Showing posts with label "Alfred Hitchcock" anthologies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Alfred Hitchcock" anthologies. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Short Story Wednesday: ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: STORIES FOR LATE AT NIGHT Robert Arthur, editor (Random House, 1961); and various paperback abridgments (Dell, Pan)

The degree to which these volumes were Robert Arthur's painless education in the joys of suspense, mystery, horror, fantasy and science fiction would be hard to overestimate, and any time I look upon them it's difficult not to be reminded that these were among the greatest of the "books of gold" in my early literate life, a phrase employed by writer Gene Wolfe in one of his essays to describe  guideposts into the range of literature available but not always accessible, particularly to young readers who might not have first-rate used bookstores nor large libraries available to them. But they might just have a decent-sized public or school library, where the librarians were sensible enough to procure and keep books such as these anthologies on the shelves. Of course, Arthur was kind to his talented friends and old colleagues in the fiction magazines of the 1930s-60s, as well as looking out for #1 (running as he does two of his own stories, one under his Pauline Smith pseudonym--reprinted, as it was, from a magazine he had edited), and there is no lack of chestnuts here--he knew who was likely to be reading these books, young readers (such as myself) or casual ones approaching these fields, or, as the marketing was meant to snare, those who simply enjoyed the television series and hoped for More of Same in prose. Only to be rewarded with a much better selection than even the good choices made for adaptation by producer Joan Harrison and co. And, also to be fair, some of these stories became chestnuts After publication in the various AHP: anthologies...and a few presumably because other editors had them drawn to their attention by Arthur (and his successor in the adult line of Random House anthologies, Harold Q. Masur). And some aren't too well known now, any more than they were then...the Ronan is not the first story one thinks of when one thinks of Unknown: Fantasy Fiction, retitled Unknown Worlds hoping to snag some sf readers as well by the time it published her story. Nor the Long story among Weird Tales reprints, even given he was more a stalwart contributor to that magazine. The Chatterton story being first published in this volume was a rarity in this series--perhaps she was having difficulty placing it elsewhere.

As you glance over the paperback reshuffles of the contents below, you can see how much better the hardcovers were to have--and not solely because the Margaret Miller novel The Iron Garden is missing, presumably because another publisher still had a paperback edition out or at least rights to have one out--often in later volumes, the paperbacks would replace Arthur's novels or long novellas with stories from his YA anthologies from Random House, leading me to wonder if Arthur was given the opportunity to make the reshuffling in the Dell paperbacks himself...or if some functionary at Dell or RH was tasked with this. (Though as noted below, the first edition Dell paperback for the second volume of reprinting Late at Night sports a cover derived from the first RH YA volume in the series, edited by YA specialist Muriel Fuller rather than Arthur, and less successfully than Arthur would approach the same tasks, as a veteran of writing and anthologizing for young readers as well as adults, himself).

The writers this volume would Not have introduced 8- or probably 9yo me to would run only to Arthur himself, Bradbury, Collier, Dahl (running in fine alphabetical sequence--oddly, it seems Arthur was arranging the stories alphabetically by author or pseudonym, except for Millar's novel as last entry as was his custom with the Long Story in his volumes, but for some reason broke his own sequencing with the Moore story), and Bixby and Moore and Jenkins, since I had read their "It's a Good Life--" and "Mimsy were the Borogoves" and "First Contact" in my father's copy of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One a few weeks or months before....the others in earlier-discovered kidlit and/or horror anthologies. One thing these anthologies lacked was headnotes for the stories, or similar addenda, so I would, for example, not learn of Robert Trout's work as as a CBS radio and early tv newsman for a couple of decades.
published in the UK under the
Max Reinhardt imprint, 1962




































for more Short Story Wednrsday entries, 
please see Patti Abbott's blog



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Friday, October 30, 2020

FFB: Robert Arthur's Young Readers' Ghosted Anthologies, Continued: ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S GHOSTLY GALLERY (Random House, 1962) and ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S SPELLBINDERS IN SUSPENSE (RH, 1967): Friday Fright Night

Previous blog entries from the Random House YA anthology series:



Other volumes in the Random House YA series:

Robert Arthur, editor:
Alfred Hitchcock's Sinister Spies (1966)
Alfred Hitchcock's Daring Detectives (1969)

Robert Arthur, author:
Alfred Hitchcock's Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries (1963)
the initial AH and the Three Investigators novels (beginning 1964)

Henry Veit, editor:
Alfred Hitchcock's Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense (1973)



Contents
i • Frontispiece blurb by Robert Arthur (as by Alfred Hitchcock): These are mystery-suspense stories. Some will keep you on the edge of your chair with excitement. Others are calculated to draw you along irresistibly to see how the puzzle works out. I have even included a sample or two of stories that are humorous, to show you that humor and mystery can also add up to suspense.

