Frederick Hazleton – Sweeney Todd

Frederick Hazleton – Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (W. H. Allen, 1980)

Photo: Graham Miller

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, has become legendary throughout the world. The macabre story of his luring unsuspecting customers into his shop, slitting their throats and then having his partner in crime – a pastrycook named Mrs Lovett – turn the corpses into meat pies has been a favourite melodrama for more than a century.
Yet for all Sweeney Todd’s notoriety the mystery as to whether or not he really existed has remained unresolved. Here, Peter Haining does much to prove that Sweeney Todd did exist, and did indeed own a barber’s shop in Fleet Street. He also presents the original nineteenth-century novel by Frederick Hazleton, which will delight not only believers in the Sweeney Todd saga but those avid readers and collectors of the Victorian Penny Dreadful. The contemporary illustrations add to the relish.

William Pattrick – Mysterious Air Stories

William Pattrick (ed) – Mysterious Air Stories (W.H. Allen, 1986)

“Strange stories of phantom planes, ghostly voices, freak weather, inexplicable flying objects and terrifying ordeals.”

Richard Matheson – Nightmare at Twenty Thousand Feet
Thomas Hood – A Tale of Terror
Jules Verne – A Drama in the Air
George Griffith – Up a Gum Tree
H.G. Wells – The Argonauts of the Air
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Horror of the Heights
William Le Quex – The Secret of the New British Aeroplane
Edgar Wallace – A Reprisal Raid
Negley Farson – Hot Air
Arch Whitehouse – The Demon Diver
Clarence Winchester – Anniversary
Stephen Graham – 5,000 Enemy Planes Over London
Captain W. E. Johns – The Conversion of Johnny
W. E. Woosnam-Jones – Gremlins –
Sergeant Carmichael (H. E. Bates) – Flying Officer X
Wilbur Schramm – The Voice in the Earphones
Edward D. Hoch – Cassidy’s Saucer

William Pattrick – Mysterious Sea Stories

William Pattrick (ed) – Mysterious Sea Stories – (W. H. Allen, 1985, Star, 1986)

William Hope Hodgson – The Finding of the Graiken
John Masefield – Davy Jones’s Gift
C. S. Forester – The Turning of the Tide
Joseph Conrad – The Black Mate
Jack London – Make Westing
Richard Sale – The Benevolent Ghost and Captain Lowrie
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement
W. Clark Russell – A Bewitched Ship
Herman Melville – Hood’s Isle and The Hermit Oberlus
Captain Frederick Marryat – The Legend of The Bell Rock
Edgar Allan Poe – Ms. Found in a Bottle
Rudyard Kipling – A Matter of Fact
H. G. Wells – In the Abyss
Ray Bradbury – Undersea Guardians

William Pattrick – Mysterious Railway Stories

William Pattrick (ed) – Mysterious Railway Stories – (W. H. Allen, 1984, Star, 1985)

Amelia B. Edwards & Charles Dickens – The Four Fifteen Express
Eden Phillpotts – My Adventure In The Flying Dutchman
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Lost Special
Victor L. Whitechurch – The Tragedy On The London And Mid-Northern
Francis Lynde – The Cloud-Bursters
Arnold Ridley & Ruth Alexander – The Ghost Train
Agatha Christie – The Girl In The Train
Hal Thomson – The Fisherman’s Special
Harry Walton – Swamp Train
Freeman Wills Croft – The Level Crossing
August Derleth – The Man On B-17
Robert Bloch – That Hell-Bound Train
Fredric Brown – The Last Train

Peter Haining – The Lucifer Society

Peter Haining (ed) – The Lucifer Society (W. H. Allen, 1972: Pan 1974 [as Detours Into The Macabre])

Foreword – Kingsley Amis
Introduction – Peter Haining

Sir Winston Churchill – Man Overboard
John Gawsworthy – Timber
Agatha Christie – The Call Of Wings
Lawrence Durrell – The Cherries
Somerset Maugham – The Man From Glasgow
Robert Graves – Earth To Earth
J. B. Priestley – The Grey Ones
C. S. Forester – The Man Who Didn’t Ask Why
Grahame Greene – All But Empty
Angus Wilson – Animals Or Human Beings
Kingsley Amis – Something Strange
Sinclair Lewis – The Post-Mortem Murder
F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Dance
William Faulkner – A Rose For Emily
Raymond Chandler – The Bronze Door
MacKinlay Kantor – The Man Who Had No Eyes
John Steinbeck – The Affair At 7 Rue De M—-
Patricia Highsmith – The Snail Watcher
Evan Hunter – Inferiority Complex
Paul Gallico – The Terrible Answer
Truman Capote – Miriam
William Burroughs – Exterminator
John Updike – During The Jurassic

