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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Saturday, January 1, 2022

FRIDAY'S "FORGOTTEN" BOOKS AND MORE: the links to reviews, texts, etc. 31 December 2021

The latter fortnight's cycle of books and more, unfairly (or sometimes fairly) neglected, or simply those the reviewers below think you might find of some interest (or, infrequently, you should be warned away from); certainly, most weeks we have a few not at all forgotten titles...if I've missed your review or someone else's, please let me know in comments. Apologies for the delays this weekend--a computer that won't cooperate with Blogspot can manage to dump a Lot of data...

Patricia Abbott: "I'll Be Waiting" by Raymond Chandler, The Saturday Evening Post 14 October 1939 (as posted on the Library of America Story a Day site); "Dr. H. A. Moynihan" (from A Manual for Cleaning Women) by Lucia Berlin; "The Babysitter's Code" by Laura Lippman, Plots with Guns: A Noir Anthology edited by Anthony Neil Smith; Stephen Sondheim: A Life by Meryle Secrest

Bob Adey: A Woman Named Anne by Henry Cecil

Bonnie Armstrong: Florida by Lauren Groff

Tony Baer: novels by Dorothy B. Hughes, Barry N. Malzberg and others; books by Anna Kavan, John Rechy, Nat Turner, Nelson Algren, Agnes Smedley, Ralph Ellison and others; Eugene O'Neill; The Wrong Venus by Charles Williams; Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith; The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything by John D. MacDonald

Frank Babics: Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine March/April 2021, edited by Linda Landrigan; "The Phantom Coach" by Amelia B. Edwards, All the Year 'Round, Christmas 1864; "To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt" by Charles Dickens, All the Year 'Round, Christmas 1865

Brad Bigelow: Women in a Village by Louise Rayner; The Story of a Life, Volume 6: The Restless Years, by Konstantin Paustovsky  (translated by Kyril FitzLyon)

Elgin Bleecker: "The Christmas Party Murder" by Rex Stout, Collier's 4 January 1957

Joachim Boaz: Dawn by Octavia Butler; Where the Time Winds Blow by Robert Holdstock; Brave Old World by Philippe Curval (translated by Steve Cox)

John Boston: Amazing Stories, December 1966, edited by Joseph "Ross" 

Ben Boulden: A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson

John R. Breitlow: The Deep Blue Goodbye and Nightmare in Pink by John D. MacDonald

Brian Busby: best reads of 2021: Brian Moore, Ted Allan, Grant Allen, Douglas Sanderson, and others; The Drift of Pinions by Marjorie Pickthall; The Tenants were Corrie and Tennie by Kent Thompson

Jason Cavallaro: Ten Best Horror Novels Read This Year

Marvell Cleary: Fast Company by Marco Page

Douglas Cohen: Realms of Fantasy August 1997, edited by Shawna McCarthy

Bill Crider: Flight to Darkness by Gil Brewer (original post)

Liz Dexter: best books of 2021: Anne Tyler, Alex Haley et al.; Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs; A Song Flung Up to Heaven by Maya Angelou

Susan Dunlap: In the Last Analysis by "Amanda Cross" (Carolyn Heilbrun)

Scott Edelman: José Pablo Iriarte

Martin Edwards: Scandalize My Name by Fiona Sinclair; The Marble Forest by "Anthony Boucher" (William White) and 11 others (of the Northern California MWA); The Second Shot by Anthony Berkeley

Peter Enfantino and Jack Seabrook: Batman comics, July 1983; June 1983; Warren comics, May 1976

Barry Ergang: Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants by Lee Goldberg

Will Errickson: 2021 in review; Living in Fear: A History of Horror in Mass Media by, and including fiction selected by, Les Daniels; Year in Review

José Ignacio Escribano: Year in Review; Campion at Christmas by Margery Allingham; Sébastien Japrisot; Helen McCloy