So here you are, with best wishes for hours of good reading.

1 • The Chinese Puzzle Box by Agatha Christie [Hercule Poirot], (ss) The Sketch Oct 3 1923, as “The Case of the Veiled Lady”
11 • The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell (nv) Collier’s Jan 19 1924
65 • Puzzle for Poppy by "Patrick Quentin" (Richard Webb and Hugh Wheeler) (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Feb 1946
79 • Eyewitness by Robert Arthur (ss) Detective Fiction Weekly Jan 28 1939; as "Eye Witness"
94 • Man from the South by Roald Dahl (ss) Collier’s Sep 4 1948; as "Collector's Item"
105 • Black Magic by Sax Rohmer [Bazarada], (ss) Collier’s Feb 5 1938
119 • Treasure Trove by F. Tennyson Jesse [aka Wynifried Margaret Tennyson Jesse] [Solange Fontaine], (ss) McCall’s Apr 1928
126 • Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch (ss) Weird Tales Jul 1943
146 • The Treasure Hunt by Edgar Wallace [J. G. Reeder], (ss) Flynn’s Nov 22 1924
162 • The Man Who Knew How by Dorothy L. Sayers [Pender], (ss) Harper’s Bazaar Feb 1932; also as “The Man Who Knew”
175 • The Dilemma of Grampa Dubois by Clayre Lipman and Michel Lipman (ss) The American Family a 1952 issue
182 • P. Moran, Diamond-Hunter by Percival Wilde [P. Moran], (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Apr 1946
Robert Arthur, having inherited the editorship of the Random House "Alfred Hitchcock" anthologies aimed at adult readers either with or just after 1959's Alfred Hitchcock Presents: My Favorites in Suspense (in the spot where Arthur would be credited in his later volumes, Patricia Hitchcock under her married name is cited instead), had produced another volume in that series, 1961's AHP: Stories for Late at Night (and might also at least helped put together 1957's AHP: Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV at Simon & Schuster) before Random House decided they also might have a market for a juvenile-readers' series, and tapped veteran children's editor Muriel Fuller to assemble the nicely illustrated and designed Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful (1961). However, Fuller's book was somewhat lacking in punch; a quarter of the text was taken up with a long excerpt from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, excellent material but even better in context and while suspenseful, not exactly the kind of thing kids picking up a Haunted AH book might be looking for. A chestnut of a Doyle Sherlock Holmes story was mixed with stories a bit more on point from some good writers, such as Manly Wade Wellman, but nearly all of those stories were from young readers' magazines Boy's Life and Story Parade. This was the kiddie roller-coaster.
By the time the second AH volume for young readers was released, Arthur had the gig. None of his selections were from magazines aimed at kids, yet all were accessible to young readers. Perhaps the self-indulgence of Fuller in running the Twain excerpt for much of her book was seen as more off-putting than Arthur including three of his own stories, if good ones, as a means of presumably supplementing his take of the editorial budget (or perhaps he sold rights to himself for budget prices to allow for only two stories in the public domain to be included). This was definitely a full-strength anthology for little monster-lovers. While Arthur was never afraid to run a chestnut in his YA books as well (such as "The Upper Berth", certainly, and to a lesser extent the Burrage, Wells and Stevenson stories), he was also offering fairly recent stories for 1962, in the Kuttner and Moore (even if it was dealing in its outre manner with an early postwar situation) and most of the others.
By the time of the 1967 suspense volume, the success of both Random House series was assured, as was that of the third series Arthur had launched with them, the Three Investigators novels. Unfortunately, Arthur's health was beginning to fail by this time, even if his ability to assemble an entertaining anthology was undiminished; the mix of impressive chestnuts young readers might not've yet encountered (such as cover story "The Most Dangerous Game", probably the most plagiarized short story in the 20th Century in English; I find myself disagreeing with Friday Fright Night host Curtis Evans in his relative assessment of the original story and the first film made from it, by largely the same folks behind the first King Kong; I prefer the original text) and even slightly more "edgy" newer stories such as Roald Dahl's "Man from the South". Of course, I'd also take slight issue with the notion that Robert Bloch's "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" (another remarkably widely-plagiarized story!) is a realistic mystery/suspense story so much as horror...Daphne Du Maurier's "The Birds" wanders up to the edge of that divide, as well...though including either the Dahl, which had already become one of the most famous of Alfred Hitchcock Presents: tv episodes, nor "The Birds", source story for the inferior 1963 Hitchcock film, probably wasn't too much a matter of controversy around the Random House offices. 
I certainly loved this series of anthologies as a young reader, and inhaled them along with the Random House adult-oriented volumes from about 1974 onward (and the Dell paperbacks taken from them and their similarly-packaged series of best-ofs from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine), the RH volumes as edited by Arthur up till his death in 1969, and the adult series continued by Harold Q. Masur from the next volume till the death of Hitchcock himself in 1979; Henry Veit was to produce the two YA anthologies cited above after Arthur's last.
Curtis Evans will have the links for this week's, possibly the last Friday Fright Night this year?, at his blog tonight, and I'll have a fortnight's worth of Friday's "Forgotten" Books at my blog sometime tonight as well, with others added as I find them tomorrow.


