Edmund Crispin – Best Tales of Terror

Edmund Crispin [Robert Bruce Montgomery] – Best Tales of Terror (Faber and Faber, 1962)

Edmund Crispin – Introduction

Ray Bradbury – The Emissary
Evelyn Waugh  – The Man Who Liked Dickens
L. P. Hartley – A Summons
L. T. C. Rolt – The Mine
John Collier – Bird of Prey
Roald Dahl – Royal Jelly
Robert Aickman – Ringing the Changes
John Metcalfe  – Mr. Meldrum’s Mania
Elizabeth Jane Howard – Three Miles Up
J. G. Ballard – Manhole 69
James E. Gunn – The Misogynist
Ray Bradbury – The Next in Line

thanks to allthingshorror for reminding me of this one’s existence

Edmund Crispin – Best Tales of Terror 2

Edmund Crispin [Robert Bruce Montgomery] – Best Tales of Terror 2 (Faber and Faber, 1965)

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Edmund Crispin – Foreword

Ambrose Bierce – Moxon’s Master
M. R. James – A Warning to the Curious
William Hope Hodgson – The Voice in the Night
John Metcalfe – Time-Fuse
Lord Dunsany – The Electric King
Nugent Barker – Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond
W. F. Harvey – The Dabblers
John Keir Cross – “Happy Birthday, Dear Alex”
Ray Bradbury – The Small Assassin
H. Russell Wakefield – The Frontier Guards
Elizabeth Bowen – The Cat Jumps
Anthony Boucher – They Bite
L. P. Hartley – The Two Vaynes
Kit Reed – Tell Me, Doctor – Please

Colin De La Mare – They Walk Again

Colin De La Mare  (ed.) – They Walk Again: An Anthology Of Ghost Stories (Faber & Faber, 1931)

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Walter De La Mare – Introduction

Algernon Blackwood – Keeping His Promise
Lord Dunsany – The Electric King
Richard Middleton – The Ghost Ship
Ambrose Bierce – A Tough Tussle
Edith Wharton – Afterward
J. D. Beresford – Powers Of The Air
R. H. Benson – Father Girdlestone’s Tale
Algernon Blackwood – The Wood Of The Dead
L. P. Hartley – A Visitor From Down Under
E. F. Benson – Caterpillars
William Hope Hodgson – A Voice In The Night
Oliver Onions – The Beckoning Fair One
Richard Middleton – On The Brighton Road
M. R. James – The Story Of A Disappearance And An Appearance
Walter De La Mare – All Hallows
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
J. S. Le Fanu – Green Tea

John Keir Cross – Best Horror Stories 2

John Keir Cross – Best Horror Stories 2 (Faber and Faber, n.d.)

Introduction
Theodore Sturgeon – The Professor’s Teddy-Bear
Alec Waugh – The Last Chukka
Ambrose Bierce – The Boarded Window
Brian W. Aldiss – The Flowers of the Forest
H. P. Lovecraft – The Thing on the Doorstep
Spike Milligan – How to Make a Foon
Angus Stewart – Brown God in the Beginning
Christianna Brand – Akin to Love
John Keir Cross – The Glass Eye
M. R. James – The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
John Collier – Evening Primrose
Alan Griff – The House of Desolation
Derek Ingrey – Making Sure of a Little One
William Hope Hodgson – The Derelict
Perceval Landon – Thurnley Abbey

Thanks to jonathan122 at Vault for providing the contents!

Alex Hamilton – Best Horror Stories 3

Alex Hamilton (ed) – Best Horror Stories 3 (Faber, 1972)

Introduction – Alex Hamilton

J.G. Ballard – Track 12
Patricia Highsmith – The Snail Watcher
Roald Dahl – Dip in the Pool
Richard Matheson – Deadline
Saki – The Hounds of Fate 
William Sansom – A Woman Seldom Found
Peter Fleming – The Kill 
Penelope Mortimer – The Skylight
Shirley Jackson – The Lottery 
Martin Armstrong – The Pipe Smoker
T.F. Powys – The Hunted Beast
Ray Bradbury – The Whole Town’s Sleeping
R. Chetwynd-Hayes – Housebound
Robert Aickman – Ringing the Changes
Alex Hamilton – The Attic Express
Fredric Brown – Don’t Look Behind You

Thanks to PeterC of Vault for the details.

