Fred Pickersgill – And Graves Give Up Their Dead

Fred Pickersgill (ed.) – And Graves Give Up Their Dead (Corgi, 1964)

Photograph: Dunstan Pereira

William Link & William Levinson – Top Flight Aquarium
Gerald Bullett – the Elder
Roald Dahl – Royal Jelly
Charles Beaumont – Miss Gentilbelle
Richard Matheson – Girl Of My Dreams
Ambrose Birece – An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge
Robert Arthur – Death Is A Dream
Richard Davis – the Female Of The Species
John Collier – De Mortius
Wilbur Daniel Steele – Footfalls

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

Peter Haining – Nightcaps And Nightmares

Peter Haining (ed.) – Nightcaps And Nightmares (William Kimber, 1983)

cover:iconicus

Peter Haining – Introduction

Thomas Ingoldsby – The Spectre Of Tappington
Charles Dickens – The Lawyer And The Ghost
F. Antsey – The Wraith of Barnjum
Oscar Wilde – The Canterville Ghost
Kenneth Graham – The Ghost Aristocracy
Jerome K. Jerome – The Haunted Mill
John Kendrick Bangs – Ghosts That Have Haunted Me
H G Wells – The Inexperienced Ghost
Ambrose Bierce – The Clothing Of Ghosts
O. Henry – A Ghost Of A Chance
Richard Middleton – The Ghost Ship
Stephen Leacock – Buggam Grange
Robert Benchley – A Trip To Spirit Land
James Thurber – The Night The Ghost Got In
Robert Graves – The White Horse
John Collier – Half-way To Hell
Robert Bloch -The Indian Spirit Guide

In this entertaining collection Peter Haining takes us into the realms where the ghostly is often blended with humour.

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!

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.