Stephanie Dowrick (ed.) – Classic Tales of Horror

Stephanie Dowrick (ed.) – Classic Tales of Horror  (Book Club, 1976; originally Constable, 1976)

Suzanne Perkins

Stephanie Dowrick – Introduction

Edgar Allen Poe – The Black Cat
Charles Dickens – To Be Taken With a Grain Of Salt
Sheridan Le Fanu – Spectre Lovers
Wilkie Collins – The Dream Woman
Mrs. Oliphant – The Open Door
Elizabeth Braddon – The Cold Embrace
Ambrose Bierce – The Moonlit Road
Henry James – The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes
Bram Stoker – The Judge’s House
Guy De Maupassant – The Hand
Robert Louis Stevenson – The Body-Snatcher
Francis Marion Crawford – The Screaming Skull
Charlotte Perkins Gilman – The Yellow Wallpaper
M. R. James – Lost Hearts
Algernon Blackwood – Keeping His Promise
Saki – The Music On The Hill
Hugh Walpole – Tarnhelm

Anonymous (ed.) – The Premature Burial

Anonymous (ed.) – The Premature Burial  (Corgi, 1966)

George Underwood

Edgar Allan Poe – The Premature Burial
Frederick H Christian – I’ll Kiss You Goodnight
Robert Louis Stevenson – Thrawn Janet
James Pearson – Cat
A.J.Ronald – The Flesh of the Devil
Henry James – Sir Edmund Orme
Richard Hengist – A Dream of Crows
Sheridan Le Fanu – Carmilla

Blurb:

Four stories of horror from the pens of famous writers of the past
Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, Sheridan Le Fanu.

And four spine-chilling never-before-published tales by new masters of terror and the supernatural
Frederick H. Christian, James Pearson, A. J. Ronald, Richard Hengist.

See also The Premature Burial thread on Vault forum

Readers Digest – Great Ghost Stories

Readers Digest – Great Ghost Stories (Readers Digest, 1997)

Robert Wheeler & Tony Stone

The Editors – Introduction

Robert Aickman – Ringing The Changes
Cynthia Asquith – The Corner Shop
A. L. Barker – The Whip Hand
Ambrose Bierce – A Tough Tussle
Algernon Blackwood – Transition
Ray Bradbury – The Crowd
Ann Bridge – The Buick Saloon
Rhoda Broughton – The Truth, The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth
A. M. Burrage – Smee
A. S. Byatt – The July Ghost
B. M. Croker – ‘To Let’
Robertson Davies – The Ghost Who Vanished By Degrees
Walter de la Mare – Seaton’s Aunt
Charles Dickens – No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman
Lord Dunsany – August Cricket
Elizabeth Fancett – The Ghost Of Calagou
Frederick Forsyth – The Shepherd
Shamus Frazer  – Florinda
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
Graham Greene – A Little Place Of The Edgware Road
L. P. Hartley – Someone In The Lift
William Hope Hodgson – The Gateway Of The Monster
Thomas Hood – The Shadow Of A Shade
Holloway Horn – The Old Man
Elizabeth Jane Howard – Three Miles Up
Henry James – The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes
M. R. James – The Ash Tree
Rudyard Kipling – The Phantom Rickshaw
Marghanita Laski – The Tower
J. S. le Fanu – Shalken The Painter
Penelope Lively – Black Dog
Alison Lurie – The Highboy
W. Somerset Maugham – The Taipan
Guy de Maupassant – An Apparition
E. Nesbit – Man-size In Marble
Edgar Allan Poe – William Wilson
Alexander Pushkin – The Queen Of Spades
Jean Rhys – I Used To Live Here Once
Robert Louis Stevenson – The Body-snatcher
Bram Stoker – The Judge’s House
Elizabeth Taylor – Poor Girl
H. R. Wakefield – Blind Man’s Buff
Elizabeth Walter – Dual Control
Fay Weldon – Breakages
Oscar Wilde – The Canterville Ghost
Emile Zola – Angeline, or The Haunted House

Blurb:

If you enjoy reading about elusive spirits and uncanny happenings, bizarre hauntings and malevolent ghosts, this is the volume for you. It brings together forty-six of the very best ghost stories ever written.

