anthologies from fiction magazines...

collects stories from Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories

Almost five years of blogging here, almost 400 posts, almost 60K pageviews since May 2009 (for some reason, that's when Blogger started tallying). So, here's a post that will just grow, I suspect...

Fiction magazines that have had anthologies abstracted from them:

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
Amazing (aka Amazing Stories aka Amazing: Fact and Science Fiction Stories...)
Analog (aka Astounding Stories of Super-Science aka Astounding Science Fiction...)
Antioch Review
Argosy


Beat to a Pulp
Beyond
Black Mask
Botteghe Oscure

Clean Sheets
Cricket Magazine

Dime Detective
Doc Savage

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
Elysian Fields Quarterly
Event Horizon
Evergreen Review

Famous Fantastic Mysteries
Fantastic
Fantastic Novels
Fantastic Universe

Galaxy

If (aka If: Worlds of Science Fiction; aka Worlds of If)

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (aka The Magazine of Fantasy)
Manhunt

New Worlds
The Noble Savage

Omni/Omni Online
Ontario Review

The Paris Review
Partisan Review
Planet Stories
Playboy

The Saint Mystery Magazine
The Saturday Evening Post
Sci-Fiction
The Shadow
The Smart Set
Space Squid
Startling Stories
The Strand Magazine
Strange Tales
Super-Science Stories

Tin House
Thrilling Wonder Stories
TriQuarterly

Unknown Fantasy Fiction (aka Unknown Worlds)

Weird Tales
West
Whispers

Yellow Silk

Zoetrope All-Story

Tuesday's Overlooked Film and/or Other A/V: a few more links (and some text) added...

Thanks, as always, to all contributors and readers...and hope you've had a fine Hallowe'en (and All Saints Day), so far!














Bill Crider: 3 Godfathers (trailer)

Brian Arnold: The Pogo Special Birthday Special; The Devil and Daniel Mouse

Chuck Esola: Trick or Treat (1986)

Dan Stumpf: Transatlantic

Ed Gorman: The Seventh Victim

Eric Peterson: Keys to Tulsa

Evan Lewis: Three Little Pigskins

Iba Dawson: Whip It!

Jack Seabrook: Robert Bloch on Television: "The Cure" (Alfred Hitchcock Presents)

Jackie Kashian: The Comedy Bureau: Morning Debriefing

James Reasoner: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Jerry House: "Ricky the Drummer" (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet)

John Charles: You Will Die at Midnight (aka Morirai a mezzanotte)

Kliph Nesteroff: The Schleppers: Stale Gags & Stale Food in Mid-Century Manhattan (courtesy Jackie Kashian and Marc Maron)

Patrice and Joe Green: "Burning Man 2011"

Patti Abbott: The Girl with Green Eyes

Randy Johnson: Tarzan and the Valley of Gold

Ron Scheer: Go West (1925)

Scott Cupp: The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini

Stacia Jones: "Jenifer"; "Pelts" (Masters of Horror)

Todd Mason: Borgen (aka Government [literally "Castle"]); The Big Broadcast Hallowe'en Special (classic radio drama)--please see below...

Yvette Banek: Holiday (1938)

Related Matters:

B.V. Lawson: Media Murder

Brent McKee: Man Up; Charlie's Angels (2011)

Elizabeth Foxwell's The Bunburyist

Frederik Pohl: The NASA Conference on Speculative Technology

George Kelley: Margin Call

John Charles: Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide

Stacia Jones: November Films to Watch For (on cable)

Borgen is, as US carriage station Link TV (visible mostly on cable and particularly satellite services, but cleared overnights on KRCB in the San Francisco Bay Area and some other broadcast sources) is quick to note, from the same producers as the original, Danish version of The Killing (a US version is seen on cable station AMC). I haven't watched either version of The Killing yet, but Link is also rather happy to compare Borgen to The West Wing, but to judge by the first episode, the Danish series is far less about cutesy wish-fulfillment than the Sorkin thing was, and is more comparable in most ways to The Good Wife, only without the criminal court matters to inject the more melodramatic notes. Instead, some reasonably well-prepared-for quick tragedies and problems (sudden death, drug abuse, complex sexual and romantic matters) intrude instead, in what is mostly the account of Birgitte Nyborg, the head of the posited Moderate Party (rather comparable to the actual Radical Party of Denmark; all the parties are somewhat renamed here, so that the Danish Social Democrats become the "Labor Party" in the series, and Venstre, the Danish liberal party, becomes the "Liberal Party"), and how she is, in public approval, catapulted ahead of the leaders of the Liberal and Labor parties by her "Gary Hart moment" during the last televised debate before a parliamentary election (as the expected winners have their own Mondale-Glenn-style spat). The pilot episode is witty, reasonably well-worked out (even with the melodramatic flourishes mentioned above), and bodes well for the rest of the series...for the majority of, at least, the US that can't see Link TV (most visible on Dish Network and DirecTV), Link is posting the episodes for two weeks after their debut on their website. If you enjoy politically-engaged drama that involves well-developed characters, who are quite aware of how the professionalism of their work in politics, television news, or public relations is often the most corrupt aspect of that work, you should definitely give this well-captioned series a shot (and since it does involve Danes, they occasionally speak in English, as well, sometimes for half a sentence, sometimes at length).