Curtis Evans: Blind Date with Death and Walls That Hear You by Cornell Woolrich 

"Olman Feelyus": Where the Money Was by Willie Sutton; The Thanatos Syndrome by Walker Percy

Paul Fraser: To Follow a Star: Nine SF Stories about Christmas edited by Terry Carr; Science Fantasy August 1963, edited by John Carnell; "Fasterpiece" by Ian Creasey Asimov's Science Fiction January-February 2022; "The Santa Claus Planet" by Frank M. Robinson, originally published in The Best Science-Fiction Stories, 1951 edited by E. F. Bleiler and Ted Dikty; "Christmas on Mars" by "William Morrison" (Joseph Samachson) Thrilling Wonder Stories December 1941; "Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus" by Frederik Pohl, first published in his collection Alternating Currents (Ballantine 1956); "Winter Solstice" by Mike Resnick, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction October-November 1991; "Kitemaster" by Keith Roberts, Interzone Spring 1982; "Miracle" by Connie Willis, Asimov's Science Fiction December 1991; from Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction, January/February 2022: "The Bumblebee and the Berry" by M. Bennardo; "Charioteer" by Ted Rabinowitz; "Track of a Legend" by Cynthia Felice, Omni, December 1983; from Analog: Science Fiction and Fact January/February 2022: "Splitting a Dollar" by Meghan Hyland and "Charioteer" by Ted Rabinowitz

Cullen Gallagher: The Girl with No Place to Hide by "Nick Quarry" (Marvin Albert)

Barry Gardner: The Dark Root by Archer Mayor

Ed Gorman: Fake I.D. by Jason Starr (original post)

Dana Gould: Katherine Coldiron on Plan Nine from Outer Space: A Monograph; Who Goes There? by "Don A. Stuart"/John W. Campbell, Jr.

Sue Granquist: "The Wish" by Ray Bradbury. Women's Day December 1973 (and published as a chapbook in the 2000s)

Aubrey Hamilton: The Dishonest Murderer by Frances and Richard Lockridge; Crime for Christmas by Lesley Egan; The Murder of Cecily Thane by Harriette Ashbrook; Primary Storm by Brendan Dubois; Cold Florida by Phillip DePoy 

Bev Hankins: A Surprise for Christmas edited by Martin Edwards; "The Incredible Theft" by Agatha Christie (expanded form of the serial "The Submarine Plans", from the Daily Express, April 1937); Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie; The Death at Yew Corner by Richard Forrest; Spare Time for Murder by John Gale; Murder in the French Room by Helen Joan Hultman; The Pig on the Hill by John Kelly

James Harris: stories collected in The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer: "Wives" by Lisa Tuttle, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF), December 1979; "Sandkings" by George R. R. Martin, Omni August 1979; "Sporting with the Chid" by Barrington J. Bayley, from his collection The Seed of Evil; "The House of Compassionate Sharers" by Michael Bishop, Cosmos Science Fiction and Fantasy May 1977

Don Herron: E. R. Burroughs in newspaper syndication, among many

Rich Horton: Beer! Beer! Beer! by Avram Davidson (a recovered "lost" novel); Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho; 2021 in retrospect/posts elsewhere

Jerry House: "Mr. Wray's Cash Box, or The Mask and the Mystery" by Wilkie Collins (a "lost" novella); "The Other Woman" by "Ellen Hogue" (Eleanor Hogue Kerkhof nee Stinchclomb), All-Story Love Stories 19 and 26 January 1935 (a novelet as two-part serial); The Arkham Sampler Winter 1948, edited by August Derleth; "The Mystery of the Man Who Evaporated" by Robert Arthur, from his collection Alfred Hitchcock's Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries Random House, 1963; "The Menace of Mastodon Valley" by Kenneth Gilbert, Action Stories September 1926; Aylmer Vance: Ghost-Seer by Alice and Claude Askew; "The Striding Place" by Gertrude Atherton, The Speaker 20 June 1896; the John Hanson stories by Sewell Peaslee Wright, Astounding Stories, 1930-33; Of Worlds Beyond: The "Science" of Science Fiction Writing, A Symposium edited by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach; "The Firefly" comics stories by Harry Shorten and Bob Wood, from Top-Notch Comics 1940-42; The True Story of Moonshine

