New and Interesting Titles This Week

Many of our titles are rare and hard to find. All are sold on a first come first serve basis. If you are interested in getting more information on a title just click on the cover art.

Only $5 shipping on any size order in the US and you get points on each purchase that can be used for future purchases.

We are always looking for books in Occult, Witchcraft, Ceremonial Magic, Rosicrucian, Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Kenneth Grant,  Lovecraftian, Weird Tales, etc. If you have books in these categories that you would like to sell or trade you can reach us at miskatonicbooks@me.com

 

AMBROSE BIERCE: MASTERS OF THE WEIRD TALES (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover) Preorder

 

 

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913?) was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and compiled a satirical lexicon, The Devil’s Dictionary. His style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, impossible events and the theme of war. In 1913, Bierce traveled to Mexico to gain first-hand experience of the Mexican Revolution. While traveling with rebel troops, he disappeared without a trace. This 560-page collection includes all of the best horror stories and Civil War stories, plus some other tales and sketches that are only rarely collected in book format. Jason Eckhardt has contributed twenty-four black and white drawings, and a stunning color frontispiece portrait of Bierce. The book also has a woodcut-style illustration of a raven sitting on top of a tattered Union flag stamped into the front cover. This is all the Bierce you need in one single, easy-to-read, gorgeously typeset volume that fits nicely with the other authors in the Masters of the Weird Tale series. The edition is limited t0 200 signed and numbered copies, and the book is signed by S.T. Joshi and Jason C. Eckhardt. Limited to 200 copies, each signed by S.T. Joshi and artist Jason C. Eckhardt. Introduction by S.T. Joshi. Bibliography of published stories. Slipcase, ribbon marker, head and tail bands, three-piece cloth construction.

 

ARCANUM BESTIARUM by Robert Fitzgerald (Limited Edition Hardcover)

Written in the great tradition of the medieval bestiaries, Robert Fitzgerald’s long-awaited new work Arcanum Bestiarum re-imagines the animal menagerie in the context of bestial mystery and atavistic power. Written for the modern magical practitioner and zoophile, the 272-page volume examines the occult virtues and totemic majesties of fifty animals, theriomorphs, and their kindred. Correspondences with deific powers, atavistic wisdom, and mythopoetic emanation are examined, especially in light of the tutelary powers all animals possess.   The Tetramorph – essentially an animalic ‘crown of creation’ – is here transformed into the far broader and innovative concept of the ‘Theriomorph’, or, the Zodiak Entire of Creation as an apotheosis of the animal form and zoötype… One of the greatest of virtues possessed by the Human is its bestial heritage, both spiritually and genetically. These attributes are often seen as primitive, chaotic and dangerous to civilized culture by the custodians of moralism and religion today, but the fact remains that it is our animal heritage that makes us what we are, or, more accurately, what we should and can be.   Special attention is given to the zoomorphic aspects of alchemy, which historically used the bestial emblemata as veils of the stages of the Great Work, as well as shamanism and witchcraft, bodies of knowledge particularly rich in the lore of animals as spirit-helpers. The work is an emergent strand of magical investigation long part of the author’s private life, where he has worked in the ecological field of wildlife rehabilitation, especially raptors.   The text is graced with fifty-five original woodcut illustrations by artist Liv Rainey-Smith, prepared especially for this title in close collaboration with the author. Amongst the more ambitious renderings in the work are the occult cryptofauna Homunculus, Manticore, Ouroboros, and Basilisk, as well as animals prominent in the ancient dawn of magick: the Bear, Goat, Viper, Peacock, and more. Completing the design elements is an original typeface designed for the work by calligrapher Gail Coppock, serving to illuminate this grimoire of the Magician’s Primal Eden.   The book is 248 pages, printed in two colour ink on heavy stock, and illustrated throughout. The book is available in two editions, limit one pre-order copy of each edition per customer. Limited to 1400 copies.

