Peter Haining (ed.) – More Tales Of Unknown Horror (Nel, Jan 1979)
Introduction – Peter Haining
Kathleen Ludwick – Dr. Immortelle
Claude Farrere – The Passing Of Van Mitten
Fred M. White – The River Of Death
Edgar Allan Poe – Morning On The Wissahiccon
Fitz-James O’Brien – The Spider’s Eye
M. P. Shiel – A Shot At The Sun
Issac Asimov & James MacCreigh – The Little Man On The Subway
E. Everett Evans & Ray Bradbury – The Undead Die
Robert E. Howard – Devendra Est
Rosemary Timperley – On The Theatre Steps
C. S. Forester – Between Eight And Eight
Stephen King – The Night Of The Tiger
A variation of this book appeared in hardcover as:
Peter Haining (ed.) – The Third Book Of Unknown Tales Of Horror (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980)
Introduction – Peter Haining
Dick Donovan – Some Experiments With A Head
Phil Robinson – The Last Of The Vampires
Edgar Allan Poe – Morning On The Wissahiccon
Fitz-James O’Brien – The Spider’s Eye
M. P. Shiel – A Shot At The Sun
Issac Asimov & James MacCreigh – Legal Rites
E. Everett Evans & Ray Bradbury – The Undead Die
Robert E. Howard – Devendra Est
C. S. Forester – Between Eight And Eight
Denis Noble – Rosemary For Remembrance
Robert Haining – Spring Violets
Stephen King – The Night Of The Tiger
Kathleen Ludwick – Dr. Immortelle: The eighteenth century Dr. Immortelle and his assistant, the once negroid now ‘Caucasian’ Victor de Lyle, survive to the early 21st by means of frequent blood transfusions which invariably end in the deaths of their youthful victims – but not before Immortelle has had his wicked way with them. Immortelle even establishes an orphanage to provide him with a steady supply of donors and make everybody think what a great guy he is. It is only when Linnie Chaumelle (the only woman Immortelle has ever loved) realises that he is the man who killed her brother that de Lyle gets an attack of conscience. Having set the girl loose and drugged his master, he drives them both over the cliff. Immortelle is killed outright, de Lyle survives just long enough to tell his story to Linnie’s intended from his San Francisco hospital bed.
On a somewhat unnecessarily grim note, we learn that, after the narrator and Linnie are wed, she later dies in France when the Germans bomb a Red Cross tent during World War I.
Dick Donovan – Some Experiments With A Head: The head in question is that belonging to Gaspard Thurreau who hacked his wife, mistress and children to pieces so can’t have too many complaints about being sentenced to the Guillotine. Despite it all, he’s an obliging chap and readily agrees to co-operate with Dr. Grassard and the narrator, a young medical student, in their quest to determine whether or not the brain briefly lives on after death. Thurreau meets his death with great dignity, his head is placed in a basin of softened wax to seal the bleeding and,, by means of his eye-movements, he manages to answer a couple of questions until, when an electric current is applied to the blob of grey matter, his eyes roll in their sockets and that’s the end of him.
Claude Farrere – The Passing Of Van Mitten: Straightforward account of the last moments of a man on his deathbed and his reincarnation as a new born baby. Maybe it’s because I can think of no worse fate that I rated this one not a jot.
Phil Robinson – The Last Of The Vampires: A professor from the university of Bierundwurst wounds and captures Arinchi, the prehistoric vampire of the Amazons. From the cave there follows an endless journey downriver, a terrifying race against time for the German as twice the desperate bloodsucker breaks its muzzle while he slowly succumbs to the lethal black fever …
E. Everett Evans & Ray Bradbury – The Undead Die: Robert Warram wakes during a storm to discover that the splintered limb of a great tree has smashed through the lid of his beloved wife’s coffin, impaling her through the heart. He reminisces on their several decades together, pre- and post- their being vampirised. Now Lisa has gone, he has nothing to unlive for.
Vault Of Evil 