Mike Ashley [ed.] – Doorway To Dilemma

Mike Ashley [ed.] – Doorway To Dilemma: Bewildering Tales of Dark Fantasy (British Library, 2019)

Mauricio Villamayer

Mike Ashley – Introduction

Fitz- James O’ Brien – What Was It?
Morley Roberts – The Anticipator
Frank R. Stockton – The Lady, or the Tiger?
Frank R. Stockton – The Discourager of Hesitancy
Arthur Machen – The White People
Mary E. Wilkins – The Prism
Cleveland Moffat – The Mysterious Card
Cleveland Moffat – The Mysterious Card Unveiled
H. G. Wells – A Moonlight Fable
Catherine Wells – Fear
Madeline Yale Wynne – The Little Room
Madeline Yale Wynne – The Sequel to the Little Room
David H. Keller – The Thing in the Cellar
Thomas Burke – Johnson Looked Back” – THOMAS BURKE
Muriel Campbell Dyar – The Woman in Red
Muriel Campbell Dyar – Unmasked
Lucy Clifford – The New Mother
Lord Dunsany – The Hoard of the Gibbelins
Mary E. Counselman – The Three Marked Pennies

Blurb:

“The events which I purpose detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn…”

Welcome to the realm of Dark Fantasy, where the weird prevails and accounts of unanswerable dilemma find their home. Gathered within these pages are twisted yarns, encounters with logic-defying creatures and nightmarish fables certain to perplex and beguile.

So join us as we journey across the threshold, deep into the Library’s vaults where nineteen deliciously dark and totally dumbfounding stories await. These tales, plucked from long-lost literary magazines and anthologies spring to life again to embody this most mesmerising of genres.

About the author: Mike Ashley is one of the foremost historians of popular fiction with a specialism in the rare and forgotten short fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His Tales of the Weird anthologies include Glimpses of the Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories and The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways.

Elizabeth Lee (ed.) – Spine Chillers

Elizabeth Lee (ed.) – Spine Chillers: an Anthology of Mystery and Horror  (Elek, 1961)

Edgar Allan Poe – The Pit and the Pendulum
Edgar Allan Poe – The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Charles Dickens  – No. 1 Branch Line, the Signalman
Charles Dickens  – The Trial for Murder (Aka To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt)
Wilkie Collins – A Terribly Strange Bed
Sir Walter Besant & James Rice – The Case of Mr. Lucraft
Ambrose Bierce – A Watcher by the Dead
F. Marion Crawford – The Screaming Skull
E. Nesbit – Man-Size in Marble
E. Nesbit – John Charrington’s Wedding
M. R. James –  The Mezzotint
Arthur Machen – The Novel of the White Powder
H. G. Wells – Pollock and the Porroh Man
H. G. Wells – The Red Room
Edward Lucas White – Lukundoo
E. F. Benson – In the Tube
E. F. Benson – At the Farmhouse
Vincent O’Sullivan – When I Was Dead
Vincent O’Sullivan – The Business of Madame Jahn
Algernon Blackwood – The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York
Oliver Onions – Benlian
Oliver Onions – Phantas
May Sinclair – Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched
William Hope Hodgson – The Voice in the Night
Lord Dunsany – The Bureau d’Echange de Maux
H. Russell Wakefield  – That Dieth Not
H. P. Lovecraft- The Thing on the Doorstep
H. P. Lovecraft – Cool Air
H. P. Lovecraft – The Outsider
L. P. Hartley – A Visitor from Down Under
William Faulkner – A Rose for Emily
Elizabeth Bowen – The Cat Jumps
Pamela Hansford Johnson – Ghost of Honour
Robert Bloch – Catnip
Robert Bloch – Enoch
Muriel Spark – The Portobello Road
Ray Bradbury – Skeleton

John Gawsworth – Strange Assembly

John Gawsworth (ed.) – Strange Assembly (Unicorn, 1932)

John Gawsworth – Foreword

M. P. Shiel – The Flying Cat
Sir Ronald Ross – The Vivisector Vivisected
Frederick Carter – The Black Lad
Herbert E. Palmer – The Franc-Tireur’s Escape
Arthur Machen – The Gift Of Tongues
Hubert Crackanthorpe – A Fellside Tragedy
Francis Marsden – The Mask
Stephen Graham – Ilya Vilka
Rhys Davies – The Journey
Stephen Hudson – A Fragment
Wilfred Ewart – Londoners
Frederick Carter – The Harrying Of The Dead
M. P. Shiel – A Night in Venice
Arthur Machen – The Rose Garden