 

THE COMMENTARIES OF AL: The Equinox Vol. V, No. 1 by Aleister Crowley (First UK Edition Hardcover)

 

The Commentaries Of AL – Equinox Vol. V, No. 1. First UK Edition. This copy is in near mint condition, and comes with its original dust jacket. The dust jacket is intact, but has some very minor shelf wear else fine. This is a rare and sought after volume, and will make a very valuable addition to any Thelemic library, or a private collection. It includes both Aleister Crowley’s commentaries on Liber AL vel Legis (or The Book of the Law), as well as further commentaries by Marcelo Motta.

 

 

RETURN OF THE SORCERERS: Black Magic in the Modern World by Manly P. Hall (Chapbook)

 

Ancient man lived in a world of mystery, which resulted in a number of curious beliefs. The origins of magic (black, white and gray) are discussed, as well as the modern misinterpretations of ancient beliefs. ‘In the beginning human beings were isolated in an environment which they did not understand. They lived in a world of mystery and the combination of mysteries and imagination resulted in the rise of a number of curious beliefs. We also realize that these remote people, in trying to explain the nature of Deity, were only able to imagine God as a powerful chieftain — a cult hero, a venerable elder and to a great degree patterned after the living human heroes of the group under consideration. The gods of the Greeks and Romans were mighty kings and we have always had a tendency to create deities in our own image. We have assumed that all intelligence must be embodied and intelligence that impinges upon our experience must be embodied in a being of our kind. The moment we create such an embodiment, we bestow upon it not only our most noble ideals, but our most human and often delinquent tendencies. The deity of antiquity was an autocrat and ruled by the divine right of his own divinity, appointing his earthly representatives and bestowing upon them a divine right of kings. In these times also, strange fetish beliefs and mysterious factors in our social structure — taboos of all kinds — rose in primitive consciousness. It took many thousands of years for rulers to recognize that it was neither wise nor noble to bury their living followers with their own physical remains. Many a great ruler has been responsible for the killing of his entire court at the time or his own demise. These practices gradually faded away but only after thousands of years of what we might call mismanagement, cruelty, and savagery. Most of it in some way related to primitive religions, and we recognize in our background, and therefore to a large measure in our own subconscious life, that there are a number of moral dishonesties which have been deified or made to appear sacred. We have felt it perfectly right to persecute followers of other faiths, and in so doing were merely supporting our own deities and offering proper worship and homage. Even today in an entirely different environment, we find religious tolerance very difficult to maintain. We have made virtues out of many practices which have no essential merit, some of which are comparatively harmless, while others continue to be more or less menacing.’ (Manly P. Hall) Chapbook is in fine unread condition

 

THE SACRED MAGIC OF THE QABBALAH: The Science of the Divine Names by Manly P. Hall (Chapbook)

The Philosophical Research Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1934 for the purpose of assisting thoughtful persons to live more graciously and constructively in a confused and troubled world. The Society is entirely free from educational, political, or ecclesiastical control. Dedicated to an idealistic approach to the solution of human problems, the Society’s program stresses the need for the integration of religion, philosophy, and the science of psychology into one system of instruction. The goal of this instruction is to enable the individual to develop a mature philosophy of life, to recognize his proper responsibilities and opportunities, and to understand and appreciate his place in the unfolding universal pattern. Chapbook is in fine condition

 

ARTHUR MACHEN: MASTERS OF THE WEIRD TALES (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

The largest collection of Arthur Machen stories ever collected in one volume, including original artwork by Matthew Jaffe, a new introduction by T.E.D. Klein, and a new afterword by Caitlín R. Kiernan. Contents include The Great God Pan, the complete Three Imposters, The White People, and many more.. Bound in cloth with a full cloth slipcase. The edition is limited t0 200 signed and numbered copies, and the book is signed by T.E.D. Klein, Matthew Jaffe, and Caitlín R. Kiernan. One of only 200 signed and numbered hardcover copies in custom slipcase

 

THE STUFF OF DREAMS: THE WEIRD STORIES OF EDWARD LUCAS WHITE Edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

BACK IN STOCK and almost sold out!!!