WAMU-FM (in DC) has been broadcasting the umbrella program of radio drama and variety The Big Broadcast since the early '60s, when some of the programs it plays regularly had just gone off the air (CBS wrapped up their last two regular dramatic series in 1962, and would try again in 1973, with the CBS Radio Mystery Theater). At this point, The Big Broadcast has settled on some recurring favorites for Hallowe'en week, for the 2.5 hours which follow the usual first 90 minutes devoted to their usual offer of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, Dragnet and Gunsmoke at the top of the package...and they took the opportunity to run among the grimmest and most graphic of the Dragnet and Gunsmoke episodes (for that matter, host Ed Walker seems almost apologetic at times for running a horror-themed special package at all).

Here's the rundown:
The Big Broadcast: October 30, 2011

7:00 p.m. Johnny Dollar
11/27/60 #716 The Empty Threat Matter (CBS) (21:18)

7:23 p.m. "The Chicken Heart" from Arch Oboler's Drop Dead album

07:30 p.m. Dragnet
09/24/49 #17 The Brick Bat Slayer (NBC) (29:30)

08:00 p.m. Gunsmoke
02/21/53 #44 The Meshougah (Sus.) (CBS) (29:46)

08:30 p.m. Suspense
12/05/46 The House in Cypress Canyon w/Robert Taylor (Roma Wines) (CBS) (29:50)

09:00 p.m. Escape
11/05/47 #013 Evening Primrose (Sus.) (CBS) (29:30)

09:30 p.m. Quiet Please
08/09/48 The Thing on the Fourble Board (Sus.) (MBS) (24:30)

10:00 p.m. Mercury Theater on the Air
10/30/38 #17 War of the Worlds (Sus.) (CBS) (59:34)

--The adaptation of the John Collier story for Escape isn't exactly subtle, but it is vigorous. If you've missed any of these over the years, you can always pick and choose with your audio playback device among them...but they're all at least pretty good, and the Quiet Please certainly deserves its classic status (the Gunsmoke nearly as good). You have a little less than a week, till Sunday night ET, to listen to these on the archived link given above...and, as noted, not quite two weeks from now to catch Borgen's pilot online (it's available on DVD, but I'm not sure yet if it's a Region 0, as much as that usually means now). TM

among the best stories I first encountered in K-12 textbooks:

My 6th grade Scott, Foresman reading text


It saddens me to report that not a one of these below was actually assigned or read, as far as I know, by anyone in the classes but me, even when the text was in use in a classroom...though, for example, Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day" was so employed, from the 7th grade text referred to below. More guidelines for our teacher to use the Bradbury, I suspect. And, of course, she recognized that name.

"Desertion" by Clifford Simak...a Scott, Foresman 7th-grade reading text

"Brightside Crossing" by Alan Nourse...the same text

The Door in the Wall, a novella by Marguerite de Angeli, which won the 1950 Newbery Award, found in a paperback text anthology on sale at a W.T. Grant's for 33.3c ca. 1974

"The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse" by William Saroyan (the first chapter of My Name is Aram), which I first read in a slightly battered copy of a junior-high-school reading text when I was about ten or so.

A basketball novel by William Campbell Gault (probably not Showboat in the Back Court, but an earlier one), which was the final work in a eighth-grade text for slow readers (part of the Scott, Foresman Open Highways series, if I remember correctly) that I read when I was in fifth grade (having read a few of Gault's sports-pulp short stories in various auto-racing and other sports-fiction anthologies)

"The Joker's Greatest Triumph" by Donald Barthelme, in an American literature text from 11th grade...almost certainly also a Scott, Foresman...(we did read, in class, Arthur Miller's All My Sons from that text...)

