I get goose bumps pondering about some of tales in this collection. It really is a feast for any horror fan - forty-seven brief stories and six poems chosen by Marvin Kaye with Saralee Kaye. The alternatives concentrate on psychological terror rather than blood and gore. As Kaye says in his introduction "Any story that gave my jaded spine a chill seemed to present correct credentials for membership in the club." These are not the much more nicely recognized horror tales that seem more than and more than in anthologies, some are not readily obtainable anyplace else.
I have many favorites amongst them. "The Bottle Imp," an intriguing spin on producing a pact with the devil, was written in 1891 by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. Keawe, a native of Hawaii, buys a strange bottle from an elderly man who tells him the imp in the bottle is accountable for his wealth. The imp will also grant Keawe what ever he wishes. Of course there is a catch. If he dies with the bottle in his possession his soul will burn in Hell. It have to be sold for significantly less than its obtain value and he may well not dispose of it or give it away. Stevenson throws some twists and turns into the story and Keawe faces some horrifying alternatives.
"Dracula's Guest" was published posthumously immediately after Bram Stoker's death and was in all probability intended to be the 1st chapter of his novel "Dracula." The narrator is Jonathan Harker on his way to Transylvania on Walpurgis Evening, the very first of May perhaps, when witches and demons are about. He does not heed the coachman's superstitious warnings and he leaves the security of his hotel to wander in the forest alone exactly where he has an eerie feeling he's getting watched. When he comes across an ancient tomb in an old graveyard he realizes just how foolish he's been.
"Flies," by Isaac Asimov, was initial published in June 1953. It is a brief science fiction story about a group of former School students who meet at a reunion twenty years soon after graduation. They go over their achievements and Casey tells them he does investigation on insecticides. Ironically the flies seem to bother him and no one else.
British novelist Tanith Lee offers a various take on the Cinderella story. "When the Clock Strikes" her heroine turns into a witch who swears allegiance to Lord Satanas.
"Lazarus" by Leonid Andreyev is a retelling of the miraculous return to life described in the scriptures. Lazarus returns house just after getting dead for 3 days and family members and buddies celebrate his resurrection. He's dressed grandly but his days in the grave left him with a bluish cast to his face and reddish cracks on his skin. His temper is changed as nicely. He's no longer cheerful and carefree and he's unwilling to go over the horrors he's noticed.
"The Flayed Hand" was written by Guy de Maupassant. A young student acquires a shriveled hand, severed at the wrist from a deceased sorcerer. He intends to use it as the deal with to his door-bell to frighten his creditors, but the owner desires it back.
The strength of this collection is in its diversity. It really is divided into 5 sections, every with stories that are different and chilling. Some of the stories are written in a dated style that might not appeal to readers who like additional modern literature. But the prose sets the mood and creates an atmosphere that invokes a sense of dread that is so excellent for this sort of story - the sort that tends to make your skin crawl. This is a book to be picked up and read more than and more than once more.
Publisher: Doubleday & Organization Inc. (Might 1985)
ISBN: 978-0385185493
Pages: 623
Table of Contents
Introduction by Marvin Kaye
Fiends and Creatures
Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker
The Professor's Teddy Bear by Theodore Sturgeon
Bubnoff and the Devil by Ivan Turgenev, English adaptation by Marvin Kaye
The Quest for Blank Calveringi by Patricia Highsmith
The Erl-King by Johann Wolfgang Von Goëthe, English adaptation by Marvin Kaye
The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Malady of Magicks by Craig Shaw Gardner
Lan Lung by M. Lucie Chin
The Dragon More than Hackensack by Richard L. Wexelblat
The Transformation by Mary W. Shelley
The Faceless Point by Edward D. Hoch
Lovers and Other Monsters
The Anchor by Jack Snow
When the Clock Strikes by Tanith Lee
Oshidori by Lafcadio Hearn
Carmilla by Sheriden LeFanu
Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory by Orson Scott Card
Lenore by Gottfried August Bürger, English adaptation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Black Wedding by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated by Martha Glicklich
Hop-Frog by Edgar Allan Poe
Sardonicus by Ray Russell
Graveyard Shift by Richard Matheson
Wake Not the Dead by Johann Ludwig Tieck
Evening and Silence by Maurice Level
Acts of God and Other Horrors
Flies by Isaac Asimov
The Evening Wire by H.F. Arnold
Final Respects by Dick Baldwin
The Pool of the Stone God by A. Merritt
A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor by Ogden Nash
The Tree by Dylan Thomas
Stroke of Mercy by Parke Godwin
Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev
The Beast Inside
The Waxwork by A.M. Burrage
The Silent Couple by Pierre Courtois, translated and adapted by Faith Lancereau and Marvin Kaye
Moon-Face by Jack London
Death in the College-Area by Walt Whitman
The Upturned Face by Stephen Crane
One Summer season Evening by Ambrose Bierce
The Easter Egg by H.H. Munro ("Saki")
The Household in Goblin Wood by John Dickson Carr
The Vengence of Nitocris by Tennessee Williams
The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew by Damon Runyon
His Unconquerable Enemy by W.C. Morrow
Rizpah by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Query by Stanley Ellin
Ghosts and Miscellaneous Nightmares
The Flayed Hand by Guy de Maupassant
The Hospice by Robert Aickman
The Christmas Banquet by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Hungry Property by Robert Bloch
The Demon of the Gibbet by Fitz-James O'Brien
The Owl by Anatole Le Braz, translated by Faith lancereau
No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince by Ralph Adams Cram
The Music of Erich Zann by H.P. Lovecraft
Riddles in the Dark (Original Version, 1938) by J.R.R. Tolkien
Afterword
Miscellaneous Notes
Chosen Bibliography
Gail Pruszkowski testimonials for "Romantic Instances BOOKreviews" magazine and her work has been published in the "Cup of Comfort" Anthologies.
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