Kate Jackson: A Case for Solomon by Bruce Graeme; Murder in Blue by Clifford Witting; Plots and Gunpowder: A Personal Biography of Thriller Writer Gerald Verner by Chris Verner; Reprints of the Year polling; Murder After Christmas by Rupert Latimer

Randy Johnson: Black is the Color by John Brunner (original post)

Tracy K: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles; American Christmas Stories edited by Connie Willis; The Last Noel by Michael Malone; Maigret's Christmas by Georges Simenon (translated by David Howard); Six Degrees of Literary Separation

Jackie Kashian: Tess Rafferty (audio only); video; Ophira Eisenberg on crime fiction and drama

Colman Keane: Kolkata Noir by Tom Vater; Love and Bullets: Megabomb Edition by Nick Kolakowski; Many Deadly Returns edited by Martin Edwards

George Kelley: Galactic Empires edited by Brian Aldiss; Dangerous Visions and New Worlds edited by Andrew Nette and Iain MacIntyre; Great Detectives: A Century of the Best Mysteries from England and America edited by David Willis McCullough; The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: Twelfth Series edited by Avram Davidson; JLA by Grant Morrison Omnibus by Morrison and divers hands

Joe Kenney: Sea Scrape by "James Dark" (J. E. MacDonnell); Total Recall by Piers Anthony (distantly inspired by "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick); The Chinese Paymaster by "Nick Carter" (in this case, Nicholas Browne); The Destroyer #17: Last War Dance by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy

Rob Kitchin: On the Java Ridge by Jock Serong

K. A. Laity: Muriel Spark 

Karen Langley: 2021 in review

B. V. Lawson: A Gentleman Called by Dorothy Salisbury Davis; The Mystery of Mary by Grace Livingston Hill

Xavier Lechard: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle; Victorian and Other Novels: Complexity vs. Volume; Ten Books Read This Year: The Diehard by Jean Potts and Nine Others

David Levinson: Worlds of If, January 1967, edited by Frederik Pohl

D. F./Des Lewis: Vasterien: A Literary Journal Fall 2021, edited by Jon Padgett; By Elizabeth Bowen: Eva Trout; The Hotel; The Heat of the Day; To the North; The Death of the Heart; A World of Love. Best British Short Stories, Volumes 2011-2021 edited by Nicholas Royle

Evan Lewis: "A Scandal in Bohemia": a play by Christopher Morley adapting the Arthur Conan Doyle story, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine January 1944; Disney's The Legend of Davy Crockett newspaper comic strip; Bat Masterton newspaper strip by Howard Nostrand and Ed Herron; The Kid I Killed Last Night by "Day Keene" (Gunard Hjerstedt), collection edited by David Laurence Wilson; Anonymous: Davy Crockett and the Shawnee War Party

Steve Lewis: "You'll Always Remember Me" by Steve Fisher, Black Mask March 1938; Deep Lay the Dead by Frederick C. Davis; "Diamonds of Death" by Robert Leslie Bellem, Spicy Detective Stories July 1934; "Hell's Pay Check" by Frederick Nebel, Dime Detective December 1931; "Not My Corpse" by Carroll John Daly, Thrilling Detective June 1948; Mom Meets Her Maker by James Yaffee; Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

Sara Light-Waller: The Harp and the Blade by John Myers Myers, Argosy Weekly 22 June-3 August 1940 (7 issues) 

S. E. Lindberg: Conan pastiches by John C. Hocking

Leonard Lopate: Stephen King on The Best American Short Stories 2007

Robert Lopresti:"The Search for Eric Garcia" by E. A. Aymar, Midnight Hour edited by Abby L. Vandiver; "Born a Ramblin' Man" by Michel Lee Garrett, Trouble No More edited by Mark Westmoreland

