Sean Richards – The Elephant Man & Other Freaks (Futura, 1980)

‘Sean Richards’ [Peter Haining] (ed.) – The Elephant Man & Other Freaks   (Futura, 1980)

Sean Richards – Introduction

Sir Frederick Treves – The Elephant Man
H. Spicer – The Bird Woman
Richard Marsh – The Reptile Man
Gustav Meyrink – Bal Macabre
Maurice Renard – The Ghouls of the Marquis D’Outremort
Tod Robbins – Spurs
Henry Kuttner – Dr. Cyclops
Val Lewton – The Bagheeta
Maurice Sandoz – The Secret of Château de Hirtzheim
Edgar Allan Poe – Hop-Frog
Robert Bloch – Unheavenly Twin
Ray Bradbury – Heavy Set

Many thanks to Mr. Happy for providing the cover scan & TOC

Peter Haining – Murder On The Menu

Peter Haining (ed.) – Murder On The Menu: A Gourmet Guide To Death (Chancellor 1993: originally Souvenir, 1991)

Cover design: Slatter-Anderson

Peter Haining – Introduction

I. Specialities de la Maison: Stories By Some Famous Authors

Stanley Ellin – The Speciality Of The House
Ruth Rendell – Bribery And Corruption
Paul Gallico – Chef d’Oeuvre
Oliver La Farge – La Specialite de M Duclos
L. P. Hartley – Three, or Four, for Dinner
Gaston Leroux – A Terrible Tale
Damon Runyon – So You Won’t Talk!
Patricia Highsmith – Sauce for the Goose
P. D. James – A Very Commonplace Murder

II. Entrees Historigues: Tales From The Culinary Past.

August Derleth – A Dinner at Imola
Robert Bloch – The Feast in the Abbey
Alphonse Daudet – The Three Low Masses
Alexander Pushkin – The Coffin-Maker
Washington Irving – Guests from Gibbet Island
Richard Dehan – The Compleat Housewife
Walter Besant & James Rice – The Case of Mr Lucraft
G. B. Stern – The Man who Couldn’t Taste Pepper
Roger Zelazny – Final Dining

III. Just Desserts. A Section Of Detective Cases

Agatha Christie – Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds
H. C. Bailey – The Long Dinner
Nicholas Blake – The Assassins’ Club
Roy Vickers – Dinner for Two
Michael Gilbert – A Case for Gourmets
Lawrence G. Blochman – Rum for Dinner
Georges Simenon – Under the Hammer
Rex Stout – Poison a la Carte
Roald Dahl – Lamb to the Slaughter

Blurb:
Murder On The Menu is a mouth-watering collection of short stories from the masters of mystery, where food and death meet with devastating effect.

A Visual Guide To New English Library

Justin Marriott (ed.) – A Visual Guide To New English Library: Volume One (Nov. 2010) 

Blurb:
British Publisher New English Library are a legend amongst vintage paperback fans and collectors throughout the world.

Their cult output is celebrated in the first of an ongoing series of visual guides from the producers of The Paperback Fanatic magazine.

Volume one is crammed with full colour reproductions of rare covers. The glorious visuals are accompanied by insightful commentary and full bibliographical detail, including previously unrecorded information on pseudonyms.

more details on Vault Of Evil Forum:

Peter Haining – Death on Wheels

Peter Haining (ed.) – Death on Wheels (Souvenir 1999)

Introduction – Peter Haining

1. Auto Mania: The Machinery of Death

Trucks – Stephen King
The Dust-Cloud – E. F. Benson
Second Chance – Jack Finney
Used Car – H. Russell Wakefield
Duel – Richard Matheson
Who’s Been Sitting in My Car? – Antonia Fraser
Not from Detroit – Joe R. Lansdale

2. Motorway Madness: Murder in the Fast Lane

Never Stop on the Motorway – Jeffrey Archer
The Death Car – Peter Haining
Night Court – Mary Elizabeth Counselman
Accident Zone – Ramsey Campbell
The Last Run – Alan Dean Foster
The Hitch-Hiker – Roald Dahl
Crash – J. G. Ballard

3. Chrome Killers: The Future Autogeddon

The Racer – Ib Melchior
Along the Scenic Route – Harlan Ellison
Auto-da-Fé – Roger Zelazny
Violation – William F. Nolan
Thy Blood Like Milk – Ian Watson

Thanks to Steve Goodwin for providing the table of contents!

Peter Haining – Summoned From The Tomb Digit, 1966

Peter Haining (ed) – Summoned From The Tomb (Digit, 1966)

Introduction – Peter Haining

Robert Bloch – Hell On Earth *
Washington Irving – Guests From Gibbet Island
Bram Stoker – The Judges House
J. S. Le Fanu – The Bully Of Chapelizod
Ivar Jorgensen – The Curse  *
Alexander Pushkin – The Coffin-Maker
Clive Pemberton – “Purple Eyes” *
Ambrose Bierce – A Watcher By The Dead
August Derleth – The Whippoorwills In The Hills
Edgar Allan Poe – Hop-Frog

A “Screaming Shuddering Spine-chilling TEN horror classics by the great masters of suspense” no less, including three stories (*) which didn’t make it into the later, much expanded hardback (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1973).  Groovy graveyard cover artwork too!