Roger Luckhurst – Late Victorian Gothic Tales

Roger Luckhurst (ed.) – Late Victorian Gothic Tales    (Oxford World’s Classics, 2009)

Introduction
Note on sources
Note on Illustrations
Select Bibliography
A Chronology Of The 1890’s

Vernon Lee – Dionea
Oscar Wilde – Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
Henry James – Sir Edmund Orme
Rudyard Kipling – The Mark Of The Beast
B. M. Croker – The Dark Bungalow At Dakor
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – Lot No. 249
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -The Case Of Lady Sannox
Grant Allen – Pallinghurst Barrow
Jean Lorrain – Magic Lantern
Jean Lorrain – The Secret Hand
Arthur Machen – The Great God Pan
M. P. Sheil – Vaila

Explanatory Notes
Blurb:

‘He was a man of fairly firm fibre, but there was something in this sudden, uncontrollable shriek of horror which chilled his blood and pringled in his skin. Coming in such a place and at such an hour, it brought a thousand fantastic possibilities into his head…’

The Victorian fin de siècle: the era of Decadence, The Yellow Book, the New Woman, the scandalous Oscar Wilde, the Empire on which the sun never set. This heady brew was caught nowhere better than in the revival of the Gothic tale in the late Victorian age, where the undead walked and evil curses, foul murder, doomed inheritance and sexual menace played on the stretched nerves of the new mass readerships. This anthology collects together some of the most famous examples of the Gothic tale in the 1890s, with stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Vernon Lee, Henry James and Arthur Machen, as well as some lesser known yet superbly chilling tales from the era. The introduction explores the many reasons for the Gothic revival, and how it spoke to the anxieties of the moment.

Stephen Jones & Dave Carson – H.P. Lovecraft’s Book Of Horror

Stephen Jones & Dave Carson (eds.) – H.P. Lovecraft’s Book Of Horror (Robinson, 1994)

H. P. Lovecraft – Supernatural Horror In Literature

Charles Dickens – The Signalman
E. Bulwer-Lytton – The House and the Brain
R L Stevenson – The Bodysnatcher
Hanns Heinz Ewers – The Spider
Theophile Gautier – The Foot of the Mummy
Guy De Maupassant – The Horla
Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall of the House of Usher
Ambrose Bierce – The Damned Thing
F Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
Robert W Chambers – The Yellow Sign
Mary Wilkins Freeman – The Shadows on the Wall
Ralph Adams Cram – The Dead Valley
Irwin S Cobb – Fishhead
Edward Lucas White – Lukundoo
Clark Ashton Smith – The Double Shadow
Rudyard Kipling – The Mark of the Beast
E F Benson – Negotium Perambulans
Hugh Walpole – Mrs Lunt
William Hope Hodgson – The Hog
Arthur Machen – The Great God Pan
M R James – Count Magnus

Stephen Jones – Lovecraft and the ‘Literature of Cosmic Fear’

Horror Stories: By The Greatest Masters Of The Gruesome

Anonymous (ed.) – Horror Stories: By The Greatest Masters Of The Gruesome (Paul Elek Bestseller Library, 1962)

Alexander Woolcott – Midnight Sonata
Arthur Machen – The Novel Of The Black Seal
E. F. Benson – Mrs. Amworth
F. Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
H. P. Lovecraft – The Dunwich Horror
Guy de Maupassant – Was It a Dream?
Bram Stoker – The Judges House
Charles Collins & Charles Dickens – The Trial For Murder
J. F. Sullivan – The Man With A Malady
Anonymous – Sawney Beane and His Family
Bram Stoker – The Squaw
A. J. Alan – The Hair
Fitz-James O’Brien – What Was It?
H. G. Wells – The Cone
F. Marion Crawford – The Screaming Skull
Blurb

Warning
If these tales are read late at night when the reader is alone in the house, the publishers will not he responsible for the consequences.

and nor will i be held accountable for posting ’em here!