Jim McCahery: Through a Glass, Darkly by Helen McCloy

Neil McRobert: Something More than Night, et al.: Kim Newman

Barry N. Malzberg: Anatomy of a Killer by Peter Rabe

Todd Mason: The Supernatural Reader edited by Lucy and Groff Conklin; Rod Serling's Devils and Demons edited by Gordon R. Dickson; "It Could Be You" by Frank Roberts, The Reporter 3 March 1962 and reprinted widely; Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories My Mother Never Told Me edited by Robert Arthur; The 1965 annuals of fiction and drama, in English; The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fifth Series edited by "Anthony Boucher" (William White); The Best Detective Stories of the Year, 1971 edited by Allen J. Hubin; Prize Stories 1962: The O. Henry Awards edited by Richard Poirier

Marcia Muller: Bloodwater by "John Crowe" (Dennis Lynds)

Neeru: In Andamans: An Indian Bastille by Bejoy Kumar Sinha; 13 books to read; Eagles of the Reich by Will Berthold (translated by F. Taylor)

John F. Norris: False Witness by Helen Nielsen; Sing Me a Murder by Helen Nielsen; The Wintringham Mystery by Anthony Berkeley (Cox)

Jim Noy: John Thorndyke's Cases by R. Austin Freeman

Juri Nummelin: Born of Battle by "Robert Crane" (Con Sellers)

John O'Neill: Galactic Empires edited by Brian Aldiss; Modern Classics of Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

On The Media: Elizabeth Hand, Max Allan Collins, Alan Dean Foster, Lee Goldberg et al. on film and other novelizations

Paperback Warrior: Rambo: FIrst Blood Part 2 by David Morrell

Mildred Perkins: Satan’s Circus: Murder, Vice, Police  Corruption and New York’s Trial of the Century by Mike Dash

J. Kingston Pierce: Shadow Boxer by Eddie Muller

James Reasoner: "No Pockets in a Shroud" by Richard Deming, Black Mask January 1949; West September 1943; Amazing Stories December 1944, edited by Ray Palmer; William G. Contento, RIP; Terror Tales by John H. Knox; Western Trails May 1936, edited by A. A. Wyn(?); Detective Novels Magazine June 1944, edited by Harvey Burns; The Gunsmith: The Jingle Bell Trail by "J. R. Roberts" (Robert Randisi); Rangeland Romances January 1952; some unsold stories; The Price of a Dime: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Ben Shaley by Norbert Davis; 2021: the Wrap Up

Richard Robinson: Renegade Swords edited by D. M. Ritalin; The Thinking Machine: Fifty Novelettes and Short Stories by Jacques Futrelle; The Best Science Fiction of E. C. Tubb; Death Threats and Other Stories by Georges Simenon (translated by Ros Schwartz); Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases by Andrea Camilleri (translated by Stephen Sartarelli); The Animal-Lovers Book of Beastly Murder by Patricia Highsmith

Janet Rudolph: Winter Solstice Crime Fiction; New Year's Crime Fiction

Gerard Saylor: Brodie's Ghost by Mark Crilley; Eddie and Sunny by Stacy Cochran

Jack Seabrook: The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin; "What Frightened You, Fred?" by Jack Ritchie, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine May 1958

Victoria Silverwolf: The Nevermore Affair by Kate Wilhelm; The Monitors by Keith Laumer; Fantastic Stories, January 1967, edited by Joseph "Ross" 

Kerrie Smith: Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper by Donald Henderson; The Blood Daughter by "Barbara Vine" (Ruth Rendell); Today A Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket by Hilda Wolitzer; Bells on Her Toes by Diana J. Febry

