New Tales Of Horror

[demonik]

Anon (John Gawsworth) ed. - New Tales Of Horror By Eminent Authors (Hutchinson, 1934)

Arthur Machen - A Double Return
Arthur Machen - The Lost Club
Richard Middleton - Love at First Sight
Richard Middleton - The Luck Of Keith-Martin
Richard Middleton - The Amazing Hieroglyph
Richard Middleton - The Making Of A Man
Richard Middleton - The Murderer
Richard Middleton - Wet Eyes and Sad Mouth
E. H. Visiak - Medusan Madness
M.P. Shiel - How Life Climbs
M.P. Shiel - The Globe Of Gold-Fish
John Gawsworth - Scylla And Charybdis
Frederick Carter - The Truth
Frederick Carter - Something For Arthur
Frederick Carter - Madame Libismina
Hugh Macdiarmid - The Dead Harlot
Hugh Macdiarmid - A'body's Lassie
Hugh Macdiarmid - Wound-Pie
Hugh Macdiarmid - The Stranger
Sir Ronald Ross - The Ring Of Fire
Herbert De Hamel - The House Of Dust
Stephen Graham - Effect And Cause
E.H.W. Meyerstein - Joshua Greenway
E.H.W. Meyerstein - The Cold-Meat Shop
Charles Duff - Murderers' Corner
Charles Duff - Drink Monster
H. Palmer - The New War
R.L. Megroz - Vision and Television
Nugent Barker - Mrs. Sayce's Guy
Marcus Magill - Force Of Habit

Not too sure about any of these except that Hugh Lamb resurrected Medusan Madness for A Taste Of Fear and Murderer's Corner for The Star Book Of Horror: No 2, so any comments greatly appreciated!

[artlongjr]

I've read all four stories by Hugh MacDiarmid...a Scottish poet best known for "A Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle". "A'body's Lassie" is a about playful female ghost who assumes various shapes to deliberately confound people...since she usually shows up as women or girls who have recently died! For instance, she appears to a group of children in the guise of a nine-year old playmate who has passed away and insists on playing some games with them. Quite a good story, although like "Wound-Pie" and "The Dead Harlot" it is in very difficult to read Scottish dialect, which can be a real chore to plow through. "The Stranger" isn't in dialect and deals with an old man in a pub who refuses to drink with a jovial fellow that everyone else likes because he believes that the fellow "wasn't born of man and woman". As it turns out...he's right!

I wanted to share this link to a definitive bio of John Gawsworth, written by Steve Eng:

www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/bai/eng.htm

Gawsworth was definitely the most eccentric of the horror anthologists, a really fascinating literary character. Interesting that Eng says he is better known now as a horror anthologist than as a poet.

I notice that Nugent Barker has a story in this anthology...I haven't had much success tracking down Barker's stories but I am very much interested in him since he penned one of my total favorites, "The Strange Adventure of Mr. Bond", which has got to be one of the best horror stories ever written by anybody!

[demonik]

Thanks for the Hugh MacDairmid info, Art. Robert Aickman reprinted The Stranger in The 3rd. Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories, so he obviously thought highly of it - another one for the never-ending 'too re-read" pile.

I share your high opinion of The Curious Adventure Of Mr. Bond, by the way, and he wrote at least one more horror story of equal effectiveness - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, revived by Hugh Lamb in The Star Book Of Horror: Vol 2.

Rog has details and plot summaries of both volumes over at [url=http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/haunteddollshouse/star.html#One,%20Two,%20Buckle%20My%20Shoe
]The Haunted Dolls House[/url]