Perhaps the most interesting thing to be said for this selection is that the contents are identical to  The Arrow Book Of Horror Stories (1965)

Ernest Rhys & M. Larigot – The Haunted And The Haunters

Ernest Rhys & M. Larigot (ed.) – The Haunted And The Haunters (Donald O’Connor, 1921;  Aegypan, 2007)

Reissued by Aegypan Press of North Hollywood, 2007. Prefer to read it all online? Short, Scary Ghost Stories

Cover of 2007 reissue

Ernest Rhys – Introduction

I. GHOST STORIES FROM LITERARY SOURCES

Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall Of The House Of Usher
George MacDonald – The Old Nurses Story
Thomas Hardy – The Superstitious Man’s Story
Boccaccioa – A Story Of Ravenna
Douglass Hyde [Trans] – Teig O’Kane And The Corpse
E. Bulwer Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters
R. S. Hawker – The Bothanan Ghost
Arnold Bennett – The Ghost Of Lord Clarenceux
Arthur Machen – Dr Duthoit’s Vision
John Wilson – The Seven Lights
Anonymous – The Spectral Coach Of Blackadon
William Hunt – Drake’s Drum
William Hunt – The Spectre Bridegroom
Greville MacDonald – The Pool In The Graveyard
William Carleton – The Liahan Shee
Sir George Douglas – The Haunted Cove
Sir Walter Scott – Wandering Willie’s Tale

II. GHOST STORIES FROM LOCAL RECORDS, FOLK LORE, AND LEGEND

Anonymous – Glamis Castle
Anonymous – Powys Castle
Augustus Hare – Croglin Grange
Joseph Glanvil – The Ghost of Major Sydenham
Anonymous – Miraculous Case of Jesch Claes
Anonymous – The Radiant Boy of Corby Castle
Anonymous – Clerk Saunders
Mrs Catherine Crowe – Dorothy Durant
C. K. Sharpe – Pearlin Jean
Anonymous – The Denton Hall Ghost
Anonymous – The Goodwood Ghost Story
Dale Owen – Captain Wheatcroft
Mrs Catherine Crowe – The Iron Cage
William Hunt – The Ghost of Rosewarne
Joseph Glanvil – The Iron Chest of Durley
Anonymous – The Strange Case of M. Bezeul
Anonymous – The Marquis de Rambouillet
Anonymous – The Altheim Revenant
Anonymous – Sertorius and His Hind
E. W. Godwin – Erichto

III. OMENS AND PHANTASMS

E.H. Blakeney [Trans] – Patroklos [from The Iliad]
“Arise Evans” – Vision of Cromwell
Rev. John Mastin – Lord Stafford’s Warning
Ferrier – Kotter’s Red Circle
Anonymous – The Vision of Charles XI of Sweden
Drummond – Ben Jonson’s Prevision
Anonymous – Queen Ulrica and the Countess Steenbock
Anonymous – Denis Misanger
Anonymous – The Pied Piper
Ferrier – Jeanne D’Arc
Anonymous – Anne Walker
Henderson – The Hand of Glory
Anonymous – The Bloody Footstep
Anonymous – The Ghostly Warriors of Worms
Anonymous – The Wandering Jew in England
Edmund Jones – Bendith Eu Mammau
John F. Campbell – The Red Book of Appin
Anonymous – The Good O’Donoghue
William Hunt – Sarah Polgrain
William Godwin – Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester

The Aegypan edition drops the co-credit although it’s clear from Rhys’ introduction that this compilation of folklore, fact, ‘fact’, legend and fiction is all the mysterious M. Larigot’s work!

In this Ghost Book, M. Larigot, himself a writer of supernatural tales, has collected a remarkable batch of documents, fictive or real, describing the one human experience that is hardest to make good. Perhaps the very difficulty of it has rendered it more tempting to the writers who have dealt with the subject. His collection, notably varied and artfully chosen as it is, yet by no means exhausts the literature, which fills a place apart with its own recognised classics, magic masters, and dealers in the occult. Their testimony serves to show that the forms by which men and women are haunted are far more diverse and subtle than we knew. So much so, that one begins to wonder at last if every person is not liable to be “possessed.”

Dorothy L Sayers – Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror: 2nd Series

Dorothy L Sayers (ed.) –  Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror: 2nd Series (Gollancz, July, 1931)

Help! Cover Wanted!