 

Arcane Wisdom Press is proud to announce our latest project, The Stuff Of Dreams: The Weird Stories of Edward Lucas White, collected and edited with introduction by scholar S. T. Joshi. One of only 150 signed and numbered hardcover copies signed by the editor S. T. Joshi and acclaimed cover artist Alex McVey. (This is an advance order and is not expected to ship until December 2012) American writer Edward Lucas White (1866–1934) produced a memorable body of weird fiction in his two short story collections, The Song of the Sirens (1919) and Lukundoo and Other Stories (1927). The distinctive feature of these stories is that many of them were based on the author’s incredibly bizarre and detailed dreams. The classic story “Lukundoo” tells of a hideous curse inflicted by an African witch-doctor; “Amina” is the innovative tale of a female ghoul; “The Snout” hints loathsomely of a hybrid monster in an old manor house; and “The Song of the Sirens” tells of the latent horror behind the classic Greek myth of the half-bird, half-woman creatures known as the Sirens. These are only some of the potently macabre tales in this book, which shows Edward Lucas White to be a master of the weird tale whose work has been unavailable for too long. Contents: Introduction The House of the Nightmare The Flambeau Bracket Amina The Message on the Slate Lukundoo The Pig-skin Belt The Song of the Sirens The Picture Puzzle The Snout Sorcery Island Azrael The Ghoula Edward Lucas White on Dreams

 

 

New and interesting items at Miskatonic Books

ARTHUR MACHEN: MASTERS OF THE WEIRD TALES (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

 

The largest collection of Arthur Machen stories ever collected in one volume, including original artwork by Matthew Jaffe, a new introduction by T.E.D. Klein, and a new afterword by Caitlín R. Kiernan. Contents include The Great God Pan, the complete Three Imposters, The White People, and many more. A complete PDF of the contents is available on request. Bound in cloth with a full cloth slipcase. The edition is limited t0 200 signed and numbered copies, and the book is signed by T.E.D. Klein, Matthew Jaffe, and Caitlín R. Kiernan.

One of only 200 signed and numbered hardcover copies in custom slipcase

 

APOCALYPTIC WITCHCRAFT by Peter Grey (Limited Edition Hardcover) Import

The spectre of witchcraft is haunting the West, the dead giving up their secrets. This is a ritual unveiling of these mysteries. It is a vision and a revelation of the mytho-poetic structure of the Art.

Apocalyptic Witchcraft is a bold project which does not seek to impose an orthodoxy on what is the heresy of heresies. Instead, it suggests a way forward.

Apocalyptic Witchcraft gives a compelling and profound account of the Sabbat and Wild Hunt as living experiences. These are the core of our ritual practice. Dream, lunar and, critically, menstrual magic are explored as a path to this knowledge. The wolf, the Devil, and the Goddess of witchcraft are then encountered in a landscape that ultimately reveals the witch to her or himself. These are not separate threads, but arise from a deep mythic structure and are woven together into a single unifying vision. Alternating between polemic, poetic and ecstatic prose, an harmonious course is revealed in a sequence of elegant stratagems. The book is threaded together with a cycle of hymns to Inanna, pearls on the tapestry of night. Seemingly disparate aspects are joined into a vision which is neither afraid of blessing nor curse. This is a daring undertaking, born from both urgency and need. It offers a renewed sense of purpose and meaning for a witchcraft that has seen many of its treasured ideas about itself destroyed. An apocalyptic age demands an Apocalyptic Witchcraft, and this is a book which is offered up to revolutionise the body of the craft, a way out of the dark impasse.

Tradition is not static, it flows, and this work pours forth a vision for the future. Founded in pilgrimage and ritual, encountered in dreams and gleaned from the conversations of both doves and crows, a remarkable narrative unfolds. Its wings span from pre-history, through the witch-panic and it emerges fully fledged into our present moment of crisis. It offers a witchcraft for our time. Apocalyptic Witchcraft is a controversial, luminous text. A shuddering paroxysm of eternal renewal beneath the serpent moon.

It is neither a how-to book, nor a history, rather it is a magical vision of the Art in its entirety.

Of the Doves edition is an octavo book of 200pp bound in rough black linen cloth. Limited to 1000 copies. The boards are stamped with white doves, whose hidden meaning is elucidated in the text. Lyrical typography and carefully chosen images communicate further understanding.

