Edgell – Did You See the Window-cleaner?
John Edgell – The Mahogany Wardrobe
John Edgell – The Portrait
John Edgell – Accident Black Spot
John Edgell – Davy Jones
John Edgell – Bones
John Edgell – A Desirable Residence

Ambrose Bierce – a Tough Tussle
E. F. Benson – Caterpillars
Richard Middleton –  On The Brighton Road
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
E & H. Heron – The Story Of The Spaniards, Hammersmith
E. Nesbit – Man-Size In Marble
Vincent O’Sullivan – When I Was Dead
E & H. Heron – The Story Of Yand Manor House
Vincent O’Sullivan – The Business Of Madame Jahn
E. Nesbit – John Charrington’s Wedding
Ambrose Bierce – The Man And The Snake