Dorothy L. Sayers – Introduction

1. Detection & Mystery (25 stories by Sayers, M. P. Shiel, H. C. Bailey, Robert Barr, Mrs. Belloc Lowdnes & Co.)

2. Mystery and Horror:

A.J. Alan – My Adventure in Norfolk
Stacy Aumonier – Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty
R. H. Barham – The Leech of Folkestone
Max Beerbohm – A.V. Laider
E.F. Benson – The Room in the Tower
J.D. Beresford – Cut-Throat Farm
Ambrose  Bierce – The Damned Thing
Algernon Blackwood – Secret Worship
Mrs. E. Bland  (Edith Nesbit) – No. 17
Douglas G. Browne – The Queer Door
A.M. Burrage – The Waxwork
Wilkie Collins – Mad Monkton
Alan Cunningham – The Haunted Ships
Clemence Dane – The King Waits
Walter de la Mare – The Tree
S.L. Dennis – The Second Awakening of a Magician
Charles Dickens – No.1 Branch Line: The Signalman
Ford Madox Ford – Reisenberg
Violet Hunt – The Prayer
W.F. Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers
Holloway Horn – The Old Man
W.W. Jacobs – The Well
Edgar Jepson – The Resurgent Mysteries
J.S. Le Fanu – Mr. Justice Harbottle
E. Bulwer-Lytton – The Haunted and the Haunters
Arthur Machen – The Great Return
Frederick Marryat – The Story of the Greek Slave
John Masefield – Anty Blight
John Metcalfe – The Double Admiral
Mrs. Oliphant – The Library Window
Barry Pain – Rose,  Rose
Eden Phillpotts – The Iron Pineapple
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Sir A. Quiller-Couch – The Roll-Call of the Reef
Naomi Royde-Smith – Mangaroo
Saki – Sredni Vashtar
Mary Shelley – The Mortal Immortal
M. P. Shiel – The Primate of the Rose
Henry Spicer – Called to the Rescue
Hugh Walpole – The Enemy
H. G. Wells – The Inexperienced Ghost
Edward Lucas White – Lukundoo

Dorothy L. Sayers – Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery & Horror

Dorothy L. Sayers – Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery & Horror (Gollancz, September 1928)

Margaret Oliphant – The Open Door
Charles Dickens – Story of the Bagman’s Uncle
Charles Collins & Charles Dickens- The Trial for Murder
M. R. James – Martin’s Close
Oliver Onions – Phantas
Robert Hichens – How Love Came to Professor Guildea
Saki – The Open Window
Arthur Machen – The Black Seal
Sax Rohmer – Tcheriapin
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
A. J. Alan – The Hair
E. F. Benson – Mrs. Amworth
Ambrose Bierce – Moxon’s Master
Jerome J. Jerome – The Dancing Partner
Robert Louis Stevenson – Thrawn Janet
R. H. Benson – Father Meuron’s Tale
Marjorie Bowen – The Avenging of Ann Leete
J. F. Sullivan –  The Man With A Malady
William Fryer Harvey – August Heat
Morley Roberts – The Anticipator
Joseph Conrad – The Brute
May Sinclair – Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu – Green Tea
J. D. Beresford – The Misanthrope
John Metcalfe – The Bad Lands
Alfred M. Burrage – Nobody’s House
Arthur Quiller-Couch – The Seventh Man
N. Royde-Smith – Proof
Walter de la Mare – Seaton’s Aunt
Michael Arlen – The Gentleman From America
R. Ellis Roberts – The Narrow Way
Traditional – Sawney Beane
Bram Stoker – The Squaw
Violet Hunt – The Corsican Sisters
Barry Pain – The End of A Show
H. G. Wells – The Cone
Ethel Colburn Mayne – The Separate Room

The first of three epic volumes in this classic series; stories listed are the Mystery & Horror content only.  Series II and III to follow ASAP

Vere H. Collins – More Ghosts and Marvels

Vere H. Collins – More Ghosts and Marvels: A Selection Of Uncanny Tales from Sir Walter Scott to Michael Arlen (H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1927)

Help! Cover Wanted!

Sir Walter Scott – The Tapestried Chamber
Edgar Allan Poe – The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurses Story
Charles Dickens – No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman
J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Squire Toby’s Will
George MacDonald – The Lady In The Mirror
Walter Besant & James Rice – The Case Of Mr. Lucraft
Henry James – The Great Good Place
F. Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
Arthur Machen – The Novel Of The White Powder
H. G. Wells – The Door In The Wall
E. F. Benson – Negotium Perambulans
Algernon Blackwood – Running Wolf
Lord Dunsany – The Bureau D’Exchange De Main
Katherine Fullerton Gerould – Loquier’s Third Act
Michael Arlen – The Ancient Sin
Maurice Baring – Venus
R. S. Hawker – The Bothanon Ghost
John Metcalfe – Nightmare Jack
May Sinclair – Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched