Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Bill Pronzini. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Bill Pronzini. Sort by date Show all posts

Friday, May 13, 2016

FFB: NIGHT FREIGHT by Bill Pronzini (Leisure Books 2000)

Bill Pronzini is another writer I've been reading for nearly all my literate life...I've reviewed some of his books as we've gone along here, mostly as an editor, since he's been impressively prolific and consistently good to brilliant in that capacity as well as in being a writer and critic/historian since starting out professionally with a sale to Shell Scott Mystery Magazine in 1966, of a story he disparages as merely a bad pastiche of Hemingway, and makes a point of Not including in this volume ("You Don't Know What It's Like" and no, I don't, and apparently won't till I find that 11/66 Shell Scott issue). But his second published story, in SSMM's more durable stablemate Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine in 1967, is the title story for this collection, a story he introduces with a mixture of diffidence and pride, wondering in his headnote to the story if he should rewrite it for inclusion here, as he'd updated it for inclusion in anthology, and deciding that its "rough edges" add to its vigor (Bill Crider is among those who approve of the No Tamper/No Update policy for good writers looking back at their early work). Pronzini's early stories were among the standouts of the Harold Masur and Robert Arthur Alfred Hitchcock Presents: anthologies I read when very young, and the first back issues of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine I picked up around the same time (1974), first from the public library (ah, a public library that subscribed to and circulated fiction magazines; I cue Crider again: "I miss the old days"). Through one or more of these venues, I first read "The Pattern," which Pronzini feels might be overrated among his work; I'm fonder of it than he.

 Among what's notable about Pronzini's work is how transparent his style usually is; he rarely goes out of his way to draw attention to the way he's relating his narrative, which is almost always in the most straightforward and lucid prose he can offer; his protagonists usually have sharp observations about what goes on around them, but only rarely do they get to expound on the nature of life or otherwise make a pitch for a philosophical outlook in the course of whatever relatively tense business they're about in their stories. He does have his fun, including such memorable comic work as "Another Burnt-Out Case" (Fantastic, October 1978, in collaboration with one of his frequent partners, Barry  Malzberg); his most sustained set of work is about the not-really Nameless Detective, who eventually finds himself, in the late works of the series, addressed as "Bill"...but that bit of self-referential detail took a while to emerge (amusingly, he and his wife, writer Marcia Muller, have patterned their most prominent characters after themselves in many ways, and have enjoyed collaborating on stories where those characters interact). 

 The  stories in this volume, packaged in the Leisure horror line (Leisure being one of the last paperback houses to maintain a horror line, and seeking to gain a bit of attention thus, even to the extent of offering a book club subscription service) are an interesting mix, not shrinking from collecting again some of Pronzini's most brilliant work, such as "Strangers in the Fog," even when they'd appeared in one of his too-infrequent previous collections (in that case, his first, Graveyard Plots from 1985); while it's at least as much a collection of suspense stories with no supernatural horror content, and leads off with one of the few stories of his own Pronzini is willing to allow is a hardboiled crime fiction ("Stacked Deck," a short novella from The New Black Mask, 1987), and as a collection was put up for the Horror Writers of America Stoker Award (this year's about to be awarded this weekend as I write). I was surprised at how many of these stories I'd managed to miss, one way or another, over the years before picking this up...Pronzini's work has been too often, if not taken for granted, at least been issued by houses that have had some tough times staying afloat...Leisure is a mere shadow of an imprint now, having been a marginal firm throughout its decades, many of his Nameless novels saw their first paperback editions from the quickly-doomed Paperjacks line, etc....and while it's not been difficult in the online era to find his work, he hasn't been as prominently published, nor as recipient of awards as he might be, over the course of his career. (He mentions having been on the jury that considered his "Strangers in the Fog" for the Edgar Award for best short story of its year, and feeling he had to vote for its most prominent rival, denying himself an Edgar...an award he wouldn't receive for some time later, a few years after the first publication of this book.) This, of course, hasn't stopped sophisticated readers of crime, western or his other fields of fiction from seeking his work out...and, of course, it shouldn't stop you, either. This volume, and Graveyard Plots, and The Best Western Stories of Bill Pronzini collection, among others, await you, particularly if you're mostly familiar with his Nameless stories or not at all, and I recommend you take them up sooner rather than later.

 From ISFDB:

  • Publication: Night Freight
  • Author: Bill Pronzini
  • Year: 2000-05-00
  • ISBN: 0-8439-4706-3 [978-0-8439-4706-9]
  • Publisher: Leisure Books
  • Price: $5.50
  • Pages: 345

Please see Patti Abbott's blog for more of today's books, and I'll be gathering the links for the next two Fridays...please don't hesitate to let me know what I'll foolishly overlook in the course of compilation!
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Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Short Story Wednesday: Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini: FINAL WAR AND OTHER FANTASIES (Ace 1969) and IN THE POCKET AND OTHER SCIENCE FICTION STORIES (Ace 1971) by Barry N. Malzberg: newly offered together; THE HANGING MAN AND OTHER WESTERN STORIES by Bill Pronzini, including one in collaboration with Marcia Muller; Stark House 2024

Barry N. Malzberg,  July 24, 1939-December 19, 2024.