"Los dos reyes y los dos laberintos" by Jorge Luis Borges, in Imaginacion y fantasia edited by Donald Yates and John Dalbor, a literature text for Anglophone Spanish language students I picked up as a remainder somewhere ca. 1979 (certainly not the first Borges I read, but the first Borges in the original...was even able to read it to my AP Spanish class with apparently reasonably good comprehension on my fellow-students' part)

and, cheating a bit by citing classroom-use magazines rather than texts:
"Test" by Ted Thomas, reprinted in an issue of Read, the Xerox Educational Services magazine, ca. 1976

"The Battle of Chickamauga" by Ambrose Bierce, reprinted in either Scholastic Scope or Literary Cavalcade, the Scholastic Magazines publications, ca. 1976

Read through its ages...

in 1962

in 1971, looking much as I remember it

in 2011

The 1950s textbooks I would occasionally collect, such as Adventure Bound (below left)  often seemed rather exotic. Certainly exuberant and expensively-produced. Earlier similar items often seemed very drab in comparison.

A selection of Mike Hinge digest-sized magazine covers (and a few other items):

Close inspection will give evidence of some pretty impressive literary contribution to these issues, as well. Mike Hinge, Rest in Glory.

Phoebe and Jack Gaughan: two digest-sized magazine covers

painting by Phoebe and Jack Gaughan

Two striking covers I'd not seen before today, one definitely a collaboration between Phoebe and Jack Gaughan, the latter the overworked staff artist for the Galaxy group of fiction magazines in their early years as properties of UPD, Universal Publishing and Distributing, best known for erotica publishing but moving into less "shady" lines such as Tandem and Award at the turn of the 1970s...while, shall we put it, not really keeping the accounting books too well.

painting by Jack Gaughan

But Mr. Gaughan did some brilliant work for them, which I've highlighted here before, but I wasn't aware of Ms. Gaughan's work...but, then, I haven't yet taken the opportunity to read my recently-purchased copy of Luis Ortiz's biography and collection of images, Outermost.






A short film profiling Phoebe Gaughan, RIP 2017.

FFB: THE HOUSE OF THE NIGHTMARE, Kathleen Lines, ed.; several Bill Pronzini anthologies (some edited with Barry Malzberg and MH Greenberg)

Well, an old horror enthusiast like myself couldn't hold out against Hallowe'en all month, now, could I? (Even if Blogspot pulls a little trick on me in dumping the final several drafts of this message, with no means of recovery. Imagine my carefully considered response, albeit silent.) Particularly as one of the first half-dozen most important books of my youthful development as a horror reader remained unremarked:



Contents courtesy of Vault of Evil:

The House Of The Nightmare and Other Eerie Tales
Chosen by Kathleen Lines

Originally published by The Bodley Head (1967)
Later (paperback) editions published by Puffin Books; US edition 1968 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

CONTENTS:
Foreword - Kathleen Lines
FROM IMAGINATION
The House of the Nightmare - Edward Lucas White
The Hauntings at Thorhallstead - Allen French
His Own Number - William Croft Dickinson
Gabriel-Ernest - Saki
Hand in Glove - Elizabeth Bowen
Mr Fox - Traditional
Curfew - L.M. Boston
John Bartine's Watch - Ambrose Bierce
The Monkey's Paw - W.W. Jacobs
My Grandfather, Hendry Watty - Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
A School Story - M.R. James
The Red Cane - E.F. Bozman
A Diagnosis of Death - Ambrose Bierce
Bad Company - Walter de la Mare
Proof - Henry Cecil
The Amulet - Thomas Raddall
The Hair - A.J. Alan
The Return of the Native - William Croft Dickinson
The Earlier Service - Margaret Irwin
FROM LIFE
'Here I am Again!' - Charles G.S.-, Esq.
The Man who Died at Sea - Rosemary Sutcliff
The Wish Hounds - Kathleen Hunt
The Man in the Road - F.M. Pilkington
My Haunted Houses - M. Joyce Dixon
In Search of a Ghost - Eric Roberts
The Limping Man of Makin-Meang - Sir Arthur Grimble
Acknowledgements

This would be my first encounter, at age 8 in 1973, with Elizabeth Bowen, W.W. Jacobs and his "Paw," M.R. James, E. L. White, Lucy Boston, only the third and most memorable so far with Saki, similarly early experience with Ambrose Bierce (interesting that he and only he gets two entries...both their excellence and their public-domain status might've played a role) and Walter de la Mare (particularly as prose-writer and not poet); the only prose I've probably seen from Henry Cecil, whose name I'd forgotten for decades, though I might well've seen some of his television scripting, for Alfred Hitchcock Presents:; his "Proof" was a deft, neat (in all senses) vignette that is particularly the kind to stick with a young reader (not unlike, say, Jerome Bixby's "Trace" or Ted Thomas's "Test" or Joseph Payne Brennan's "Levitation"). And, with the retelling of the "Mr. Fox" folktale, I had my first insight into the true meaning of my given name. The "true" encounters section was vaguely irritating, to the young skeptic I was, even when contributed by Rosemary Sutcliff, but I was a catholic reader at the time, willing to give the account a chance to spook me on its own terms (after all, slightly later, the usually fraudulently "true" Ghosts was one of the less-bad DC horror comics available, and at least one Strange, Unsolved Mysteries volume, probably from Dell but I have no memory of author, was kicking around the house with some interestingly sexually-explicit accounts among its other "true" hauntings and such). Lines, primarily a writer for young readers, would eventually produce a comparable sequel anthology, The Haunted and the Haunters (1975; with the US edition having a much better package), by which time I'd already been more than introduced to the Algernon Blackwood (multiply represented) and Joan Aiken and even Anthony Boucher and Graham Greene it proffered, though the title story was one of my first encounters with Bulwer-Lytton, before the bad-fiction contest in his dishonor was founded.