There are unforgettable classics from the great masters of the ghost story such as M. R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Nesbit and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Then there are wonderfully macabre tales from world-famous authors such as Charles Dickens, Alexander Pushkin, Guy de Maupassant and Graham Greene, as well as gems from some of today’s best writers including Ray Bradbury, A. S. Byatt, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Penelope Lively, Fay Weldon and Frederick Forsyth.

This is a collection to entertain and intrigue, to terrify and to tantalise … to chill you to the bone. You have been warned!

Michael Newton – The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories

Michael Newton (ed.) – The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce (Penguin, Feb 2010, £10.99)

Acknowledgements
Chronology Of The Ghost Story 1820-1914
Introduction
Further Reading
A Note On The Texts

Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
Fitz-James O’Brien – What Was It?
Edward Bulwer Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters: or, The House And The Brain
Mary E. Braddon – The Cold Embrace
Amelia B. Edwards – The North Mail
Charles Dickens – No 1 Branch Line: The Signalman
J. S. Le Fanu – Green Tea
Harriet Beecher Stowe – The Ghost In The Cap’n Brown House
Robert Louis Stevenson – Thrawn Janet
Margaret Oliphant – The Open Door
Rudyard Kipling – At The End Of The Passage
Lafcadio Hearn – Nightmare Touch
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman – The Wind In The Rose-Bush
M. R. James – “Oh Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad”
Ambrose Bierce – The Moonlit Road
Henry James – The Jolly Corner
Mary Austin – The Readjustment
Edith Wharton – Afterward

Glossary Of Scots Words
Biographical And Explanatory Notes

Blurb:
‘The ghost is the most enduring figure in supernatural fiction. He is absolutely indestructible… He changes with the styles in fiction but he never goes out of fashion. He is the really permanent citizen of the earth, for mortals, at best, are but transients’ – Dorothy Scarborough

This new selection of ghost stories, by Michael Newton, brings together the best of the genre. From Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ through to Edith Wharton’s ‘Afterword’, this collection covers all of the most terrifying tales of the genre. With a thoughtful introduction, and helpful notes, Newton places the stories contextually within the genre and elucidates the changing nature of the ghost story and how we interpret it.

The Wordsworth Book Of Horror Stories

The Wordsworth Book Of Horror Stories (Wordsworth Special Editions, 2005)