Ramsey Campbell – Superhorror

Ramsey Campbell (ed.) – Superhorror (W. H. Allen, 1976: Star, 1980 [as The Far Reaches Of Fear])

Cover: Don Grant

Brian Lumley – The Viaduct
R. A. Lafferty – Fog In My Throat
Daphne Castell – Christina
Joseph F. Pumilia – The Case Of James Elmo Freebish
David Drake – The Hunting Ground
Manley Wade Wellman – The Petey Car
Robert Aickman – Wood
Ramsey Campbell – The Pattern
Fritz Leiber – Dark Wings

“This is how I edited the book. I asked the contributors, or their agents, to provide the most horrifying or most terrifying stories they could. There were to be no taboos, except that the stories must not have been published elsewhere; if they were unpublishable elsewhere, so much the better”.

From Ramsey Campbell’s introduction.

Michel Parry & Christopher Lee – The Archives Of Evil

Michel Parry & Christopher Lee (eds.) – The Archives Of Evil  (W. H. Allen, 1977)

Introduction – Christopher Lee

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventure Of The Sussex Vampire
H. P. Lovecraft – The Lurking Fear
John Collier – Rope Enough
Jack London – Lost face
Theodore Sturgeon – It
Henry Slesar – The Rats Of Dr. Picard
W. F. Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers
Ray Bradbury – Skeleton
H. R. Wakefield – The Seventeenth Hole At Duncaster
Saki – Gabriel-Ernest
M. R. James – The Ash Tree
Massimo Bontempelli – The Avenging Film

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventure Of The Sussex Vampire: when Ferguson’s second wife, a Peruvian, is twice discovered leaning over their new born, sucking blood from a wound in the infant’s neck, Holmes is called in to investigate what looks to be a classic case of vampirism. But, as he explains to the ever-bamboozled Watson: “What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in their graves by stakes driven through their hearts. It’s pure lunacy.” Jack London – Lost face: Subienkow watches the Nutalo injuns fiendishly torture and kill his friend Big Ivan knowing that it’s his turn next. With no hope of escape or rescue, the best he can hope for is a quick and relatively painless death. A neglected horror classic and the grimmest thing in here by some distance. John Collier – Rope Enough: Sceptic Henry Fraser is taught the Indian Rope Trick by a peasant whose life he’s inadvertently saved. Back in America, facing ruination and with a demanding and very jealous memsahib to maintain, he performs the trick for the first time with Mrs. Fraser as his assistant. At the top of the rope he discovers Paradise … and better still, a very willing beauty to entertain. Unfortunately, his wife appears at this inopportune moment, scimitar between her teeth and madness in her eyes. She slices off Henry’s limbs and drops the bloody chunks to earth but there’s no cause to worry, it’s all in the act and she’ll reassemble him below. Then a hunky Maharaja appears … Great fun, reminiscent of a Benny Hill sketch except with lashings of gore. Henry Slesar – The Rats Of Dr. Picard: Dr. Picard of the Fierstmyer Institute brings 45 lab rats home so he can conduct some extracurricular research. His wife Violet takes exception and, inspired by her Animal Rights activist friend Mrs. Springer, hatches a plot to release them. They’re very hungry … William Fryer Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers: “Eustace watched it grimly, as it hung from the cornice with three fingers and flicked thumb and forefinger at him in an expression of scornful derision.” Shortly before his death, the blind Adrian Borlsover became prolific at automatic hand-writing, and the messages from the other side seemed to be directed at his cousin, Eustace. When Uncle Adrian died, the right hand used it’s skilled penmanship to fake a dying request from the old man – that it be severed from the corpse and sent to Eustace. The entity manipulating the hand – possibly a stray elemental or the spirit of someone Eustace has swindled – is not without a sense of fun and is even spotted sliding down the banister. But it also has a supremely vindictive streak and finally, stabbed, burnt, but refusing to lie down, it tires of toying with him … H. R. Wakefield – The Seventeenth Hole At Duncaster: A golf club on the Norfolk coast. The course has recently been extended at the expense of a strip of woodland, but members complain the hole is unplayable and a particularly foul stench periodically emanates from the vicinity. The secretary, Mr. Baxter, suffers nightmares in which he is gloatingly informed of who will be next to die at the 17th, and the voices are never wrong. After a woman is stripped and murdered by persons unknown at the blighted spot, he wisely obtains a transfer to London, where he later learns that ‘Blood Wood’ – as it is known locally – was once the haunt of Druids. Massimo Bontempelli – The Avenging Film: A super-sensitive actor in his first role, suffers all the sensations he’s portraying on the set. As the movie calls on him to act out hatred toward a love-rival, bereavement, starvation and suicide, it all gets rather much for him. Ray Bradbury – Skeleton: Mr. Harris has consulted him so many times about his aching bones that Dr. Burleigh has him figured as a hypochondriac. He isn’t. His skeleton really is in open revolt versus his body and will stop at nothing to be rid of all that flesh and innards. The late, great Sydney Bounds reworked this as The Flesh Is Weak but Bradbury’s original is peerless E.C. stuff.