See also the Summoned From The Tomb thread on the Vault of Evil forum.

Stephen Jones – Dancing With The Dark

Stephen Jones (ed.) – Dancing With The Dark: True Encounters With The Paranormal By Masters Of The Macabre (Vista, 1997)

Cover by Splash: Photography by Simon Marsden

Stephen Jones – Introduction: Dancing with the Dark

Joan Aiken – My Feeling about Ghosts
Sarah Ash – Timeswitch
Mike Ashley – The Rustle in the Grass
Peter Atkins – Take Care of Grandma
Clive Barker – Life After Death
Stephen Baxter – The Cartographer
Robert Bloch – Not Quite So Pragmatic .
Ramsey Campbell – The Nearest to a Ghost
Hugh B. Cave – Haitian Mystères
R. Chetwynd-Hayes – One-Way Trip
A. E. Coppard – The Shock of the Macabre
Basil Copper – The Haunted Hotel
Peter Crowther – Safe Arrival
Jack Dann – A Gift of Eagles
Charles de Lint – The House on Spadina
Terry Dowling – Sharing with Strangers
Lionel Fanthorpe – Hands on the Wheel
Esther M. Friesner – That Old School Spirit
Gregory Frost – Twice Encountered
Neil Gaiman – The Flints of Memory Lane
Stephen Gallagher – In There
Ray Garton – Haunted in the Head
John Gordon – The House on the Brink
Ed Gorman – Riding the Nightwinds
Elizabeth Goudge – ESP
Simon R. Green – Death is a Lady
Peter Haining – The Smoke Ghost
Joe Haldeman – Never Say Die
James Herbert – Not Very Psychic
Brian Hodge – Confessions of a Born-Again Heathen
Nancy Holder – To Pine with Fear and Sorrow
M. R. James – A Ghostly Cry
Peter James – One Extra for Dinner
Mike Jefferies – A Face in the Crowd
Nancy Kilpatrick – Raggedy Ann
Stephen King – Uncle Clayton
Hugh Lamb – Go On, Open Your Eyes…
Terry Lamsley – Moving Houses
John Landis – Inspiration
Stephen Laws – Norfolk Nightmare
Samantha Lee – Not Funny
Barry B. Longyear – The Gray Ghost
H. P. Lovecraft – Witch House
Brian Lumley – The Challenge
Arthur Machen – World of the Senses
Graham Masterton – My Grandfather’s House
Richard Matheson – More Than We Appear To Be
Richard Christian Matheson – Visit to a Psychic Surgeon
Paul J. McAuley – The Fall of the Wires
Anne McCaffrey – Unto the Third Generation
Thomas F. Monteleone – Talkin’ Them Marble Orchard Blues
Mark Morris – A Shadow of Tomorrow
Yvonne Navarro – The House on Chadwell Drive
William F. Nolan – The Floating Table and the Jumping Violet
Edgar Allan Poe – Mesmeric Revelation
Vincent Price – In the Clouds
Alan Rodgers – Clinic-Modern
Nicholas Royle – Magical Thinking
Jay Russell – De Cold, Cold Décolletage
Adam Simon – The Darkness Between the Frames
Guy N. Smith – The Mist People
Michael Marshall Smith – Mr Cat
S. P. Somtow – In the Realm of the Spirits
Brian Stableford – Chacun sa Goule
Laurence Staig – The Spirit of M. R. James
Peter Tremayne – The Family Curse
H. R. Wakefield – The Red Lodge
Lawrence Watt-Evans – My Haunted Home
Cherry Wilder – The Ghost Hunters
Chet Williamson – A Place Where a Head Would Rest
Paul F. Wilson – The Glowing Hand
Douglas E. Winter – Finding My Religion
Gene Wolfe – Kid Sister

A Spectral vision …. The sound of phantom footsteps … An experiment in astral projection ….. A childhood premonition of disaster …. Possession by a voodoo god ….
An Ouija board that predicted death … A body kept alive by force of will ….. A cursed family name …

Such tales as these are more usually associated with horror books and movies. However, these anecdotes are absolutely true! They are ,just a sample of the real-life experiences recounted by some of the world’s most famous frighteners, from such bestselling authors as Stephen King and James Herbert, to actor Vincent Price and director John Landis.

Collected together for the very first time, many or the most successful and well-known exponents, along with rising stars of the horror field, relate their fascinating encounters with the supernatural, revealing how such unique experiences have affected their lives and influenced their works.