A. and C. Askew – Aylmer Vance And The Vampire
Honore de Balzac – The Mysterious Mansion
Richard Harris Barham – The Spectre Of Tappington
Ambrose Bierce – The Damned Thing
Miss Braddon – Eveline’s Visitant
A. Clergyman – A Ghostly Manifestation
————-  Correspondence On ‘A Ghostly Manifestation’
Wilkie Collins – A Terribly Strange Bed
Charles Dickens – The Story Of The Bagman’s Uncle
————-  To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt
————-  The Signalman
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Brazilian Cat
————-  The Ring Of Thoth
————-  The Lord Of Chateau Noir
————-  The New Catacomb
————-  The Case Of Lady Sannox
————-  The Brown Hand
————-  The Horror Of The Heights
————-  The Terror Of Blue John Gap
————-  The Captain Of The Polestar
————-  How It Happened
————-  Playing With Fire
————-  The Leather Funnel
————-  Lot No. 249
————-  The Los Amigos Fiasco
————-  The Nightmare Room
Amelia B. Edwards – The Phantom Coach
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Squire’s Story
W. F. Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers
R. S. Hawker – The Botathen Ghost
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Young Goodman Brown
W. H. Hodgson – The Gateway Of The Monster
James Hogg – The Story Of Euphemia Hewit
Violet Hunt – The Prayer
W. W, Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
Henry James – The Jolly Corner
M. R. James – A School Story
————-  Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook
————-  Lost Hearts
————-  The Mezzotint
————-  The Ash Tree
————-  Number 13
————-  Count Magnus
————-  ‘Oh, Whistle And I’ll Come To You, My Lad’
————-  The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas
————-  The Rose Garden
————-  The Tractate Middoth
————-  Casting The Runes
————-  The Stalls Of Barchester Cathedral
————-  Martin’s Close
————-  Mr. Humphreys And His Inheritance
————-  The Residence At Whitminster
————-  The Diary Of Mr. Poynter
————-  An Episode In Cathedral History
————-  The Story Of A Disappearance And An Appearance
————-  Two Doctors
————-  The Haunted Dolls House
————- The Uncommon Prayer Book
————-  A Neighbour’s Landmark
————-  A View From A Hill
————-  A Warning To The Curious
————-  An Evening’s Entertainment
————-  There Was A Man Dwelt By A Graveyard
————-  Rats
————-  After Dark In The Playing Fields
————-  Wailing Well
————-  Stories I Have Tried To Write
Rudyard Kipling – The Mark Of The Beast
Perceval Landon – Thurnley Abbey
John Lang  – Fisher’s Ghost
D. H. Lawrence – The Rocking-Horse Winner
J. S. Le Fanu  An Account Of Some Strange Disturbances In Aungier Street
————-  Narrative Of The Ghost Of A Hand
————-  Green Tea
————-  Madam Crowl’s Ghost
————-  Squire Toby’s Will
————-  Dickon The Devil
————-  The Child That Went With The Fairies
————-  The White Cat Of Drumgunniol
————-  Ghost Stories Of Chapelizod
————-  Wicked Captain Walshawe, Of Wauling
————-  Sir Dominick’s Bargain
————-  Ultor De Lacy
————-  The Vision Of Tom Chuff
————-  Stories Of Lough Guir
Lord Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters
Guy De Maupassant – Vendetta
E. Nesbit – Man-Size In Marble
Howard Pease – In The Cliff Land Of The Dane
Edgar Allan Poe – The Tell-Tale Heart
————-  The Black Cat
A. M. Pushkin – The Ace Of Spades
Saki (H. H. Munro) – Laura
————-  Sredni Vashtar
Sir Walter Scott – The Tapestried Chamber
————-  Wandering Willie’s Tale
Robert Louis Stevenson – Markheim
————-  Thrawn Janet
Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest
Edmund Lenthal Swifte – Ghost In The Tower
William Makepeace Thackeray – The Story Of Mary Ancel
Hugh Walpole – Tarnhelm
Oscar Wilde – The Canterville Ghost

thanks to Severance of Vault for typing the contents!

Rosemary Gray – Gripping Yarns

Rosemary Gray (ed.) – Gripping Yarns (Wordsworth Special Editions, 2008)