Marina Sofia: Best of the Year: Modern Classics; Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin (translated by Andrew Bromfield); Best of the Year: New Releases; BotY: New Discoveries; Fathers and Children by Ivan Turgenev (translated by Michael Pursglove); BotY: Delving Deeper into Interesting Writers; BotY: Sheer Entertainment 

Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe:  Sheree Renée Thomas

Kevin Tipple: Shot to Death by Stephen D. Rogers; Spirit of Steamboat by Craig Johnson; Arrowmoon by George Wier; Mysterical-E December 2021 edited by J. DeMarco; Guilty Crime Story Magazine Summer 2021, edited by Brandon Barrows

"TomKat": Sable Messenger by Frances Vivian; A Tough One to Lose by Tony Kenrick; The Best and Worst of 2021; The Finishing Stroke by "Ellery Queen" (Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee); Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie; The Wintringham Mystery by Anthony Berkeley (Cox)

David Vineyard: Run for Cover by John Welcome

Bill Wallace: Cunning Folk by Adam Nevill

Mark Yon: sf Impulse January 1967, edited by Harry Harrison and Keith Roberts; New Worlds SF January 1967, edited by Michael Moorcock 

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Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Short Story Wednesday: THE SUPERNATURAL READER edited by Lucy and Groff Conklin (Lippincott 1953); ROD SERLING'S DEVILS AND DEMONS edited by Gordon R. Dickson (Bantam 1967)



The Supernatural Reader 
edited by Lucy & Groff Conklin
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1953, $3.95, 349pp, hc)

Rod Serling’s Devils and Demons  
ghost-edited by Gordon R. Dickson 
(Bantam, Feb ’67, 212pp, pb) 
    • vii · Introduction · Rod Serling · in
    • 1 · The Montavarde Camera · Avram Davidson · ss F&SF May 1959
    • 14 · The Coach · Violet Hunt · ss The English Review Mar 1909
    • 31 · Adapted · Carol Emshwiller · ss F&SF May 1961
    • 40 · Death Cannot Wither · Judith Merril · nv F&SF Feb 1959
    • 61 · The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton · Charles Dickens · ss The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club Jan 1837
    • 72 · Pollock and the Porroh Man · H. G. Wells · ss New Budget May 23 1895
    • 87 · Stars, Won’t You Hide Me? · Ben Bova · ss Worlds of Tomorrow Jan 1966
    • 101 · The Bottle Imp · Robert Louis Stevenson · nv New York Herald Feb 8-Mar 1 1891
    • 129 · The Adventure of the German Student · Washington Irving · ss Tales of a Traveller, John Murray 1824
    • 135 · The Four-Fifteen Express · Amelia B. Edwards · nv Routledge’s Christmas Annual, 1867  1866
    • 160 · The Blue Sphere · Theodore Dreiser · ss The Smart Set Dec 1914
    • 177 · The Bisara of Pooree · Rudyard Kipling · ss The Civil and Military Gazette Mar 4 1887
    • 182 · A Time to Keep · Kate Wilhelm · ss F&SF Jan 1962
    • 197 · Brother Coelestin · Jaroslav Vrchlický  (as by Emil Frida)  · ss  Lumír Jan 20 1878 (trans./ed. Edna Worthley Underwood, from"Flétna", in Short Stories from the Balkans, Marshall Jones Co., 1919)

The 1966 paperback edition of the Conklins' anthology, sharing rack space with the 1967 Dickson/ "Serling" volume (and seeing at least four printings over the next several years)...the Collier pb, with more pages (and twice as many stories) on better paper, would set you back 95c, while the Bantam volume was 60c (by the 11th printing in the early '70s, the price would rise to 75c). I have this edition of the Conklins' book (though I find the cover on the first Collier paperback, from 1962, the handsomest of the packages the book has sported). In the wake of the remarkable success of Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby, the televised horror soap opera Dark Shadows catching fire, and a number of paperback houses discovering that tagging anything remotely relevant as a Gothic was a guaranteed selling-strategy...perhaps that both books saw more reprints in 1967, and just after, than the Reader had had or either would have again is less surprising in retrospect than it might be (the Serling-branded book might've had a bump both from The Twilight Zone's entry into the syndicated television repeats market and from his initial-draft scripting the 1968 film Planet of the Apes). It doesn't hurt that they are both fine collections, even if the lack of concern for detail on Bantam's part (managing to refer Worlds of Tomorrow magazine in the publication credits as "The World of Tomorrow", for example), as well as featuring a slightly larger proportion of (theoretically) public domain stories (if good and mostly not overly familiar ones, in both volumes) than the scrupulously credited Conklins' volume might discourage a few potential readers.