Hugh Lamb – Tales from a Gaslit Graveyard

Hugh Lamb  (ed.) – Tales from a Gaslit Graveyard (W.H. Allen, 1979, Coronet, 1980)

Introduction – Hugh Lamb

Hume Nisbet – The Haunted Station
Robert Barr – The Hour And The Man
Mrs. J. H. Riddell – Nut Bush Farm
J. H. Pearce – The Man Who Coined his Blood Into Gold
Lady Dilke – The Shrine Of Death
Lady Dilke – The Black Veil
Ambrose Bierce – The Way Of Ghosts
K. & H. Ptichard – The Fever Queen
W. C. Morrow – The Permanent Stiletto
Richard Marsh – The Houseboat
R. Murray Gilchrist – Dame Inowslad
Anon – The Mountain Of Spirits
Anon – The Golden Bracelet
The Countess Of Munster – The Tyburn Ghost
Guy Boothby – Remorseless Vengeance
Bernard Capes – The Green Bottle
Bernard Capes – An Eddy On The Floor

Hugh Lamb – The Thrill Of Horror

Hugh Lamb (ed) – The Thrill Of Horror  (W. H. Allen, 1978)

Introduction – Hugh Lamb

H. Rider Haggard – Only A Dream
L. A. Lewis – The Meerschaum Pipe
A. Erskine Ellis – The Life-Buoy
Sir T. G. Jackson – The Lady Of Rosemount
John Gawsworth – How It Happened
Valerie Bryusov – In The Mirror
Joy Burnett – “Calling Miss Marker”
Dick Donovan – A Night Of Horror
L. T. C. Rolt – The Shouting
Charles Birkin – The Happy Dancers
William Hope Hodgson – The Weed Men
Frederick Cowles – Eyes For The Blind
H. R. Wakefield – Mr. Ash’s Studio
Robert Haining – Montage Of Death
Grant Allen – Pallinghurst Barrow
Eleanor Scott – Randall’s Round
E. H. Visiak – The Skeleton At The Feast
E. H. Visiak – Medusan Madness
A. C. Benson – Out Of The Sea
R. Murray Gilchrist – Witch-In-Grain
A. N. L. Munby – The Tudor Chimney
M. R. James – The Experiment

Charles Birkin – “The Happy Dancers”: Russia on the eve of the revolution. Serge, son of the Grand Duke, marries Louba, a peasant girl whose father is Boris Kerensky, a political agitator. The Duke has recently had him whipped and has threatened him with Siberia if he continues to stir up dissent.

Come 1917 and Serge is a soldier, while Louba has blossomed. As ‘Nikakova’ she is a celebrated cabaret performer at “The Happy Dancers”. She is also pregnant with the couples’ first child and is awaiting Serges return from duty to break the good news to him. The only blot on the landscape is that her father has discovered her whereabouts and his mob are fighting with the infantry on the outskirts of town. Their arrival at “The Happy Dancers” coincides with Serge’s …

Frederick Cowles- Eyes For The Blind:“I shuddered. Who had not heard of John Dangerfield? This monster had been convicted of the most vile crimes. His mania was to attack unsuspecting persons, often children, and gouge out their eyes. He had blinded five people in this manner ….”

Sydney Jackson, a young medium, holds a seance at a haunted castle in Ecclefain where a black magician had been blinded and killed in 1694 after a grave-robbing, eye-plucking spree. Guess who he becomes possessed by?

