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Title: Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library (Hardcover)) by Phyllis Cerf Wagner, Herbert Wise ISBN: 0-679-60128-7 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 01 October, 1994 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Indispensible for Ghost Story Lovers
Comment: I've read all the stories in this book at least 3 times. Most of the times I skip around, but twice I've read straight through -- the stories are so consistently good, and, though wide ranging, complement each other so well. These are NOT horror stories. Horror (to me, at least) implies not only more explicit violence, but also an attitude that reality is, at core, physically and morally chaotic. "Dark Descent" is a horror anthology -- "Great Tales" is for the most part (although "The Great God Pan" and H.P. Lovecraft's 2 stories provide some exception) more old-fashioned "ghost stories," and what mystery genre critics would categorize as "English cozy": pleasant characters, warm surroundings introduced all the better to scare you with later on. The evil is seen through a hole in the curtain, so to speak, and never engulfs. The first group of stories ("Tale of Terror") are not exactly supernatural, but extremely suspenseful, with wonderful denouements. Poe's "The Facts in the Strange Case of M. Valdemar" is wonderfully horrible - a dying man is hypnotised to keep him alive (it turns out to be a mistake, of course). "Suspicion" by Dorothy Sayers is NOT a murder mystery, but a perfectly built-up tale of suspense. I've read it a dozen times and the pace of the story still catches me. "Home for Christmas," in which a nice doctor kills his bossy wife before leaving on vacation, would make a great Hitchcock movie. "Moonlight Sonata" is the short but shocking story of a man who stays overnight at a friend's house and awakens to an unpleasant visitor (not a ghost, but worse). Despite the emphasis on surprise endings, all of these stories have such great style and atmosphere that they are often, if anything, better the 2nd or 3rd time around. The second group, "Tales of the Supernatural," have all the qualities mentioned above but are more wide ranging in terms of imaginativeness. My Man M.R. James fits right in here, of course, and 2 of his best tales - "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "Casting the Runes" - are featured. Also Guy de Maupassant ("Was It a Dream?", in which a young lover spends the night mourning the death of his mistress in a cemetery, is fabulous). Also Rudyard Kipling; E.F. Benson; Algernon Blackwood ("Ancient Sorceries" features a mild-mannered Englishman oddly drawn to a small French village with a history of witchcraft); and such great titles as "The Screaming Skull" and "The Haunters and the Haunted or The House and the Brain" which, despite the campy names, will leave you far from laughing. There are stories in this section, also, that would better be categorized as fantasy ("The Celestial Omnibus" and "Adam and Eve and Pinch-me"). I liked them a lot even though I don't usually read fantasy. The majority are SCARY, though, and all are well-written by any standard (Henry James gives us "Sir Edmund Orme" and Ernest Hemingway tells of "The Killers"). If you like a more modern style, more explicit sex and violence, less atmosphere and more cut-to-the-chase, this book probably isn't for you. But if you like good, old-fashioned, solid, subtle, clever writing, with lots of atmosphere as well as great plotting (and you like to be scared), then this is a must-have.
Rating: 5
Summary: THE high water mark of the horror/supernatural anthology.
Comment: Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural is just that, a collection of some of the GREATEST tales of terror and the supernatural ever written. This book contains a breath snatching list of both classic tales (Poe's The Black Cat, Faulkner's A Rose for Emily, Lovecraft's The Rats in the Walls and The Dunwich Horror, as well as James's Casting the Runes) with some lesser known jewels, my favorite being H.G. Wells sea monster yarn The Sea Raiders. This collection is an essential in any well rounded library, even if you are not typically a horror or ghost story fan.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Mount Everest of scary anthologies
Comment: I am now on my second copy of of the Wise and Fraser anthology. I read my first copy (purchased in the late 1950's)to death. Over many years this book has remained one of the greatest anthologies of scary stories ever put toghter. As the title implies it is broken into two parts; stories that have terrifying situations and supernatural stories. It was first published in 1944 so do not look for stories by Stephen King or Cliver Barker. What you will find are wonderful stories that either already were or have become classics.
The terror stories include some adventures such as Connell's, "The Most Dangerous Game," and Collins' "Terribly Strange Bed." The Supernatural stories include greats such as M. R. James', "Casting the Runes" and Edward White's, "Lukundoo." (If "Lukundoo" does not make your skin crawl I suggest that you have your skin on too tight) There is also E.F. Benson's, "Mrs. Amworth" which I believe to be the best short vampire story ever written.
Here are 52 stories packed into an anthology tht belongs on the shelf of anyone who likes scary stories and is a basic staple on the shelf of a collector.
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Title: The Dark Descent (Dark Descent) by Clive Barker, Ray Bradbury, John Collier, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, David G. Hartwell ISBN: 0312862172 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 15 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Alone with the Horrors : The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell 1961--1991 by Ramsey Campbell ISBN: 0765307677 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Mammoth Book of Terror (Mammoth Book) by Stephen Jones ISBN: 0881846228 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers Pub. Date: 01 January, 1991 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories by Peter Haining ISBN: 0786707917 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers Pub. Date: 30 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Gathering the Bones by Ramsey Campbell, Jack Dann, Dennis Etchison ISBN: 0765301792 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 16 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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