Contents

Exordium
Apocalyptic Witchcraft
A Manifesto of Apocalyptic Witchcraft
She is Without
The Cup, the Cross and the Cave
A Spell to Awaken England
The Scaffold of Lightning
The Children that are Hidden Away
A Wolf sent Forth to Snatch away a Lamb
Fifteen
Hic Rhodus, Hic Salta!

HERALD OF THE HIDDEN by Mark Valentine (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover) Import

This title is an advance order and is due in early April. Reserve your copy now.

What is the secret of the house of days? Who are the shadowy figures gathered along an old green road? What is the winged thing seen flitting from an ancient church?

Herald of the Hidden collects ten adventures of the occult detective Ralph Tyler, inspired by William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence, and Arthur Machen’s Mr Dyson of The Three Impostors.

But Ralph Tyler is different. He is without private means, or any special esoteric knowledge. Sometimes he doesn’t play fair with his clients or his friend, the narrator. He smokes foul cigarettes, slumps in his chair, and wears a threadbare jacket. And he’s from an obscure shire in the darkest heart of England . . .
Mark Valentine’s Ralph Tyler stories first appeared in hard-to-find small press publications. Three of the stories in this volume are previously unpublished, including two newly written for this collection. Along with six further supernatural tales, all the stories are previously uncollected in book form.

Herald of the Hidden is a sewn hardback of 230+ vii pages, printed lithographically, with silk ribbon marker, head and tailbands, and d/w.

Contents: ‘Introduction’. Ralph Tyler Stories: ‘St Michael & All Angels’, ‘The Folly’, ‘Madberry Hill’, ‘The Ash Track’, ‘The Grave of Anir’, ‘William Sorrell Requests’, ‘The Hermit’s House’, ‘Herald of the Hidden’, ‘Heritage of Fire’, ‘The Almanac’. Other Early Stories: ‘The Guardians of the Guest Room’, ‘Go to the West’, ‘Tree Worship’, ‘Twilight at Little Brydon Cricket Club’, ‘Woken by Candlelight’, ‘Their Special Glee’. ‘Acknowledgements.’

Signed, numbered edition limited to 400 copies.

STAR KITES by Mark Valentine (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover) Import

This title is an advance order and is due in early April. Reserve your copy now.

Mark Valentine’s first collection of poems draws on the sources that have inspired his acclaimed short stories—oneiric and otherworldly, and inexplicably beautiful. The poems evoke half-lit figures and images, seen in smoke, shadow, sun-haze and stone, and moments when the visible world does not quite cohere. Valentine writes of spells, oracles, myths and the fragility of memory.

Also offered are versions of poems by previously unheard European voices, including the Italian twilight poet Sergio Corazzini; the early mystical work of Ernst Stadler, a young, cosmopolitan poet killed in the Great war near Ypres; an Imagist homage to the Armenian poet and reformer Madame Sibyl; and a poem of Autumn by Ludmila Jevsejeva, exiled for her work in Esperanto.

Mark Valentine’s poems have appeared in Smoke, Sepia, Amoeba, The Fool, Mandragora and other journals and anthologies.

Star Kites is a sewn hardback of 64 pages, printed lithographically, with silk ribbon marker, head and tailbands, and d/w.

Signed, numbered edition limited to 250 copies.

The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe by Lynn Thorndike (Limited Edition Hardcover)

One of only 250 numbered hardcover copies. Book is in fine condition.

Originally published in 1905, this work, after a manner, is an outline for Lynn Thorndike’s later monumental magnum opus, the eight volume set of the History of Magic and Experimental Science.

I offer this work largely on the value of Lynn Thorndike’s gargantuan stature amongst scholars of Magick and original thinking. I’ve contributed the new typesetting and a fine leather binding of a limited ARS OBSCURA Press edition.

This work is first and foremost a historical primer. From the Classical to the Medieval eras, the history of Magick is explored through the works and the personages of these periods. Primary source material is laid clear that comprises the primary signposts of this lineage. These being the likes of Pliny and his Natural History, to Pythagoras, Aristotle, Cato, Boswell, Galen, Seneca and Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, to name a few. Mr. Thorndike provides a thorough groundwork. The eclipse of Magick by science and yet the ageless persistence of Magickal inclinations brings the gravity to the issues of the scientific questions of Magick’s evolution. In keeping with the scholar tradition there are copious Latin and Greek footnotes throughout.

