Showing posts with label Helen Hoke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Helen Hoke. Show all posts

Friday, October 28, 2016

FFB: Helen Hoke anthologies

If anyone gave Robert Arthur a run for the prize of most eclectic anthologist of the macabre for young readers, it was Helen Hoke...other editors produced a number of anthologies, but I don't think anyone was more prolific in this way than Hoke, whose editorial career spanned from the 1930s through the mid-1980s, and I mostly enjoyed her volumes published in the mid '70s...and she drew on a fine mix of chestnuts and more obscure selections...and she was unafraid to draw on all sorts of sources, rather than hewing exclusively to the magazines and collections devoted primarily to fantasy and horror fiction. (Certainly Peter Haining and Hugh Lamb were highly productive and wide-ranging, among others, but not aiming their books expressly at younger readers.) She released her first YA horror anthology in 1958, but became hugely productive in this wise in the latter '70s.

Please take a look at the remit of these volumes, among her later entries:


Torments and Traumas ed. Helen Hoke (Nashville: Thomas Nelson 0-8407-6600-9, 1978, $6.95, 160pp, hc)  Anthology of horror stories for young adults. British edition: NEL 1978.



    • 9 · About This Book · Helen Hoke · in
    • 11 · Green Fingers · R. C. Cook · ss The 3rd Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories, ed. Christine Bernard, Fontana 1968
    • 26 · Keeping His Promise · Algernon Blackwood · ss The Empty House, Eveleigh Nash 1906
    • 40 · The Voyage of the Deborah Pratt · Miriam Allen deFord · ss F&SF Apr 1963
    • 49 · Earth to Earth · Robert Graves · ss Punch Feb 1955
    • 53 · “Dear Ghost...” · Fielden Hughes · ss The Fourth Ghost Book, ed. James Turner, Barrie & Rockliff 1965
    • 69 · Mrs. Amworth · E. F. Benson · ss Hutchinson’s Magazine Jun 1922
    • 83 · On the Brighton Road · Richard Middleton · ss The Ghost Ship, Unwin 1912
    • 87 · The CRIB Circuit · Miriam Allen deFord · ss F&SF Nov 1969
    • 104 · Changeling · Ray Bradbury · ss Super Science Stories Jul 1949
    • 112 · The Man Who Liked Dickens · Evelyn Waugh · ss Hearst’s International Sep 1933
    • 124 · Robert · Stanley Ellin · ss Sleuth Mystery Magazine Oct 1958
    • 139 · The Knock at the Manor Gate · Franz Kafka · vi The Great Wall of China 1946
    • 141 · Message for Margie · Christine Campbell Thomson · ss The Fifth Pan Book of Horror Stories, ed. Herbert van Thal, London: Pan 1964
    • 150 · W.S. · L. P. Hartley · ss World Review Jan 1952