 


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Friday, January 25, 2019

FFB: Robert Arthur, editor: ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: A MONTH OF MYSTERY (Random House 1969) (and paperback variants such as AHP: DATES WITH DEATH, Dell 1972)

Robert Arthur's 1969 Alfred Hitchcock Presents: anthology was his last book in the biannual adult anthology series; he died that year, and Harold Q. Masur would be tapped to continue the adult anthology series for Random house for another decade, until Hitchcock's death (while Henry Veit would assemble two more YA anthologies for the Random House Alfred Hitchcock's anthology line; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and the anthologies drawn from it published by Dell and apparently edited by Scott Meredith or subordinates at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and then by AHMM editor Eleanor Sullivan after the magazine was purchased by Davis Publications in 1975, proceeded apace, as did Peter Haining's short series mostly for British publishers). This one hadn't been offered during my brief membership in the Doubleday Book Club, nor did I find it in the Enfield, CT, library which was my earliest source of anthology fixes, but I did read the first of the two Dell paperback volumes that reprinted from in in the summer of 1976, not too long after I finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...and about the time I was reading a few other classics, such as Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, while visiting, with my parents and brother, my grandmother and other relations in West Virginia. A busy summer, also devoted to moving house from Enfield to Londonderry, NH. 

 But AHP: Dates with Death, as the first Dell paperback was retitled, was a memorable reading experience, as were all the Random House "Hitchcock" volumes; Spider Robinson, writing in Galaxy magazine in the '70s, referred to them as "utterly reliable" and I'd agree. I'm only sorry it took me some decades to get around to the entire book. (Never did run across the second Dell volume drawn from Month.)

 Contents of the hardcover original:

 ix · If, Indeed, It Is Evening-- · Robert Arthur (attributed by implication to Hitchcock) · in

 A Week of Crime
3 · The Dusty Drawer · Harry Muheim · ss Collier’s May 3 1952 
18 ·Drum Beat by Stephen Marlowe (ss) Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #2 1960
22 · South of Market by Joe Gores, first published as "Down and Out" (ss) Manhunt Jun 1959
38 · The Uses of Intelligence by "Matthew Gant" (Arnold Hano); 1952 (reprint: Sleuth Mystery Magazine Oct 1958)
50 · Love Will Find a Way by David Alexander (ss) 1960 
59 · Retribution by Michael Zuroy (ss) Manhunt Apr 1961
63 · The Queen's Jewel by James Holding, 1964

 A Week of Suspense
75 · Pool Party by "Andrew Benedict" (Robert Arthur) (ss) Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Oct 1969
88 · That Touch of Genius by William Sambrot (ss) Escapade Jan 1967
97 · The Crooked Road by Alex Gaby (ss) Argosy Jan 1958
112 · A Taste for Murder by Jack Ritchie (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1963
116 · The Twelve-Hour Caper by Mike Marmer (ss) Cosmopolitan May 1961
126 · The Amateur by Michael Gilbert [Insp. (Supt.) Hazlerigg series], (ss) John Bull Nov 19 1949, as “Amateur in Violence”
137 · Death Wish by Lawrence Block (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Mar 1967