While Richard Robinson did Midnight Specials as one of his FFBs in 2009, I note it was the first anthology edited by Bill Pronzini I'd read, just after it was published in 1977 (and for good reason as it's only the second he published, I think, after a fine-looking collaboration with Joe Gores I'd missed altogether); it turned out to be an excellent and comparable supplement and peer to the eclectic Alfred Hitchcock Presents: and similar anthologies, edited by Robert Arthur, Harold Q. Masur and others, I was tearing through in the mid-'70s. All built up around trains and train-travel, it ranges from Barry Malzberg's first-publication-here sf story (which gave its title as well to one of his richest collections, the 1980 wrap-up of the previous decade) to my own first encounters with Edith Wharton, Irvin S. Cobb, and Howard Schoenfeld (like William Stafford interesting not only for his art but for his pacifism), among an otherwise stellar lineup (including a few already old favorites of mine, very much including the Bloch and Noyes stories). Pronzini's own fiction I was familiar with from various sources, mostly Hitchcock-branded (including the back-issues of AH's Mystery Magazine I'd read), but his name in the editorial by-line became one to look for. Turns out, that was a good bet.

(All the Pronzini indices from the Contento/Locus/Stephensen-Payne sites.)
Midnight Specials ed. Bill Pronzini (Bobbs-Merrill 0-672-52308-6, 1977, $10.95, hc); Also available in pb (Avon Apr ’78).
· The Signalman · Charles Dickens · ss All the Year Round Christmas, 1866
· The Shooting of Curly Dan · John Lutz · ss EQMM Aug ’73
· The Invalid’s Story · Mark Twain · ss The Stolen White Elephant, Webster, 1882
· A Journey · Edith Wharton · ss Greater Inclination, Scribner, 1899
· The Problem of the Locked Caboose [Dr. Sam Hawthorne] · Edward D. Hoch · nv EQMM May ’76
· Midnight Express · Alfred Noyes · ss This Week Nov 3 ’35
· Faith, Hope and Charity [Judge William Pitman Priest] · Irvin S. Cobb · nv Cosmopolitan Apr ’30; EQMM Apr ’52
· Dead Man · James M. Cain · ss The American Mercury Mar ’36; EQMM Oct ’52
· The Phantom of the Subway [“You Pays Your Nickel”] · Cornell Woolrich · nv Argosy Aug 22 ’36; EQMM Jun ’83
· The Man on B-17 [as by Stephen Grendon] · August Derleth · ss Weird Tales May ’50
· The Three Good Witnesses · Harold Lamb · ss Blue Book Jan ’45
· Snowball in July [“The Phantom Train”; Ellery Queen] · Ellery Queen · ss This Week Aug 31 ’52; EQMM Jul ’56
· All of God’s Children Got Shoes · Howard Schoenfeld · ss EQMM Aug ’53
· The Sound of Murder · William P. McGivern · ss Bluebook Oct ’52; ; as “The Last Word”, EQMM Feb ’63
· The Train · Charles Beaumont · ss The Hunger and Other Stories, Putnam, 1957
· That Hell-Bound Train · Robert Bloch · ss F&SF Sep ’58
· Inspector Maigret Deduces [Insp. Jules Maigret] · Georges Simenon · ss, 1944; EQMM Nov ’66
· Sweet Fever · Bill Pronzini · ss EQMM Dec ’76
· The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady · Barry N. Malzberg · ss *
· Bibliography · Misc. Material · bi

Pronzini began editing one impressive anthology after another, many of them, from the end of the '70s till the imprint's fading away, for Arbor House, who really didn't know how to package a horror book, as the covers for these examples make entirely too clear (when The Arbor House Necropolis was reprinted by a remainder publisher as Tales of the Dead, it actually had a better and subtler cover [see below], which might be almost a unique occurrence in such relations). Nonetheless, the series was uniformly excellent, featuring as it did a lot of my favorite chestnuts along with good to great less-obvious or blatantly overlooked items to fit each monstrous category. I might've added Malzberg's "Prowl" to Werewolf!, but Malzberg (or his Doubleday editor) had left it out of his Midnight Lady collection, too, and perhaps I like it a lot better than Barry does.