  • Demons Within & Other Disturbing Tales ed. Helen Hoke 
  • (Taplinger 0-8008-2156-4, Feb ’78, $8.95, hc)
    • 9 · About This Book · Helen Hoke · in
    • 13 · George and Alice and Isabel · William Trevor · ss 
    • The Ninth Ghost Book, ed. Rosemary Timperley, Barrie & Rockliff 1973
    • 29 · Gone Is Gone · Joan Fleming · ss The (London) Evening Standard 
    • Apr 23 1953
    • 35 · The Margenes · Miriam Allen deFord · ss If Feb 1956
    • 42 · Mummy to the Rescue · Angus Wilson · ss Such Darling Dodos and 
    • Other Stories, Secker & Warburg 1950
    • 49 · Miss Cornelius · William F. Harvey · ss The Beast With 
    • Five Fingers, J.M. Dent 1928
    • 69 · The Middle Toe of the Right Foot · Ambrose Bierce · ss San Francisco 
    • Examiner Aug 17 1890
    • 78 · The Phantom of the Screen · Lawrie Wyman · ss The Fifth Ghost Book, 
    • ed. Rosemary Timperley, Barrie & Rockliff 1969
    • 85 · The Book · Margaret Irwin · ss The London Mercury Sep 1930
    • 102 · The Man Who Collected Poe · Robert Bloch · ss Famous 
    •                                                                 Fantastic Mysteries Oct 1951
    • 117 · The Squaw · Bram Stoker · ss Holly Leaves Dec 2 1893
    • 130 · The Small World of Lewis Stillman · William F. Nolan · ss
    • Fantastic Universe Aug 1957, as “Small World”
    • 143 · The Attic Express · Alex Hamilton · ss The Fourth Pan Book of 
    • Horror Stories, ed. Herbert van Thal, London: Pan 1963
    • 161 · Mr. George · August Derleth · nv Weird Tales Mar 1947, as by 
    • Stephen Grendon
    • 188 · I Used to Live Here Once · Jean Rhys · vi Sleep It Off, Lady 1976
Meanwhile, her first YA anthology was one of those I was very happy to 
discover:
  • Publication: Witches! Witches! Witches! 
  • Editors: Helen Hoke
  • Year: 1958-00-00
And her next would arrive eight years later...in plenty of time for me 
to discover it in the early/mid '70s:
  • Publication: Spooks, Spooks, Spooks
  • Editors: Helen Hoke
  • Year: 1966-00-00
A rather slight gathering of nostalgia, for the Hallowe'en season, on this morning where I have some physical labor ahead, and treating with an ill pet over the last several days...and atop all else, my Apple laptop isn't playing nice with Blogger at the moment.  But Hoke did a fine job, and should be recalled, at very least in this season. 

For more of today's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

 And, from an earlier consideration on this blog of Hoke's career:

 Helen Hoke might've been the most prolific producer of anthologies, particularly for young readers, among this handful, but not by much. She did have a long (and trans-Atlantic) career as a writer and editor, as her 1990 New York Times obituary notes, 

In the late 1930's, Ms. Hoke inaugurated and managed children's book departments at several publishing houses, including Henry Holt, Reynal & Hitchcock and Julian Messer. In the 1940's, Ms. Hoke, whose first marriage, to John Hoke, had ended in divorce, married Franklin Watts, founder the New York publishing company that bears his name. She became the company's vice president and director of international projects.

She would go on to collaborate on at least one book each with one of her sons and one of her grandsons. And she didn't restrict herself too much...along with such titles as Monsters Monsters Monsters and Jokes Jokes Jokes, she also offered both Nurses Nurses Nurses and Doctors Doctors Doctors, which mixed short stories with essays and autobiographical excerpts.

But it was her horror and humor anthologies and compilations that I remember, particularly the former...she relied to some extent on chestnuts, but intelligently arrayed, and for young readers, this isn't the worst strategy. 

 Anthologies
...and so, I missed the preponderance of her work in the horror and fantasy fields, having left behind the younger-readers' sections of libraries by 1976, but I do remember the early volumes well, with their often rather uninspired covers, but usually interesting content...
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Friday, January 24, 2014

FFB: Helen Hoke, Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis, Michel Parry, Hugh Lamb and Some Other anthologists of my early reading...

While I've written a fair amount about magazine editors, and such (and sometimes Also*) anthology editors as Robert Arthur* and Barry Malzberg*, Ellen Datlow* and Jerome Charyn, Betty M. Owen and Dwight Macdonald*, Bill Pronzini and Joe Lansdale, Gerald W. Page* and Nelson Algren, Henry Mazzeo and Judith Merril, Jessica Amanda Salmonson* and Harold Q. Masur, Marcia Muller and Ann VanderMeer*, Harlan Ellison* and Robert Silverberg, I haven't yet touched much or at all upon at least five anthologists important to my early reading: Helen Hoke, (Ms. and Ms.) Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis (names that are hard to forget), Michel Parry, and Hugh Lamb--all of whom contributed to the enjoyment of horror and suspense fiction, and more. 

