Michel Parry (ed.) – Spaced Out

Michel Parry (ed.) – Spaced Out (Panther, 1977)

Brian Froud
With interior illustrations by Jim Pitts.

Michel Parry – Introduction :Spaced Out
Michael Moorcock – The Deep Fix
Fritz Leiber – All the Weed in the World
Fletcher Pratt – The Roger Bacon Formula
Carl Jacobi – Smoke of the Snake
Henry Slesar – Melodramine
Grania Davis – My Head’s in a Different Place, Now
R. A. Lafferty – Sky
David Gerrold – All of Them Were Empty

Blurb:
FAR OUT OF THIS WORLD
Highs of horror, raptures and nightmares await you within the pages of this book. Travel beyond the limits of earthbound reality … and discover worlds of fantasy and horror as bizarre and enthralling as those in Michel Parry’s previous trailblazing anthologies STRANGE ECSTASIES and DREAM TRIPS. The fifth dimension awaits you within.
ENTER

Anonymous – Ghost Stories

Anonymous – Ghost Stories   ( Cathay, 1984)

illustrations by Ian McCraig

H. P. Lovecraft – The Music of Erich Zann
Charles Dickens – The Ghost in the Bride’s Chamber
M. R. James – A School Story
Oscar Wilde – The Canterville Ghost
Edgar Allan Poe – The Tell-Tale Heart
R. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Cat Room
Catherine Crowe – The Monk’s Story
Saki  – Laura
Fritz Leiber – Smoke Ghost
Frederick Marryat – The Phantom Ship
Leon Garfield – An Adelaide Ghost
E. Nesbit – Man-Size In Marble
Hugh Walpole  – A Little Ghost
Rosemary Timperley  – The Mistress in Black
Guy de Maupassant – An Apparition
Penelope Lively  – The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (extract)
Algernon Blackwood – The Occupant of the Room
Jerome K. Jerome  – The Haunted Mill
Elizabeth Le Fanu – The Harpsichord
J. S. Le Fanu – The White Cat of Drumgunniol
W. W. Jacobs – The Three Sisters
Joan Aiken  – Sonata For Harp and Bicycle

Ramsey Campbell – Meddling with Ghosts

Ramsey Campbell (ed.) – Meddling with Ghosts (British Library, 2001)

Ramsey Campbell – Introduction

J. Sheridan Le Fanu – The Familiar
F. Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
Mary Cholmondeley – Let Loose
Augustus Jessop – An Antiquary’s Ghost Story
Sabine Baring-Gould – Glámr
Perceval Landon – Thurnley Abbey
T. G. Jackson – The Red House
Mrs. H. D. Everett – The Death Mask
D. N. J. – The Moon-Gazer
Fritz Leiber – Smoke Ghost
L. T. C. Rolt – The Mine
A. N. L. Munby – The White Sack
T. E. D. Klein – Petey
Sheila Hodgson – Echoes from the Abbey
Ramsey Campbell – The Guide
Terry Lamsley – Two Returns

Rosemary Pardoe – The James Gang (article)

Anthology of 16 ghost stories in the tradition of M.R. James, selected and introduced by Ramsey Campbell.

Michel Parry – Roots Of Evil

‘Carlos Cassaba’ (Michel Parry) ed. – Roots Of Evil: Beyond The Secret Life Of Plants (Corgi, 1976).

Introduction by Carlos Cassaba

Clark Ashton Smith – The Seed From The Sepulchre
H. G. Wells – The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Rappaccini’s Daughter
Hester Holland – Dorner Cordaianthus
Manly Wade Wellman – Come Into My Parlour
Mary Elizabeth Counselman – The Tree’s Wife
David H. Keller – The Ivy War
John Collier – Green Thoughts
Fritz Leiber – Dr. Adams’ Garden Of Evil
Frederic Brown – Daisies
Margaret St. Clair – The Gardener
Clifford Simak – Green Thumb

It’s official: Flowers hate us, and you’ll never be able to look at a potted plant the same way again.

Parry’s collection is a lot more enjoyable than you might think, this largely due to the sheer bloodthirstiness of the delinquent Triffids that pop up in just about every other story. My personal pick of the bunch are the Clark Ashton Smith story, which is truly creepy and has a moment of awesome horror when the main protagonist suddenly develops a headache. “Green Thoughts” almost certainly inspired Roger Corman’s “The little Shop Of Horrors” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is both horrific and terribly sad, as we learn the lengths a mad scientist will go to to conduct his experiments.