I get goose bumps pondering about some of tales in this collection. It's a feast for any horror fan - forty-7 brief stories and 6 poems chosen by Marvin Kaye with Saralee Kaye. The selections focus on psychological terror relatively than blood and gore. As Kaye says in his introduction "Any story that gave my jaded spine a chill seemed to current proper credentials for membership in the club." These are not the far more effectively known horror tales that show up above and over in anthologies, some are not readily offered anyplace else.
I have a number of favorites amongst them. "The Bottle Imp," an intriguing spin on making a pact with the devil, was composed in 1891 by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Keawe, a native of Hawaii, buys a peculiar bottle from an elderly guy who tells him the imp in the bottle is accountable for his wealth. The imp will also grant Keawe whichever he wishes. Of program there is a catch. If he dies with the bottle in his possession his soul will melt away in Hell. It should be sold for less than its acquire cost and he may possibly not dispose of it or give it away. Stevenson throws some twists and turns into the story and Keawe faces some horrifying options.
"Dracula's Guest" was printed posthumously following Bram Stoker's loss of life and was most likely intended to be the first chapter of his novel "Dracula." The narrator is Jonathan Harker on his way to Transylvania on Walpurgis Evening, the very first of Might, when witches and demons are about. He doesn't heed the coachman's superstitious warnings and he leaves the safety of his hotel to wander in the forest alone in which he has an eerie sensation he's becoming watched. When he comes across an historical tomb in an old graveyard he realizes just how foolish he is been.
"Flies," by Isaac Asimov, was first published in June 1953. It can be a quick science fiction story about a group of former school students who meet at a reunion 20
decades right after graduation. They examine their achievements and Casey tells them he does analysis on insecticides. Ironically the flies appear to bother him and no 1 else.
British novelist Tanith Lee gives a various get on the Cinderella story. "When the Clock Strikes" her heroine turns into a witch who swears allegiance to Lord Satanas.
"Lazarus" by Leonid Andreyev is a retelling of the miraculous return to lifestyle described in the scriptures. Lazarus returns house after becoming dead for a few days and household and buddies celebrate his resurrection. He is dressed grandly but his days in the grave left him with a bluish cast to his confront and reddish cracks on his skin. His temper is modified as properly. He's no more time cheerful and carefree and he is unwilling to speak about the horrors he's witnessed.
"The Flayed Hand" was published by Guy de Maupassant. A youthful college student acquires a shriveled hand, severed at the wrist from a deceased sorcerer. He intends to use it as the handle to his door-bell to frighten his creditors, but the operator wants it back.
The power of this collection is in its diversity. It is divided into five sections, every single with stories that are unique and chilling. Some of the stories are written in a dated fashion that could not appeal to visitors who like much more modern literature. But the prose sets the mood and produces an atmosphere that invokes a sense of dread that is so best for this type of tale - the type that helps make your skin crawl. This is a guide to be picked up and read more than and about again.
Publisher: Doubleday & Organization Inc. (Might 1985)
ISBN: 978-0385185493
Pages: 623
Table of Contents
Introduction by Marvin Kaye
Fiends and Creatures
Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker
The Professor's Teddy Bear by Theodore Sturgeon
Bubnoff and the Devil by Ivan Turgenev, English adaptation by Marvin K
aye
The Quest for Blank Calveringi by Patricia Highsmith
The Erl-King by Johann Wolfgang Von Go?the, English adaptation by Marvin Kaye
The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Malady of Magicks by Craig Shaw Gardner
Lan Lung by M. Lucie Chin
The Dragon About Hackensack by Richard L. Wexelblat
The Transformation by Mary W. Shelley
The Faceless Thing by Edward D. Hoch
Lovers and Other Monsters
The Anchor by Jack Snow
When the Clock Strikes by Tanith Lee
Oshidori by Lafcadio Hearn
Carmilla by Sheriden LeFanu
Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory by Orson Scott Card
Lenore by Gottfried August B?rger, English adaptation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Black Wedding ceremony by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated by Martha Glicklich
Hop-Frog by Edgar Allan Poe
Sardonicus by Ray Russell
Graveyard Shift by Richard Matheson
Wake Not the Dead by Johann Ludwig Tieck
Night and Silence by Maurice Level
Acts of God and Other Horrors
Flies by Isaac Asimov
The Evening Wire by H.F. Arnold
Previous Respects by Dick Baldwin
The Pool of the Stone God by A. Merritt
A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor by Ogden Nash
The Tree by Dylan Thomas
Stroke of Mercy by Parke Godwin
Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev
The Beast Inside of
The Waxwork by A.M. Burrage
The Silent Few by Pierre Courtois, translated and adapted by Faith Lancereau and Marvin Kaye
Moon-Face by Jack London
Death in the School-Area by Walt Whitman
The Upturned Deal with by Stephen Crane
One Summer Night by Ambrose Bierce
The Easter Egg by H.H. Munro ("Saki")
The House in Goblin Wooden by John Dickson Carr
The Vengence of Nitocris by Tennessee Williams
The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew by Damon Runyon
His Unconquerable Enemy by W.C. Morrow
Rizpah by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Problem by Stanley Ellin
<
strong>Ghosts and Miscellaneous Nightmares
The Flayed Hand by Man de Maupassant
The Hospice by Robert Aickman
The Christmas Banquet by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Hungry Property by Robert Bloch
The Demon of the Gibbet by Fitz-James O'Brien
The Owl by Anatole Le Braz, translated by Faith lancereau
No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince by Ralph Adams Cram
The Audio of Erich Zann by H.P. Lovecraft
Riddles in the Darkish (Authentic Version, 1938) by J.R.R. Tolkien
Afterword
Miscellaneous Notes
Selected Bibliography
Cuentos de Zombies
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