Anonymous – One Night Of Horror
————- The Pipe
————- The Puzzle
————- The Closed Cabinet
————- The Alibi
Stacey Aumonier – Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty
————- A Source Of Irritation
————- Where Was Wych Street?
Harold Auten – a Fight To The Finish
Etienne Barsony – The Dancing Bear
Jorgen Wilhelm Bergsoe – The Amputated Arms
Ambrose Bierce – The Moonlit Road
————- A Tough Tussle
————- A Jug Of Syrup
————- The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot
————- John Bartine’s Watch
Algernon Blackwood – a Silent Visitation
————- The Wood Of The Dead
————- A Suspicious Gift
————- Skeleton Lake : An Episode In Camp
George Brame – On The Belgian Coast
John Buchan – The Wind In The Portico
————- The Loathley Opposite
George Washington Cable – The Young Aunt With White Hair
Egerton Castle – The Baron’s Quarry
Wilkie Collins – The Dream Woman
Joseph Conrad – The Secret Sharer
————- A Smile Of Fortune
————- The Black Mate
A. R. Cooper – With The Foreign Legion In Gallipoli
Stephen Crane – Manacled
————- An Illusion In Black And White
————- Twelve O’Clock
F. Marion Crawford – By The Waters Of Paradise
Guy De Maupassant – The Wreck
————- The Terror
John Charles Dent – Gagtooth’s Image
Thomas De Quincey – The Avenger
Arthur Conan Doyle – A Foreign Office Romance
————- The Striped Chest
————- The Croxley Master
————- The New Catacomb
————- The King Of The Foxes
————- The Green Flag
————- The Lord Of Chateau Noir
————- The Three Correspondents
————- The Debut Of Bimbashi Joyce
————- The Doings Of Raffles Haw
Arthur Elck – The Tower Room
A. J. Evans – Exploits Of The Escaping Club
J. S. Fletcher – The Lighthouse On Shivering Sand
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman – The Shadows On The Wall
E. W. Hornung – The Wrong House
————- The Rest Cure
————- A Bad Night
————- The Spoils Of Sacrilege
Bernard Severin Ingemann – The Sealed Room
Maurus Jokai – Thirteen At Table
Rudyard Kipling – My Own True Ghost Story
————- Bubbling-Well Road
————- At The End Of The Passage
————- The Return Of Imray
————- The City Of Dreadful Night
Leoplod Lewis – A Dreadful Bell
Jack London – Siwash
————- The Man With The Gash
————- Where The Trail Forks
Anselme Marchal – Hoodwinking The Germans
Ferenc Molnar – The Living Death
Frank Norris – A Memorandum Of Sudden Death
————- The Ghost In The Crosstrees
Fitz-James O’Brien – My Wife’s Temper
David Phillips – At A Sap-Head
William Pittinger – The Locomotive Chase In Georgia
A. O. Pollard – I Charge!
Saki – Sredni Vashtar
————- The Hounds Of Fate
Mary Shelley – The Mortal Immortal
Robert Louis Stevenson – The Pavilion On The Links
————- The Sire de Maletroit’s Door
Anthony Trollope – The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box
Edgar Wallace – The Lone House Mystery
————- The Dark Horse
————- Clues
————- Romance In It
————- A Certain Game
————- The Swift Walker
————- Nine Terrible Men
————- The Sickness-Mongo
Edith Wharton – A Bottle Of Perrier
————- The Lady’s Maid’s Bell
————- The Bolted Door
John Taylor Wood – Escape Of General Beckinridge
Walter Wood – How Trooper Potts Won The V.C. On Burnt Hill
E. D. Woodhall – Secret Service Days

Blurb
For those who sometimes long to escape the strictures of modern life or to inject a little more drama and excitement into their workday world, the remedy could be the collection of stories you hold in your hand. Here for the taking are tales of high adventure and low intrigue from masters of the genre like John Buchan and Robert Louis Stevenson, classics of crime and detection from veteran thriller writers like Edgar Wallace and Arthur Conan Doyle, spine-chillers from the pens of Ambrose Bierce and other purveyors of suspense and horror, and true accounts of courage and survival from heroic and intrepid individuals caught up in the rigours and insanity of war or battling against the elements on gruelling expeditions of discovery and exploration. Between the covers of this crowded volume, Wordsworth Editions has assembled from the work of famous, less well-known and totally unsung writers a treasure trove of rattling good yarns to fire the imagination, chill the blood and perhaps awaken (or reawaken) the spirit of adventure in any reader who dares to plunge in!

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

Kevin Carolan – Churchyard Whispers

Kevin Carolan (ed.) – Churchyard Whispers (Hodder & Stoughton, 1999)

Cover picture: detail taken from SC24848 Stoke Poges Church by John Constable (1776-1837)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library.

Tales Of Mystery & Suspense

Introduction

W. E. Aytoun – The Man In The Bell
Guy De Maupassant – The Graveyard Sisterhood
Edgar Allan Poe – The Pit and the Pendulum
Viscount De L’isle – The Torture Of Hope
Herman Melville – The Bell-Tower
Walter de la Mare – All Hallows
O. Henry – The Cop And The Anthem
Sherwood Anderson – The Strength Of God
T.F. Powys – The Hunted Beast

Tales Of Crime & Detection

Jack London – The Master Of Mystery
Melville Davisson Post – The Angel Of The Lord
Catherine Louisa Pirkis – The Sisterhood
H. Jenkins – The Gylston Slander
Robert Louis Stevenson – The Young Man In Holy Orders
J. MacLaren-Ross – The Episcopal Seal
E. C. Bentley – The Genuine Tabard
R. Ellis Roberts – The Narrow Way
H.C. Bailey – The Yellow Slugs
Kevin Carolan – Churchyard Shadows

Blurb:
Most of us must have walked around a country churchyard at some time or other, looking at the carefully laid-out gravestones, and felt a sense of peace and order. But there can also be movements in the shadows which make us uncomfortable. The desolation of many churches and cemeteries makes them an ideal spot to commit atrocious crimes. The vicarage can be filled with bitterness and religious frenzy as much as spiritual calm.