Werewolf! ed. Bill Pronzini (Arbor House 0-87795-210-8, 1979, $12.95, 201pp, hc); subtitled "A Chrestomathy of Lycanthropy"

xiii · Introduction · Bill Pronzini · in
1 · Loups-Garous · Avram Davidson · pm F&SF Aug ’71
5 · The Were-Wolf · Clemence Housman · nv Atalanta Dec, 1890
37 · The Wolf · Guy de Maupassant · ss
43 · The Mark of the Beast · Rudyard Kipling · ss The Pioneer Jul 12&14, 1890
55 · Dracula’s Guest [Dracula] · Bram Stoker · ss Dracula’s Guest, London: Routledge, 1914; written in 1897 as part of Dracula, this chapter was omitted from the published book for reasons of length.
67 · Gabriel-Ernest · Saki · ss The Westminster Gazette May 29 ’09
77 · There Shall Be No Darkness · James Blish · nv Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’50
127 · Nightshapes · Barry N. Malzberg · ss *
135 · The Hound · Fritz Leiber · ss Weird Tales Nov ’42
149 · Wolves Don’t Cry · Bruce Elliott · ss F&SF Apr ’54
160 · Lila the Werewolf [“Farrell and Lila the Werewolf”; Sam Farrell] · Peter S. Beagle · nv guabi #1 ’69
183 · A Prophecy of Monsters · Clark Ashton Smith · vi F&SF Oct ’54
187 · Full Sun · Brian W. Aldiss · ss Orbit 2, ed. Damon Knight, Berkley Medallion, 1967
199 · Bibliography · Misc. · bi

As the very fact of the of the omnibus status of the Necropolis suggests, Werewolf! was just one of a line of single-theme volumes, though by 1981 Arbor House was apparently suspecting that large anthologies were easier to market, in trade paperback as well as hardcover, than smaller ones...the Necropolis has been much easier to find in libraries and such over the years than, say, component volume Ghoul! published on its own (the omnibus title just sounded that much better on the New Adds list, too, I suspect). It's also worth noting that after Werewolf!, Pronzini was buying new stories for anthologies in the series, which would continue as the themed anthologies gave way to the more eclectic volumes below.

The Arbor House Necropolis ed. Bill Pronzini (Arbor House 0-87795-338-4, Nov ’81, $11.50, 850pp, tp); Contains the books Voodoo!, Mummy! and Ghoul!. Tales of the Dead (Bonanza/Crown 1986), an instant remainder reprint, drops "The White Rabbit" by Joe R. Lansdale (originally published in the first edition).