John Keir Cross – Best Black Magic Stories

John Keir Cross (ed) – Best Black Magic Stories (Faber, 1960, 1963)

Introduction – John Keir Cross

Margaret Irwin – The Earlier Service
John Collier – The Lady on the Grey
Richard Barham – A Room in Leyden
John Keir Cross – Mothering Sunday
Dennis Wheatley – The Snake
R. Ellis Roberts – The Hill
M.R. James – Casting The Runes,
John Wyndham – More Spinned Against . . .
Lord Lytton – The Haunted and the Haunters
Ray Bradbury – Homecoming
D.K. Broster – Couching at the Door
Theodore Sturgeon – A Way of Thinking
Joris-Karl Huysmans – The Black Mass

Envoi – John Keir Cross

Basil Davenport – Deals With The Devil

Basil Davenport (ed.) – Deals With The Devil (Faber, 1959)

Introduction – Basil Davenport

Isaac Asimov – The Brazen Locked Room
Miriam Allen DeFord – Time Trammel
Theodore R. Cogswell – Impact With The Devil
Anon – Doctor Faustus
Charles Dickens – The Devil And Mr. Chips
J. S. Le Fanu – Sir Dominick’s Bargain
Max Beerbohm – Enoch Soames
Lord Dunsany – A Deal With The Devil
Robert Arthur – Satan And Sam Shay
Guy De Maupassant – The Legend Of Mont St. Michel
Seumas MacManus – The Tinker Of Tamlacht
Arthur Porges – The Devil And Simon Flagg
John Masefield – The Devil And The Old Man
Frederick Beechers Perkins – Devil-Puzzlers
Henry Kuttner – Threshold
Vance Randolph – The Three Wishes
Anthony Boucher – Nellthu
Theodore R. Cogswell – Threesie
Moses Schere – A Bargain In Bodies
L. Sprague De Camp & Fletcher Pratt – Caveat Emptor
Ford McCormack – Hell-Bent
Stephen Vincent Benet – The Devil And Daniel Webster
Anon – The Countess Kathleen O’Shea
John Collier – The Devil, George And Rosie
Bruce Elliott – The Devil Was Sick

John Keir Cross – Best Horror Stories

John Keir Cross (ed.) – Best Horror Stories (Faber, 1957)

John Keir Cross – Introduction

Ray Bradbury – Skeleton
Ambrose Bierce – A Watcher By The Dead
Angus Wilson – Raspberry Jam
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
W. F. Harvey – August Heat
Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle – Lot No. 249
John Keir Cross – The Lovers
Rudyard Kipling – The Mark Of The Beast
Graham Greene – The End Of The Party
Herman Melville – Bartleby
Hortense Calisher – Heartburn
Philip MacDonald – Our Feathered Friends
Robert Louis Stevenson – Thrawn Janet
Ray Bradbury – Mars Is Heaven
M. R. James – ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come To You, My Lad’
William Faulkner – A Rose For Emily

Basil Davenport – Tales To Be Told In The Dark

Basil Davenport (ed.) – Tales To Be Told In The Dark (Faber: undated. Originally Dodd Mead, 1953)

A selection of stories from the great authors, arranged for reading and telling aloud

Basil Davenport – On Telling Stories

W. F. Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers
Stephen Hall – By One, By Two, By Three
Saki – Sredni Vashtar
Lord Dunsany – The Two Bottles Of Relish
Margaret Irwin – The Book
John Collier – Thus I Refute Beelzy
James Thurber – The Whip-Poor-Will
Arthur Machen – The White People
Lafcadio Hearn – Mujina
Saki – The Open Window
Anonymous – Two Anecdotes
Anonymous – The Closed Cabinet
Basil Davenport – The Closed Cabinet, Retold

Davenport includes notes on all of the stories, many of which will be familiar (the Hall and Dunsany horrors were revived by Van Thal and the Saki brace turn up just about everywhere). The editor does a fine job but the final three items – especially the two versions of The Closed Cabinet (Victorian melodrama minus the drama) – are something of a waste. As E. F. Bleiler puts it: Davenport, recognizing that “The Closed Cabinet” is cumbersome, badly plotted and barely intelligible, has shortened the narrative greatly and reworked the story. It was not worth the effort.

Davenport also edited Ghostly Tales To Be Told (Dodd Mead, 1950) and Deals With The Devil (Dodd Mead, 1958).

Anne Riddler – Best Ghost Stories

Anne Riddler (ed.)  – Best Ghost Stories (Faber, 1945)

Anne Riddler – Prefatory Note

Thomas Lovell Beddoes – The Phantom Wooer
J. S. Le Fanu – Narrative Of The Ghost Of A Hand
Wilkie Collins – The Dream Woman
Henry James – The Friends Of The Friends
Guy de Maupassant – Who Knows?
Oscar Wilde – The Canterville Ghost
Edith Wharton – The Triumph Of Night
M. R. James – Lost Hearts
Rudyard Kipling – The House Surgeon
H. G. Wells – The Inexperienced Ghost
E. F. Benson – The Face
Algernon Blackwood – With Intent To Steal
Saki – The Open Window
Walter De La Mare – Crewe
W. F. Harvey – The Tool
Carter Dickson – Blind Man’s Hood
Philip MacDonald – Our Feathered Friends
Elizabeth Bowen – The Apple Tree
John Collier – Thus I Refute Beelzy
Walter De La Mare – The Listeners