Two sorts of retrospective, the kind of fine work Stark House continues to do...from two writers whose work I've been reading for nearly my whole literate life, Malzberg because my father had anthologies including his work when I was very young (and I would eventually inherit them), Pronzini whose work I would discover only a bit later via Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and the essentially unrelated (except by paying license fees) Alfred Hitchcock Presents: volumes edited by Harold Q. Masur for Random House (reprinted in Dell paperbacks) in the '70s. As we face our Final Wars and try to avoid joining  the Hanging Man in his fate, this is a propitious time to take in these books, for me those stories I have read are usually decades ago, and those I haven't deserve to have my neglect remedied. 

Barry has also contributed to this blog, and very graciously indeed. Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller have helped with a few projects of mine (and in her case, a very badly-handled project of one of my bookstore colleagues decades ago). I am glad to have been able to make the acquaintance of both.

Barry N. Malzberg's own writing on this blog:

Quoting Barry Malzberg

Guest FFB: Barry Malzberg and Charles Ardai on the last published Cornell Woolrich novel, as completed by Lawrence Block: INTO THE NIGHT

Cele Goldsmith Lalli, interviewed by Barry Malzberg


guest essay by Barry Malzberg: NEW AMERICAN REVIEW (later AMERICAN REVIEW), edited by Theodore Solotaroff: the best American literary magazine  (for some reason, Blogger has tagged this as featuring sensitive content...I'd say yes, but  not the way they mean it.)

Barry Malzberg's first two collections of his short fantastica stories were published as halves of Ace Doubles (and under his fantastic-fiction pseudonym "K. M. O'Donnell"--a tribute to writers, and married couple, Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore, who among their collaborations signed some of their best as Lawrence O'Donnell), in 1969 paired with a John Rackham novel, and in 1971 with his own novella Gather in the Hall of the Planets. "Final War" has reminded at least two Richards, the late Richard Geis (of Science Fiction Review fame) and Rich Horton (of  Locus, his anthologies and his blog) strongly of Joseph Heller's  Catch-22, and was probably the most widely-admired of Malzberg's early fantastica stories, coming a close second in the balloting for the Nebula Award  in its contest. When asked what he'd like to be remembered for, he told his interlocutor that the latter might note just how funny he could be (since his work is shot through with wit, even at its most anguished). Particularly in the vignettes in these collections, he demonstrates this frequently.

Novella cover illustration by Jack Gaughan;
second cover by Karel Thole

Here are the two tables of contents (from ISFDB):  

[2] Final War and Other Fantasies (frontispiece) • interior artwork by Gray Morrow

In the Pocket and Other S-F Stories • (1971) • collection by Barry N. Malzberg [as by K. M. O'Donnell]
The Stark House edition has only one (new) cover, and Barry has decided to write a single new brief introduction, as he looks back less than fondly at either collection's original introduction; a decent bibliography of his books rounds out the book.
 
Malzberg cover by Jeff Jordan

Pronzini cover by Mark Shepard

The Hanging Man and Other Western Stories by Bill Pronzini
Stark House, December 2024, 204 pp.

Indexed by TM using links from the FictionMags Index.

7 * Preface * Bill Pronzini * in
11 * The Hanging Man, (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 12 1981
22 * Markers, (ss) Roundup ed. Stephen Overholser, Doubleday, 1982
28 * Hero, (ss) Small Felonies by Bill Pronzini, St. Martin's, 1988
33 * McIntosh’s Chute, (ss) New Frontiers, Volume I ed. Martin H. Greenberg & Bill Pronzini, Tor, 1990, as by Jack Foxx
43 * Decision, (ss) The Arizonans ed. Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg, Fawcett Gold Medal, 1989; originally published as 
“I’ll See to Your Horse”, (ss) Zane Grey Western Magazine February 1972; rewritten as the opening of The Gallows Land (Walker and Co., 1983; Berkley pb 1983); this is a composite of both.
49 * All the Long Years, (ss) Westeryear ed. Ed Gorman, M. Evans, 1988
57 * Burglarproof, (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine February 2010
71 * The Gunny, (ss) The Gunfighters ed. Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg, Fawcett Gold Medal, 1988
76 * Fyfe and the Drummers, (ss) New Frontiers, Volume II ed. Martin H. Greenberg & Bill Pronzini, Tor, 1990
82 * Wooden Indian, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine March 1989
93 * The Gambler, (ss) New Frontiers, Volume I ed. Martin H. Greenberg & Bill Pronzini, Tor, 1990
101 * Fear, (ss) Louis L’Amour Western Magazine March 1995
109 * The Cruel and Deadly Winter, (ss) (2024 original publication in this volume)
113 * "Give-a-Damn” Jones, (ss) The First Five Star Western Series Corral ed. Vicki Piekarski, Five Star US, 2000
126 * Righteous Guns, (ss) The Best Western Stories of Bill Pronzini, Swallow Press, 1990
130 * Doc Christmas, Painless Dentist, (ss) Louis L’Amour Western Magazine May 1994
141 *Not a Lick of Sense, (ss) The Fatal Frontier ed. Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg, Carroll & Graf, 1997
147 * "Crucifixion River" by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini; apparently first published in the collection Crucifixion River: Western Stories  (Five Star, 2007; ISBN-13: 978-1594145568)  by Muller and Pronzini (this story won the WWA Spur Award)
202 * Pronzini Bibliography * bi