L. T. C. Rolt – The Shouting: Rolt had a brilliant collection of industrial age ghost stories, Sleep No More, published in 1948 after which he wrote nothing else in the field until Hugh Lamb tempted him out of retirement. The Shouting is an atmospheric piece set in Devon. Edward confesses the reason why he’s terrified of woods. It seems that he has witnessed a diabolical ritual by feral children to summon their God – the Green Man.

John Gawsworth – How It Happened: Surrey: Stanley Barton’s handsome elder brother and Marjery are in love. They meet every evening beneath the fir tree. Stanley isn’t happy about this at all because he also loves Marjery. She makes the mistake of laughing at him when his brother scorns “he ought to have more pride than to hang about where he isn’t wanted.”
Soon he isn’t the only one hanging about, as Stanley explains from the asylum.

L. A. Lewis – The Meerschaum Pipe: The narrator moves into ‘Heroney’, the former country residence of Harper who butchered several women and buried them in the surrounding fields. Or rather, parts of them:

“The most revolting feature of the murders was his habit of severing the head and limbs and leaving them on the scene for identification, while carrying away the trunk for addition to a sort of museum …”

In between visits to the Vicarage and brushing up on his golf handicap, the new squire takes to smoking Harper’s best pipe. The discovery of a gypsy girl’s mutilated remains in Arningham Woods signals a new reign of terror …

Hugh Lamb – Cold Fear

Hugh Lamb (ed.) – Cold Fear: New Tales Of Terror (W. H. Allen, 1981)

Foreword – Hugh Lamb
Marion Pitman – “Lullaby For A Baby Horror-story Writer”

Ramsey Campbell – In The Bag
Eleanor Inglefield – The Music In The House
Brian Lumley – In The Glow Zone
Ken Alden – The Papal Magician
Robert Aickman – Laura
Robert Haining – An Emissary For The Devil
David Sutton – A Little Bit Of Egypt
John Blackburn – Aunty Green
Kathleen Murray – All The Amenities
Adrian Cole – The Demon In The Stone
Charles Birkin – Dinner In A Private Room
Frederick Cowles – The House In The Forest
Arthur Porges – The Man Who Wouldn’t Eat
Rosemary Timperley – The Darkhouse Keeper
Ramsey Campbell – After The Queen

Adrian Cole – The Demon In The Stone: Dartmoor. Alan Steele and his wife Fiona invite journalist Ray Hammon to spend the weekend at the mansion they’re looking after for Sir Isaac Vilegarde, a man with a huge assortment of magical bric-a-brac. Hammon ruined Alan’s sister, jilting her when she fell pregnant, and thinks Steele is unaware of the fact. Not so. Steele tricks him into releasing the wind-demon by means of pumping up the stereo.

Charles Birkin – Dinner In A Private Room: Something of a departure for Birkin in what seems to have been his final story(?). The modern-day incarnations of some of the most notorious characters in history are invited to dine with Mr. Nasat. Nero, Judas Iscariot, Cesare Borgia and de Rais are commended on their past achievements, but are reminded they could all have done better. Natas has decided to move into the movie industry: “We’ll be showing the Nazarene as he really was, and that is as a failure and a two-bit agitator. He was a muddled and hysterical homosexual and those twelve disciples of his – well, we’ll slant them as a kind of Touring Company for Gay lib. The Magdalene’s a Pansy’s Moll. Get the idea?”

Kathleen Murray – All The Amenities: Martin Sower, self-confessed bastard and thief, takes his wife on holiday to a guest house on the advice of Jeremy, a partner he swindled whose brother hung himself rather than face bankruptcy. From the beginning of his stay, Sower is the victim of ‘accidents’ which see him scalded and stabbed through the hand. Are the females at the establishment merely clumsy, or is there a conspiracy afoot?

Brian Lumley – In The Glow Zone: After the bomb, two-headed mutants survive on a diet of rats, cats & co. In short, anything they can find that isn’t contaminated. Men come after them with shot-guns. The mutants fight back with axes but are eventually overcome as their mother had been before them.

Ken Alden – The Papal Magician: Medieval Rome: A crippled priest, sympathetic to the Borgia dynasty, summons forth an angel when taunted to do so by a cynic during a pub argument. Unfortunately, it’s of the fallen variety, and a decidedly unpleasant fucker to look at.

Eleanor Inglefield – The Music In The House: cornwall. Archaeologist Simon Kent unadvisedly steals a prehistoric disk in some way connected to Sun worship. Ancient forces duly punish him for his crime.