· Preface · Bill Pronzini · pr
17 · Voodoo! · ed. Bill Pronzini · an New York: Arbor House, 1980; A Chrestomathy of Necromancy
19 · Introduction · Bill Pronzini · in
33 · Papa Benjamin [“Dark Melody of Madness”] · Cornell Woolrich · nv Dime Mystery Magazine Jul ’35
77 · “...Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields” [from The Magic Island] · William B. Seabrook · ar New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1929
89 · Mother of Serpents · Robert Bloch · ss Weird Tales Dec ’36
101 · The Digging at Pistol Key · Carl Jacobi · ss Weird Tales Jul ’47
118 · Seven Turns in a Hangman’s Rope · Henry S. Whitehead · na Adventure Jul 15 ’32
179 · The Isle of Voices · Robert Louis Stevenson · ss The National Observer Feb 4, 1893
201 · Powers of Darkness · John Russell · ss Colliers Mar 30 ’29
216 · Exú · Edward D. Hoch · ss Voodoo!, ed. Bill Pronzini, Arbor, 1980
223 · Seventh Sister · Mary Elizabeth Counselman · ss Weird Tales Jan ’43
244 · The Devil Doll · Bryce Walton · ss Dime Mystery Magazine Nov ’47
254 · Kundu · Morris West · ex Kundu, Morris West, Dell, 1956
271 · The Candidate · Henry Slesar · ss Rogue, 1961
281 · Mummy! · ed. Bill Pronzini · an New York: Arbor House, 1980; A Chrestomathy of “Crypt-ology”
283 · Introduction · Bill Pronzini · in
301 · Lot No. 249 · Arthur Conan Doyle · nv Harper’s Sep, 1892
337 · Some Words with a Mummy · Edgar Allan Poe · ss American Whig Review Apr, 1845
356 · Monkeys · E. F. Benson · ss Weird Tales Dec ’33
374 · Bones · Donald A. Wollheim · ss Stirring Science Stories Feb ’41
382 · The Vengeance of Nitocris [as by Thomas Lanier Williams] · Tennessee Williams · ss Weird Tales Aug ’28
397 · The Mummy’s Foot [1863] · Théophile Gautier; trans. by Lafcadio Hearn · ss One of Cleopatra’s Nights and Other Fantastic Romances, New York: B. Worthington, 1882; “Le Pied de Momie”
410 · The Eyes of the Mummy [Sebek (unnamed narrator)] · Robert Bloch · ss Weird Tales Apr ’38
429 · Charlie · Talmage Powell · ss Mummy!, ed. Bill Pronzini, Arbor House, 1980
447 · The Weekend Magus · Edward D. Hoch · ss Mummy!, ed. Bill Pronzini, Arbor House, 1980
459 · The Princess · Joe R. Lansdale · ss Mummy!, ed. Bill Pronzini, Arbor House, 1980
474 · The Eagle-Claw Rattle · Ardath Mayhar · ss Mummy!, ed. Bill Pronzini, Arbor House, 1980
482 · The Other Room · Charles L. Grant · nv Mummy!, ed. Bill Pronzini, Arbor House, 1980
503 · Revelation in Seven Stages · Barry N. Malzberg · ss Mummy!, ed. Bill Pronzini, Arbor House, 1980
509 · Ghoul! · ed. Bill Pronzini · an *; A Chrestomathy of “Ogrery”
511 · Introduction · Bill Pronzini · in
523 · The Edinburgh Landlady · Aubrey Davidson · pm EQMM Jun 30 ’80
525 · The Body-Snatchers · Robert Louis Stevenson · ss Pall Mall Christmas Extra, 1884
546 · The Loved Dead [ghost written by H. P. Lovecraft] · C. M. Eddy, Jr. · ss Weird Tales May-Jul ’24
559 · Indigestion · Barry N. Malzberg · ss Fantastic Sep ’77
569 · The Chadbourne Episode [Gerald Canevin] · Henry S. Whitehead · ss Weird Tales Feb ’33
586 · Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair · Chelsea Quinn Yarbro · ss Cautionary Tales, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978
600 · Quietly Now · Charles L. Grant · nv *
629 · The Ghoul · Sir Hugh Clifford · ss The Further Side of Silence, 1916
644 · The Spherical Ghoul · Fredric Brown · nv Thrilling Mystery Jan ’43
671 · Corpus Delectable [Gavagan’s Bar] · L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt · ss Tales from Gavagan’s Bar, Twayne, 1953
681 · Memento Mori · Bill Pronzini · ss AHMM Apr ’74; revised
689 · The White Rabbit · Joe R. Lansdale · ss *
702 · Gray Matter · Stephen King · ss Cavalier Oct ’73
717 · Bibliography · Misc. · bi

Pronzini, in beginning to put together rather more sweeping surveys of the literature of terror, brought in his friend and collaborator on both fiction and earlier anthologies, Barry Malzberg, and Martin Harry Greenberg, only beginning to become an anthology industry. And they put together some pretty damned impressive books, too...with Pronzini and Greenberg going on to do similarly impressive work in the western field as well as others, and Pronzini on his own and with Ed Gorman continuing to produce extraordinary anthologies for Arbor House and such successors as Robinson and Carroll & Graf in the "Mammoth Book" series, and more. While it fell to Robert Silverberg, who had edited The Science Fiction Hall of Fame's first, short-fiction volume (as president of the SF Writers of America at the time), to go on to edit fantasy and horror "Hall of Fame" volumes, Pronzini would do similar volumes for mystery and western fiction. While there have been similar attempts at sweeping anthologies of horror and of suspense fiction since (such as Charles Grant's similar, contemporary volume for Dodd, Mead, Peter Straub's fine recent two-volume Library of America horror set, David Hartwell's good [if not so well-introduced] historical omnibus of horror, and Jeffery Deaver's unsurprisingly somewhat disappointing suspense-fiction roundup), the Pronzini, et al., volumes compare favorably with any similar productions before or since. They certainly brightened and further broadened my reading experience toward the end of my high-school career, though by then only a few of these bylines were unfamilar. And it's notable that Arbor House had opted for rather tasteful, bold all-text covers...a wise choice.