 A Week of Detection
149 · The Singing Pigeon by "Ross Macdonald" (Kenneth Millar) (ss) 1953, reprinted in Manhunt May 1964 (as by John Ross Macdonald) 
180 · Justice Magnifique by Lawrence Treat  (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1958
193 · The White Hat by Sax Rohmer [Paul Harley series], (nv) The Story-teller Jun 1920 (Arthur had reprinted it in The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Mar 1952)
213 · Hard Sell by "Craig Rice" [ghost written by Lawrence Block; John J. Malone series], (ss) Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #1 1960
221 · Greedy Night by E. C. Bentley (ss) Parody Party, edited by Leonard Russell, Hutchinson 1936
232 · A Twilight Adventure by Melville Davisson Post [Uncle Abner series], (ss) Metropolitan Magazine Apr 1914
243 · Murder Matinee by Harold Q. Masur, ss 1946

 A Week of the Macabre
261 · A Humanist by Romain Gary (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Oct 26 1963
266 · The Oblong Room by Edward D. Hoch [Captain Leopold series], (ss) The Saint Magazine Jul 1967
276 · Love Me, Love Me, Love Me by M.S. Waddell (aka Martin Waddell), (ss) The Sixth Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Herbert van Thal, Pan 1965
283 · Special Handling by John Keefauver, (ss) 1969 (possibly a story original to this anthology) 
288 · Dead Man's Story by Howard Rigsby (ss) Argosy Aug 27 1938, as “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead” (reprinted by Arthur in The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Nov 1951 under new title)
299 · The Legend of Joe Lee by John D. MacDonald (ss) Cosmopolitan Oct 1964
310 · Crooked Bone by Gerald Kersh (nv) The Saturday Evening Post Aug 10 1968

 A Short Week of Long Ones
335 · The Janissaries of Emilion by Basil Copper (nv) The Eighth Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Herbert van Thal (Pan 1967)
354 · Chinoiserie by Helen McCloy (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1946
377 · Soldier Key by Sterling E. Lanier [Brigadier Ffellowes series], (nv) The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug 1968

 The delightful conceit of 31 stories, a menu for four weeks and the extra three days, was about as high-concept as Arthur had chosen to go with with his anthologies ghosted for Hitchcock, and unfortunately the paperbacks, theoretically out of necessity, had to abandon that schtick. 

 The story rundowns for the two Dell volumes:
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Dates with Death (Stories from A Month of Mystery Volume 1 as subtitle on the 1972 edition but dropped from the 1976)

 ix · If, Indeed, It Is Evening-- · Robert Arthur ("signed" by Hitchcock) · in
1 · The Dusty Drawer · Harry Muheim · ss Collier’s May 3 1952 
17 ·Drum Beat by Stephen Marlowe (ss) Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #2 1960
21 · The Uses of Intelligence by "Matthew Gant" (Arnold Hano); 1952 (reprint: Sleuth Mystery Magazine Oct 1958)
33 · The Queen's Jewel by James Holding, 1964
44 · That Touch of Genius by William Sambrot (ss) Escapade Jan 1967
53 · The Crooked Road by Alex Gaby (ss) Argosy Jan 1958
69 · The Amateur by Michael Gilbert [Insp. (Supt.) Hazlerigg series], (ss) John Bull Nov 19 1949, as “Amateur in Violence”
80 · The Singing Pigeon by "Ross Macdonald" (Kenneth Millar) (ss) 1953, reprinted in Manhunt May 1964 (as by John Ross Macdonald) 
114 · Justice Magnifique by Lawrence Treat  (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1958
129 · Greedy Night by E. C. Bentley (ss) Parody Party, edited by Leonard Russell, Hutchinson 1936
141 · A Humanist by Romain Gary (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Oct 26 1963
147 · The Oblong Room by Edward D. Hoch [Captain Leopold series], (ss) The Saint Magazine Jul 1967
157 · Dead Man's Story by Howard Rigsby (ss) Argosy Aug 27 1938, as “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead” (reprinted by Arthur in The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Nov 1951 under new title)
169 · The Janissaries of Emilion by Basil Copper (nv) The Eighth Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Herbert van Thal (Pan 1967)
190 · Chinoiserie by Helen McCloy (nv) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1946


































AHP: Terror Time (Dell 1972) [can't find any page numbers for this one; I'm not sure, but would be surprised if the introduction wasn't reprinted here as well. TM]