Groff Conklin and Rod Serling were busy, productive, eventually frustrated people, who both chain-smoked their way into early graves. Both had been rather broad-scope in literary and narrative arts in their early careers, and eventually found themselves locked into working in fantastica, which they enjoyed but to some extent wished they didn't have to rely on, particularly as the rewards contracted. Conklin, who as a young man contributed to Poetry magazine, began his anthology-editing career with volumes drawn from The Smart Set and The New Republic, and wrote benchmark guides to home repair which would remain in print for decades, was 63 when he died of emphysema in 1968; Serling, a playwright who began his career in radio, was at least as widely-known for his teleplays Patterns and Requiem for a Heavyweight (and hassles with sponsors and censors) at the height of his career as he was for creating The Twilight Zone and its offshoots; and who found himself as prominent as a voice-over man and narrator as as a writer at the end of his career, was 50 when the third heart attack in a brief period, while he was on the table for open-heart surgery to repair damage from his second, essentially killed him in 1975. Conklin's wife and co-editor on The Supernatural Reader, Lucy Conklin, had died the year after the first edition was published, in 1954, and her husband added a note to reprints of the book stating that she had fully collaborated on the selections and the introduction with him; I have to wonder why her name is missing from the later editions otherwise. Presumably as lazy a marketing strategy as having Gordon Dickson, a talented writer and occasional editor, ghost the "Serling" book (he had also previously ghost-edited Rod Serling's Triple W: Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves for publication in 1963). I suspect Serling did write his two-page introduction... it has his cadences down.

The stories I loved decades before I encountered either volume include, among the Conklins' selections, were Sturgeon's "Shottle Bop", "Saki"'s "Gabriel-Ernest" and Bierce's "The Moonlit Road"; from the Dickson, Davidson's "The Montavarde Camera" and Stevenson's "The Bottle Imp", and I was a late-comer to the Wells, but only as late as reading it some years ago in Fraser and Wise's Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural. A couple of the others, I liked rather than loved from my early reading, remembering them less well till refreshing my memories. 

Among the stories new to me in our volumes for today:

The Supernatural Reader:
"Pick-up for Olympus" by Edgar Pangborn is the one story original to either volume, a slight but amusing vignette about a 1960s (in this 1953 story) small-town garage mechanic enchanted by the durable but neglected 1930s Chevy truck that rolls into his gas station one day. So taken with the truck, he barely notes the rather unusual owners.

John Collier's "Bird of Prey" is good, mid-level Collier, a writer one can only suspect was high on Patricia Highsmith's inspiration list. And both students of Ambrose Bierce. A very happy couple (with only one notable sore spot between them) and their beloved pet parrot do not have a good time after a certain visitation by Another sort of bird.

Devils and Demons:
Carol Emshwiller's "Adapted" is a typically urgent recounting, not quite stream of consciousness but almost so, of the life of a woman who is of Other folk, at least on her father's side, and how she realizes this only rather late in life, and hopes she hasn't managed to cut this realization off in her quarter-Other daughter.

"A Time to Keep" by Kate Wilhelm is an interesting approach to her protagonist's free-floating anxiety, expressed in sustained hallucinations occasionally triggered by passing through doorways. Not completely successful, but a stepping-stone toward more assured work from later in her career. 




First US edition

First UK hardcover edition

UK paperback edition

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



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