The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural ed. Bill Pronzini, Martin H. Greenberg & Barry N. Malzberg (Arbor House 0-87795-349-X, 1981, $20.95, hc)

11 · Introduction · Stephen King · in
25 · Hop-Frog · Edgar Allan Poe · ss The Flag of Our Union Mar 17, 1849
32 · Rappaccini’s Daughter · Nathaniel Hawthorne · nv United States Magazine and Democratic Review Dec, 1844
62 · Squire Toby’s Will · Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu · nv Temple Bar Jan, 1868
91 · The Squaw · Bram Stoker · ss Holly Leaves Dec 2, 1893
103 · The Jolly Corner · Henry James · nv The English Review Dec ’08
135 · “Man Overboard!” · Winston Churchill · ss The Harmsworth Magazine Jan, 1899
139 · The Hand · Theodore Dreiser · ss Munsey’s May ’19
157 · The Valley of the Spiders · H. G. Wells · ss Pearson’s Magazine Mar ’03
168 · The Middle Toe of the Right Foot · Ambrose Bierce · ss San Francisco Examiner Aug 17, 1890
177 · Pickman’s Model · H. P. Lovecraft · ss Weird Tales Oct ’27
190 · Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper · Robert Bloch · ss Weird Tales Jul ’43
207 · The Screaming Laugh · Cornell Woolrich · nv Clues Nov ’38
228 · A Rose for Emily · William Faulkner · ss The Forum Apr ’30
238 · Bianca’s Hands · Theodore Sturgeon · ss Argosy (UK) May ’47
247 · The Girl with the Hungry Eyes · Fritz Leiber · ss The Girl With the Hungry Eyes, ed. Donald A. Wollheim, Avon, 1949
262 · Shut a Final Door · Truman Capote · ss Atlantic Monthly Aug ’47
276 · Come and Go Mad · Fredric Brown · nv Weird Tales Jul ’49
317 · The Scarlet King · Evan Hunter · ss Manhunt Dec 25 ’54
328 · Sticks · Karl Edward Wagner · nv Whispers Mar ’74
347 · Sardonicus · Ray Russell · nv Playboy Jan ’61
380 · A Teacher’s Rewards · Robert S. Phillips · ss The Land of Lost Content, 1970
388 · The Roaches · Thomas M. Disch · ss Escapade Oct ’65
397 · The Jam · Henry Slesar · ss Playboy Nov ’58
403 · Black Wind · Bill Pronzini · ss EQMM Sep ’79
408 · The Road to Mictlantecutli · Adobe James · ss Adam Bedside Reader #20 ’65
422 · Passengers · Robert Silverberg · ss Orbit 4, ed. Damon Knight, G.P. Putnam’s, 1968
435 · The Explosives Expert · John Lutz · ss AHMM Sep ’67
442 · Call First · Ramsey Campbell · ss Night Chills, ed. Kirby McCauley, Avon, 1975
447 · The Fly · Arthur Porges · ss F&SF Sep ’52
452 · Namesake · Elizabeth Morton · vi Amazing Jul ’81
454 · Camps · Jack M. Dann · nv F&SF May ’79
480 · You Know Willie · Theodore R. Cogswell · ss F&SF May ’57
485 · The Mindworm · C. M. Kornbluth · ss Worlds Beyond Dec ’50
498 · Warm · Robert Sheckley · ss Galaxy Jun ’53
507 · Transfer · Barry N. Malzberg · ss Fantastic Aug ’75
514 · The Doll · Joyce Carol Oates · nv Epoch, 1980
536 · If Damon Comes · Charles L. Grant · ss The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VI, ed. Gerald W. Page, DAW, 1978
548 · Mass Without Voices · Arthur L. Samuels · vi Nightmares, ed. Charles L. Grant, Playboy, 1979
550 · The Oblong Room [Captain Leopold] · Edward D. Hoch · ss The Saint Detective Magazine Jul ’67
560 · The Party · William F. Nolan · ss Playboy Apr ’67
570 · The Crate · Stephen King · nv Gallery Jul ’79

This one has had a long life as an instant-remainder reprint, usually in some diminished-contents way...last year, it was reprinted as Masters of Horror & the Supernatural: The Great Tales (Bristol Park Books, which I believe is a Barnes & Noble imprint), with, as ISFDb notes, three stories (by Faulkner, Capote and Samuels) dropped.

(I here poach the index of one of the instant-remainder editions for this one, for convenience/laziness's sake...)

Great Tales of Mystery and Suspense ed. Bill Pronzini, Martin H. Greenberg & Barry N. Malzberg (A&W/Galahad 0-88365-700-7, 1985 [Jan ’86], $8.98, 601pp, hc) Reprint (Arbor House 1981 as The Arbor House Treasury of Mystery and Suspense) anthology. This edition omits one story, “Crime Wave in Pinhole” by Julie Smith, in order to make it an abridgement of the original. This is an instant remainder book.