 South of Market by Joe Gores, first published as "Down and Out" (ss) Manhunt Jun 1959
Love Will Find a Way by David Alexander (ss) 1960 
Retribution by Michael Zuroy (ss) Manhunt Apr 1961
Pool Party by "Andrew Benedict" (Robert Arthur) (ss) Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Oct 1969
A Taste for Murder by Jack Ritchie (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1963
The Twelve-Hour Caper by Mike Marmer (ss) Cosmopolitan May 1961
Death Wish by Lawrence Block (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Mar 1967
The White Hat by Sax Rohmer [Paul Harley series], (nv) The Story-teller Jun 1920 (Arthur had reprinted it in The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Mar 1952)
Hard Sell by "Craig Rice" [ghost written by Lawrence Block; John J. Malone series], (ss) Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #1 1960
A Twilight Adventure by Melville Davisson Post [Uncle Abner series], (ss) Metropolitan Magazine Apr 1914
Murder Matinee by Harold Q. Masur, ss 1946
Love Me, Love Me, Love Me by M.S. Waddell (aka Martin Waddell), (ss) The Sixth Pan Book of Horror Stories edited by Herbert van Thal, Pan 1965
Special Handling by John Keefauver (ss) 1969 (possibly a story originally in the hardcover edition) 
The Legend of Joe Lee by John D. MacDonald (ss) Cosmopolitan Oct 1964
Crooked Bone by Gerald Kersh (nv) The Saturday Evening Post Aug 10 1968
Soldier Key by Sterling E. Lanier [Brigadier Ffellowes series], (nv) The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Aug 1968






































Yes, yes, but what of the stories? Well, the Howard Rigsby is very good indeed, and I can see why it went to Argosy rather than Weird Tales (Argosy could pay at least five times as much if they were of a mind to do so), involving a dogged agent of law enforcement who isn't going let decedence impede execution of his duty. Arnold Hano's story is another I've written about here before, due to its inclusion in a horrible-children anthology; it managed to be both anti-intellectual and anti-youth at the same time, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) presuming that a high IQ score allows for improbable hands-on supervillainy. I chose to be mildly offended on both counts, but apparently not only Arthur but the MWA representatives who edited and co-published Sleuth magazine were chuckling. 

 "The Dusty Drawer" is one of those stories where an overlooked drawer in a bank allows for hideaway larceny; the AHP: television series  dramatized another story rather similar to this one, and I've read a half-dozen others over the years...this one is reasonably deft. I was reading "Greedy Night" before I'd actually heard of, much less read, Sayers or "Gaudy Night", but nonetheless enjoyed it, and the Basil Copper story was a fine introduction to his work, resolutely old-fashioned but not stuffy horror-fiction. "The Oblong Room" is almost certainly the most-reprinted of Edward Hoch's stories, or at very least was at one time, and one can see why...it runs relentlessly to its conclusion, verging on horror and getting at the root of horror, and perverse tragedy. John Keefauver and even more Mike Marmer were professional humorists (though perhaps Marmer's Lancelot Link tv series was less indicative of that than most of his work in literary and audio/visual matters), and there is no lack of gallows humor in this and other Arthur (and Masur) books, none of it more indicative of Avram Davidson's "the laugh with a little bubble of blood in it" than the Romain Gary story, one of those gathered shortly after magazine publication in the volume Hissing Tales. And, as you probably have noted by now, this, like the other AHP: volumes  feature no lack of fantasy and horror, even a little sf, mixed in with the suspense and mystery fiction, and even a merely shadowy character study on occasion...since I didn't have half the book until recently, the not altogether dissimilar Judith Merril The Year's Best S-F annual for 1965, featuring 1964 stories for the most part, was my source for another Romain Gary and for this volume's John D. MacDonald fantasy, "The Legend of Joe Lee", a couple of years after I read the Dates with Death paperback...Dell, who were the primary force behind the Merril books except for several volumes where Simon & Schuster intrusively edited over Merril's shoulder, clearly liked eclectic anthologies. Sorry I missed the Joe Gores and Lawrence Block stories (both the latter) for so long...and there's very little in this book and its variations that isn't a good example of what the authors could do. 






































The British hardcover edition, above (possibly only offered through a book club). Below, the first UK paperback from A Month (not sure if they divided the stories as Dell did, or for that matter who at Dell was doing the splitting of the baby, or if they let Robert Arthur and Harold Masur do it themselves...that certainly would explain why presumably Arthur would replace the novels from some of te Random House hardcovers with stories from Arthur's YA anthologies for Random House, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum, in some of the Dell paperback editions. 

Image above, and some index assistance, from The Hitchcock Zone, as well as from ISFDB and particularly the FictionMags Index. The image below the back cover of AHP: Dates with Death. Frank Babics's Casual Debris (with some gaps and errors amid a very impressive lot of work) and the Internet Archive are always good to look at, as well.

 And thanks as always to Patti Abbott for hosting FFB. Check here for more of today's books.




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