 Helen Hoke might've been the most prolific producer of anthologies, particularly for young readers, among this handful, but not by much. She did have a long (and trans-Atlantic) career as a writer and editor, as her 1990 New York Times obituary notes, 

 In the late 1930's, Ms. Hoke inaugurated and managed children's book departments at several publishing houses, including Henry Holt, Reynal & Hitchcock and Julian Messer. In the 1940's, Ms. Hoke, whose first marriage, to John Hoke, had ended in divorce, married Franklin Watts, founder the New York publishing company that bears his name. She became the company's vice president and director of international projects.

 She would go on to collaborate on at least one book each with one of her sons and one of her grandsons. And she didn't restrict herself too much...along with such titles as Monsters Monsters Monsters and Jokes Jokes Jokes, she also offered both Nurses Nurses Nurses and Doctors Doctors Doctors, which mixed short stories with essays and autobiographical excerpts.

 But it was her horror and humor anthologies and compilations that I remember, particularly the former...she relied mostly on chestnuts, but intelligently arrayed, and for young readers, this isn't the worst strategy. From ISFDb: 

 Anthologies
...and so, I missed the preponderance of her work in the horror and fantasy fields, having left behind the younger-readers' sections of libraries by 1976, but I do remember the early volumes well, with their often rather uninspired covers, but usually interesting content (ISFDb, again):

Weirdies (aka Weirdies Weirdies Weirdies): 

  • 9 • A Creature Imagined (excerpt) • shortfiction by C. S. Lewis
  • 11 • The Cocoon • (1946) • shortstory by John B. L. Goodwin
  • 35 • The Hair • (1928) • shortstory by A. J. Alan
  • 47 • The Brown Hand • (1899) • shortstory by Arthur Conan Doyle (variant of The Story of the Brown Hand) [as by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ]
  • 67 • The Nightmare Lake • (1919) • poem by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 70 • Mrs. Manifold • (1949) • shortstory by August Derleth [as by Stephen Grendon ]
  • 86 • The Ancient Track • (1930) • poem by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 88 • The Monster of Baylock • shortstory by F. H. Lee
  • 94 • Phase Two (excerpt) • shortfiction by John Wyndham
  • 109 • The Night Crawlers • poem by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 110 • The Howler • [Fungi from Yuggoth • 12] • (1932) • poem by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 112 • A Crossbreed • shortstory by Franz Kafka (trans. of Eine Kreuzung 1931)
  • 116 • The Mansions of the Dead • (1965) • poem by Robert Blair
  • 117 • Hallowe'en in a Suburb • (1926) • poem by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 119 • The Quest for Blank Claveringi • (1967) • shortstory by Patricia Highsmith
  • 138 • Wentworth's Day • (1957) • shortstory by H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth
  • 153 • The Shark-Man Nanaue • shortstory by E. M. Nakuina
  • 164 • The Monster (excerpt) • shortfiction by Edmund Spenser
  • 167 • The Upper Berth • (1885) • novelette by F. Marion Crawford
  • 192 • What Was It? • (1859) • shortstory by Fitz-James O'Brien
  • 211 • It • (1940) • novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
    • My first encounters with at least some of this work, and not mine alone...

     Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis in their turn didn't specialize as thoroughly in books for younger readers, but mixed their bags sufficiently that some librarians probably put a few aimed more at adults in the juvenile sections...when such things happened where I could see them in the early '70s, my feeling were rarely bruised:

     Anthologies
    ISFDb, unsurprisingly, doesn't choose to list their criminous anthologies, of which there were a few, and such outliers as Cat Encounters: A Cat-Lover's Anthology or the nonfiction anthology Polar Secrets.  As WorldCat notes, this couple could turn in an impressive (and feminist, particularly given the ironic subtitling) compilation of crime-fiction, as well:

    (New York, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1973.)
    Sayers, D. L. The leopard lady.--
    Nesbit, E. The head.--
    Dickens, M. To reach the sea.--
    De la Torre, L. Goodbye Miss Lizzie Borden.--
    Meade, L. T. and Eustace, R. Madame Sara.--
    Bowen, M. Cambric tea.--
    Spofford, H. P. The ray of displacement.--
    Rice, J. The willow tree.--
    Biographical notes.