11 · Introduction · John D. MacDonald · in
17 · The Gold-Bug · Edgar Allan Poe · nv Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper Jun 21-28, 1843
48 · Hunted Down · Charles Dickens · nv New York Ledger Aug 20-Sep 3, 1859; EQMM Jan ’47
67 · The Stolen White Elephant · Mark Twain · nv The Stolen White Elephant, Webster, 1882; EQMM Jul ’43
85 · Ransom · Pearl S. Buck · nv Cosmopolitan Oct ’38; EQMM Jun ’55
108 · The Adventure of the Glass-Domed Clock [Ellery Queen] · Ellery Queen · ss Mystery League Oct ’33
126 · The Arrow of God [Simon Templar] · Leslie Charteris · nv EQMM Sep ’49; The Saint Detective Magazine (UK) Nov ’62; The Saint Detective Magazine Jan ’63
147 · A Passage to Benares [Prof. Henry Poggioli] · T. S. Stribling · nv Adventure Feb 20 ’26
174 · The Case of the Emerald Sky [Dr. Jan Czissar] · Eric Ambler · ss The Sketch Jul 10 ’40; EQMM Mar ’45
183 · The Other Hangman · John Dickson Carr · ss A Century of Detective Stories, ed. Anon., London: Hutchinson, 1935; EQMM Jan ’65
196 · The Couple Next Door [Inspector Sands] · Margaret Millar · ss EQMM Jul ’54
211 · Danger Out of the Past [“Protection”] · Erle Stanley Gardner · ss Manhunt May ’55; EQMM Mar ’61
223 · A Matter of Public Notice · Dorothy Salisbury Davis · nv EQMM Jul ’57
239 · The Cat’s-Paw · Stanley Ellin · ss EQMM Jun ’49
254 · The Road to Damascus [Daniel John Calder; Samuel Behrens] · Michael Gilbert · ss Argosy (UK) Jun ’66; EQMM May ’67
272 · Midnight Blue [Lew Archer] · Ross Macdonald · nv Ed McBain’s Mystery Book #1 ’60; EQMM Jul ’71
299 · I’ll Die Tomorrow · Mickey Spillane · ss Cavalier Mar ’60
310 · For All the Rude People · Jack Ritchie · ss AHMM Jun ’61
323 · Hangover · John D. MacDonald · ss Cosmopolitan Jul ’56
333 · The Santa Claus Club [Francis Quarles] · Julian Symons · ss Suspense (UK) Dec ’60; EQMM Jan ’67
344 · The Wager [Kek Huuygens] · Robert L. Fish · ss Playboy Jul ’73; EQMM Nov ’78
353 · A Fool About Money · Ngaio Marsh · ss EQMM Dec ’74
358 · And Three to Get Ready... · Horace L. Gold · ss Fantastic Sum ’52
368 · “J” [87th Precinct] · Ed McBain · nv, 1961
414 · Burial Monuments Three · Edward D. Hoch · ss AHMM May ’72
425 · The Murder · Joyce Carol Oates · ss Night-Side, 1977
434 · Fatal Woman · Joyce Carol Oates · ss Night-Side, 1977
439 · Agony Column · Barry N. Malzberg · ss EQMM Dec ’71
446 · Last Rendezvous · Jean L. Backus · ss EQMM Sep ’77
453 · The Real Shape of the Coast · John Lutz · ss EQMM Jun ’71
464 · Hercule Poirot in the Year 2010 [Hercule Poirot] · Jon L. Breen · ss EQMM Mar ’75
472 · Merrill-Go-Round [Sharon McCone] · Marcia Muller · ss The Arbor House Treasury of Mystery and Suspense, ed. Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg & Martin H. Greenberg, Arbor House, 1981
484 · A Craving for Originality · Bill Pronzini · ss EQMM Dec 17 ’79
491 · Tranquility Base · Asa Baber · ss, 1979
506 · The Cabin in the Hollow · Joyce Harrington · ss EQMM Oct ’74
519 · Peckerman · Robert S. Phillips · ss The Arbor House Treasury of Mystery and Suspense, ed. Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg & Martin H. Greenberg, Arbor House, 1981
531 · A Simple, Willing Attempt · Elizabeth Morton · ss The Arbor House Treasury of Mystery and Suspense, ed. Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg & Martin H. Greenberg, Arbor House, 1981
535 · Watching Marcia · Mike Resnick · ss The Arbor House Treasury of Mystery and Suspense, ed. Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg & Martin H. Greenberg, Arbor House, 1981
545 · Somebody Cares · Talmage Powell · ss EQMM Dec ’62
555 · Jode’s Last Hunt · Brian Garfield · ss EQMM Jan ’77
572 · Many Mansions · Robert Silverberg · nv Universe 3, ed. Terry Carr, Random House, 1973
596 · My Son the Murderer · Bernard Malamud · ss Esquire Nov ’68

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