As the acute scanner might note, there is an overlap with, though not complete duplication of, The Best Western Stories of Bill Pronzini, Swallow Press, 1990...I picked that one up when it was new--at first thought, hard to realize it's been almost 35 years:

The FictionMags Index (FMI) listing:

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






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Friday, December 6, 2024

Books Received: COLLECTING MYSELF: THE UNCOLLECTED STORIES OF BARRY N. MALZBERG, edited by Robert Friedman and Gregory Shepard; CREAM OF THE CROP: BEST MYSTERY & SUSPENSE STORIES OF BILL PRONZINI edited by the author, Stark House 2024

Three of my favorite new stories in 1978, not quite a half-century ago but not far from it, the year I started reading fiction magazines regularly and probably more passionately than before or since, were "Strangers in the Fog" by Bill Pronzini, in EQMM's June issue, "Prowl" by Barry Malzberg in Fantastic dated July, and "Another Burnt-Out Case" by Malzberg and Pronzini in the October Fantastic, albeit arguably out of place in that issue, as it wasn't really fantasy, horror nor sf, but a bit of absurdism, that Barry remembers as including as much as they could that just made them laugh and laugh. (Barry doesn't seem to much like "Prowl"--it's an unsparing metaphor for relations between teens and their parents in the form of a vignette about werewolves--and the only reprint of it I'm aware of is in the Fall 2011 issue of Allen Koszowski's Inhuman magazine, apparently not with his permission.)


There's more to say about these, and the careers of these writers, and the noble efforts of Stark House, but it's been a distracting and busy week, and it's not over yet. (A d&b fortnight, by the time it's done.)

Collecting Myself: The Uncollected Stories of Barry N. Malzberg by Barry N. Malzberg (Stark House Press, March 8, 2024, 979-8-88601-081-7, $15.95, 186pp, tp, co) [edited by Robert Friedman & Greg Shepard]



Cream of the Crop: Best Mystery & Suspense Stories of Bill Pronzini edited by the author (all content by BP) Stark House Press, August, 2024, 979-8-88602-099-2, $19.95, 340pp, tp, co

9 * Preface * Bill Pronzini * pr

11 *  Standalones 
13 * Opportunity * Bill Pronzini * ss * Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine December 1967
24 * Proof of Guilt * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 1973
33 * Sweet Fever * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 1976
38 * Smuggler's Island * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 1976
53 * Under the Skin * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine October 1977
58 * Strangers in the Fog * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine June 1978
66 * A Craving for Originality * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 17 1979 
95 * Liar’s Dice * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine November 1992
102 * Out of the Depths * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine September 1994
117 * Possibilities * Bill Pronzini * nv * The Strand Magazine #17, October 2005/January 2006
131 * The Cemetery Man * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine July 2013
139 * Hooch * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine June 2014
147 * Snap * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 2015

171 * Carpenter and Quincannon
173 * Gunpowder Alley * [John Quincannon & Sabina Carpenter] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 2012  [Remarkable how often even conscientious reviewers will revise the Marcia Muller character's name into "Sabrina"...TM]

195 * Nameless Detective
197 * Thin Air [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May 1979
214 * Cat’s-Paw [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * nv * Waves Press, 1983, chapbook
233 * Skeleton Rattle Your Mouldy Leg [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * nv * The Eyes Have It ed. Robert J. Randisi, Mysterious Press, 1984
256 * Incident in a Neighborhood Tavern [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * An Eye for Justice ed. Robert J. Randisi, The Mysterious Press, 1988
274 * Souls Burning [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * New Crimes 3 ed. Maxim Jakubowski, Robinson, 1991
281 * La Bellezza Delle Bellezze [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Invitation to Murder ed. Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg, Dark Harvest, 1991
305 * Home Is the Place Where [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine November 1995
313 * The Big Bite [Nameless Detective]  * Bill Pronzini * nv * Shots Winter 1999
326 * Who You Been Grapplin’ With? [Nameless Detective] * Bill Pronzini * ss * Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine December 2014

339 * Bill Pronzini (1943-date) Bibliography * Bill Pronzini * bi

TM

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Friday, October 28, 2011

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.
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