    ...the Edward Gorey covers, when they occurred, never hurt a bit.


     An earlier example:

    Suspense: A Treasury for Young Adults
    New York : Funk & Wagnalls, ©1966.

    Miss Phipps Improvises / Phyllis Bentley --
    The Signalman / Charles Dickens --
    The Gloria Scott / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle --
    The Symbolic logic of murder / John Reese --
    The sleepwaker : Lady Macbeth / William Shakespeare --
    The Macbeth Murder Mystery --
    A Tale of the Ragged Mountains --
    The Ghost-Extinguisher / Gelett Burgess --
    Tobermory Saki (H.H. Munro) --
    A Terribly strange bed / Wilkie Collins. Stepping westward / William Wordstorth --
    A Charm / John Dryden --
    For though the caves were rabbited / Henry David Thoreau --
    The Witch's whelp / Richard Henry Stoddard --
    The Night-wind / Emily Bronte --
    After I shot the albatross / Samuel Taylor Coleridge --
    Song of the mermaids / George Darley --
    The Indian burial ground / Philip Freneau --
    The Witch's ballad / William Bell Scott --
    The Haunted palace / Edgar Allan Poe --
    Hymn of Pan / Percy Bysshe Shelley --
    Phantom / Samuel Taylor Coleridge --
    Proserpine / Algernon Charles Swinburne. The Lotus-eaters / Alfred Lord Tennyson --
    Dream-Pedlary / Thomas Lovel Beddoes --
    Darkness / George Gordon, Lord Byron --
    The Story of a conscience / Ambrose Bierce --
    The Dressmaker's doll / Agatha Christie --
    My queer dean / Ellery Queen --
    How I wrote Frankenstein/Mary Shelley --
    Frankenstein's monster / Mary Shelley --
    Rappaccini's daughter / Nathaniel Hawthorne --
    The Trail of the catfish \ Allen Lang --
    The Haunted space suit / Arthur C. Clarke --
    Your world of suspense / Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis.


    It's remarkable how poorly Parry's
    books were packaged in the UK;
    ...this is the least-bad UK cover
    I see among web images...
    Michel Parry, as his name might suggest, probably didn't begin speaking in English first (he was born in Belgium)...and, as his list demonstrates, didn't by any means restrict himself to YA anthologies. But that didn't stop him from putting together excellent books that were both slotted and collected for the young readers that included me in my youth:

    Anthology Series
    Anthologies
    ...albeit an X certificate on films in the UK was likely to be handed to any sort of horror film, at least until the 1970s, whether with Hammer-style sexuality or not. Beware of the Cat was a fine start, if obviously missing a Fritz Leiber story:
    US editions rather better, on balance.
    I definitely would've appreciated seeing the Mayflower Books series as they were being published...as it happens, I still haven't. No US editions aside from the first, I gather.

    And that first was from Taplinger, which also did a number of the anthologies of Hugh Lamb, whom (when first encountering his books ca. 1976) I rather inexactly used to think of as a sort of protege of Peter Haining, given that Haining's books seemed more numerous, in similar editions frequently, and he would pop into the odd Lamb anthology to provide a guest introduction. But while there were similarities in the compilations, Lamb was even more an assiduous scholar than Haining, digging out lost stories (most famously an M. R. James, early in his career) and generally going even wider into stories which were less-traditional horror and more bizarre psychological studies, for his anthologies of the weird...

    Anthologies
    My first Lamb, I believe, was A Wave of Fear...Lamb, more than any other editor, introduced me to the brothers' works, the Other Bensons, alongside the brilliant horrors of E. F. Benson (best remembered in the '70s and perhaps now for his relatively sunny comedy of manners novels about Mapp and Lucia).

     For more of today's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.
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