Churchyard Shadows draws together the best stories of crime and mystery that take the church as their backdrop, written by some of the greatest masters of the short story. Tales such as Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, T.F. Powys’ The Hunted Beast and Walter de la Mare’s All Hallows hold us in unbearable suspense. H.C. Bailey’s The Yellow Slugs sees spiritual cruelty lead to murder. Robert Louis Stevenson examines the corrupting effect of an enormous diamond on a young clergyman. On the other hand, we witness the celebrated Uncle Abner and Jack London’s tribal shaman solve crimes using their religious insights. This is an anthology to entertain and enthrall – but not to be read in a darkened churchyard!

These covers with embossed lettering are sent to try us, but the content looks very strong. Hadn’t heard of Kevin Carolan before, but, from the back cover, he “writes and lectures on a wide variety of subjects, and is the editor of the short-story collection Celtic Mysteries.”

Rosemary Gray – Scottish Ghost Stories

Rosemary Gray (ed.) – Scottish Ghost Stories
We have to hand it to Wordsworth editions – they’re playing a blinder with their budget ‘Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural’ series and they have the prestigious Vault Publisher of the Year sewn up without us even bothering to vote on it (although we love Robinson too)!  Here’s one  to look forward to early in  2009 !

Rosemary Gray - Scottish Ghost Stories

Due for Publishing February 2009 – ISBN 9781840221688
The Glen Mutchkin Railway – Professor Aytoun
Summer Weather – John Buchan
The Oasis in the Snow – John Buchan
No Man’s Land – John Buchan
The Far Islands – John Buchan
The Wetcher by the Threshold – John Buchan
The Outgoing of the Tide – John Buchan
Skull Skerry – John Buchan
A Cry Across the Black Water – S.R. Crockett
‘The Heather Lintie’ – S.R. Crockett
The Story of Euphemia Hewit – James Hogg
The Mysterious Bride – James Hogg
‘Mary Burnet’ – James Hogg
The Brownie of the Black Haggs – James Hogg
Ticonderoga – Andrew Lang
The Haunted and the Haunters – Lord Lytton
The Old Nurse’s Story – George MacDonald
The Haunted Major – Robert Marshall
Old Lady Mary – Margaret Oliphant
A Little Pilgrim – Margaret Oliphant
The Open Door – Margaret Oliphant
The Library Window – Margaret Oliphant
The Portrait – Margaret Oliphant
The Tapestried Chamber – Sir Walter Scott
Wandering Willie’s Tale – Sir Walter Scott
My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror – Sir Walter Scott
Ticonderoga: A Legend of the West Highlands – Robert Louis Stevenson
Markheim – Robert Louis Stevenson
Thrawn Janet – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Body-Snatcher – Robert Louis Stevenson
Olalla – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Ghost of Craig-Aulnaic – Anonymous
The Doomed Rider – Anonymous
The Weird of the Three Arrows – Anonymous
The Laird of Balmachie’s Wife – Anonymous
Michael Scott – Anonymous
The Haunted Ships – Anonymous
Glamis Castle – Local Records

Michel Parry (ed.) – The Waves of Terror

Michel Parry  (ed.) – The Waves of Fear (Gollancz, 1976)

Michel Parry – Introduction

William Hope Hodgson – From the Tideless Sea
Eugene Burdick – Log the Man Dead
William Clark Russell – The Phantom Death
Guy de Maupassant – At Sea
Joseph Conrad – The Brute
Ambrose Bierce – A Psychological Shipwreck
David A. Drake – From the Dark Waters
Robert E. Howard – Sea Curse
Irvin S. Cobb – Fishhead
H. P. Lovecraft – Dagon
Captain William Outerson – Fire in the Galley Stove
John Russell – The Slayer
Robert Louis Stevenson – The Sinking Ship
William Hope Hodgson – More News from the Homebird
John Masfield – The Devil and the Old Man

Thanks to Lord Froggy of The British Fantasy Society for providing the contents!