Even for the experts, when it comes to Unexplained phenomena, fact can be much more frightening than fiction …

See also Dancing With the Dark thread on Vault Of Evil

Thanks to Nightreader!

Paperback Fanatic 11

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #11 (August, 2009)

Contents

Editorial:
Fanatical Mail – Paperback fanatics from around the world have their say!
AGRO! – The Fanatic continues its look at Hell’s Angels pulps
Thirty Years Behind The Typewriter – Classic Steve Holland interview with versatile author Peter Leslie
I’ve Been Up So Long – Fanatic interviews publishing maverick Mark Howell. The NEL editor’s reminiscences of life with Laurence James, Jim Moffatt, Peter Haining, Bob Tanner & Co.
The Lives And Loves Of James Moffatt – Fanatic investigates the many pen-names of Richard ‘Skinhead’ Allen
Take A Journey to Dimension X – The Fanatic studies the ‘Jeffrey Lord’ sword and sorcery series Blade
A Green Dog Trumpeting – The Fanatic interviews Ian Miller one of the most idiosyncratic and distinctive of all paperback artists whose work includes The Sucking Pit, Errol LeCale’s Zombie, and the striking covers for the Panther reprints of Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness and The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward.

Edited by Justin Marriott : justinATjustincuitprint.free-online.co.uk
Designed by Glenn B Fleming : gbf15AThotmail.co.uk
Published August 2009: contact www.thepaperbackfanatic.com

Peter Haining – The Dracula Scrapbook (Bounty, 1992)

Peter Haining – The Dracula Scrapbook (Bounty, 1992)

Impostor!

Don’t buy this one thinking it’s a reprint of the sumptuous The Dracula Scrapbook paperback published by NEL in 1976, because it ain’t. It’s merely The Dracula Centenary Book (Souvenir, 1987) under false pretences.

Peter Haining – The Legend And Bizarre Crimes Of Spring Heeled Jack

Peter Haining – The Legend And Bizarre Crimes Of Spring Heeled Jack (Muller, 1977)

Blurb

“Out of the darkness sprang a huge, cloaked figure. In an instant the man had thrown aside his cloak, revealing a hideous and frightful appearance. Blue and white flames shot from his mouth, and his eyes appeared like balls of fire. The young girl who witnessed all this was so terrified that she fainted right away.”
This is just one of dozens of contemporary reports of the bizarre criminal who for over sixty years held the British population in a grip of fear. A man known only as “SPRING HEELED JACK”.

During the period of his reign of terror, this frightening, agile figure who attacked unwary travellers and pounced on terrified girls and women – and may have been responsible for several murders – attracted as many headlines and alarmed the authorities as much as his later mysterious compatriot in crime, Jack the Ripper.

From the late 1830’s he confounded the police, outwitted all attempts by the Army to catch him, and even boldly confronted law officers -slapping them across the face with his `ice cold hands’ before disappearing into the darkness with his eerie laugh ringing behind him….
Today, though, while Jack the Ripper is the subject of book after book, “SPRING HEELED JACK” has become just a name associated with anyone who jumps well. His real story is unknown. This is the first book to examine the legend in detail and throw new light on who the man behind the mask might have been.

Peter Haining’s fascinating study not only examines the reports of his activities – and suggests that more than one person adopted the disguise, including a famous nobleman -but discusses his fame as a star bf Victorian melodrama, and considers some of the strange theories that have been advanced about him -including one that he was really a spaceman!

The book is fully illustrated with remarkable engravings and photographs and includes a special section from one of the famous “Penny Dreadful” serials which featured the legend of the extraordinary “SPRING HEELED JACK”.

Peter Haining – Sweeney Todd: The Real Story Of The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

Peter Haining – Sweeney Todd: The Real Story Of The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (Robson, 1998)

Groan. Another personal ‘one that got away’. I use to see this around fairly often, remaindered or discounted or something. Never snapped it up, because I thought it was merely a repackaging of his earlier The Mystery & Horrible Murders Of Sweeney Todd (Muller 1979). Just goes to show how wrong you can be!

Haining certainly revisits the earlier book (and his introduction to the Frederick Hazleton novel), but this time he takes it that step further as, utilizing fact, “fact”, centuries old remembered conversations and “it was rumoured at the time”s, he not only “proves” that Sweeney Todd exists, but also gives us a cradle-to-scaffold biography! How comes nobody else has consulted The Newgate Calendar for references to the meat-pie martyr and, if they did, what’s their excuse for finding zero mention of him contained in it’s grisly pages? Why have i had to wait until now to learn that Sweeney was a local lad, born in Brick Lane?

It’s research, Jim, but not as we know it. Outrageous. But in a totally brilliant way.

This time, rather fittingly, the dedication runs “To the memory of Tod Slaughter. I’m polishing ’em off well tonight!”