 

THE GHOST OF FEAR and OTHERS Edited by S. T. Joshi Now In Stock and Shipping!

THE GHOST OF FEAR AND OTHERS: H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Hardcover)

Click on the dust jacket art below for ordering information

H. P. Lovecraft was a voracious reader of supernatural and fantastic fiction, and he was continually on the hunt for powerful and stimulating works in these genres. Many of the stories he read directly influenced his own writings. This first volume of H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories presents 16 stories that Lovecraft found to be of particular merit. Among them are the beautiful poetic fantasy “Idle Days on the Yann” by Lord Dunsany; Fiona Macleod’s grimly evocative “The Sin-Eater,” which influenced “The Rats in the Walls”; Arthur Machen’s grisly novelette “Novel of the White Powder,” which Lovecraft adapted for “Cool Air”; and M. P. Shiel’s “The House of Sounds,” which Lovecraft ranked among the greatest weird tales ever written. Also included are hard-to-find stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, E. F. Benson, Théophile Gautier, John Buchan, and others, as well as two stories from the legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales (Seabury Quinn’s “The Phantom Farmhouse” and Arthur J. Burks’s “Bells of Oceana”). The volume contains an introduction by S. T. Joshi as well as notes on the individual stories, giving background on the authors as well as on Lovecraft’s appreciation of the tales and their possible influence on his work.

 

Contents:

• Introduction by S. T. Joshi
• Idle Days on the Yann by Lord Dunsany
• Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Man Who Went Too Far by E. F. Benson
• The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sin-Eater by Fiona Macleod
• The House of Sounds by M. P. Shiel
• The Phantom Farmhouse by Seabury Quinn
• One of Cleopatra’s Nights by Théophile Gautier
• The Stranger from Kurdistan by E. Hoffmann Price
• The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe
• Novel of the White Powder by Arthur Machen
• The Dead Smile by F. Marion Crawford
• The Ghost of Fear by H. G. Wells
• Lukundoo by Edward Lucas White
• Bells of Oceana by Arthur J. Burks
• The Wind in the Portico by John Buchan

This is a signed limited edition hardcover of only 150 signed and numbered copies.

Just Arrived and Shipping

Just click on the cover art to get more information about reserving your copy of any of the books below.

We recently received the new two volume set of CENTURY’S BEST HORROR FICTION edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. This has been over a decade in the making and is one of the most anticipated books of the year. If you haven’t reserved your copy do so quickly as we don’t expect these to last long.

About the Books:
Cemetery Dance Publications commissioned a spectacular two-volume anthology project under the editorship of noted author and historian of the horror genre, John Pelan.

John selected one story published during each year of the 20th Century (1901-2000) as the most notable story of that year — all 100 stories were then collected in this amazing two volume set to be published as The Century’s Best Horror Fiction.

The ground rules were simple: Only one selection per author. Only one selection per year.

Two huge volumes, one hundred authors, one hundred classic stories, more than 700,000 words of fiction — history in the making!

Trade Edition hardcovers bound in full-cloth and Smyth sewn with a full color dust jacket — two deluxe volumes

Table of Contents
1901: Barry Pain — The Undying Thing
1902: W.W. Jacobs — The Monkey’s Paw
1903: H.G.Wells — The Valley of the Spiders
1904: Arthur Machen — The White People
1905: R. Murray Gilchrist — The Lover’s Ordeal
1906: Edward Lucas White — House of the Nightmare
1907: Algernon Blackwood — The Willows
1908: Perceval Landon — Thurnley Abbey
1909: Violet Hunt — The Coach
1910: Wm Hope Hodgson — The Whistling Room
1911: M.R. James — Casting the Runes
1912: E.F. Benson — Caterpillars
1913: Aleister Crowley — The Testament of Magdelan Blair
1914: M. P. Shiel — The Place of Pain
1915: Hanns Heinz Ewers — The Spider
1916: Lord Dunsany — Thirteen at Table
1917: Frederick Stuart Greene — The Black Pool
1918: H. De Vere Stacpoole — The Middle Bedroom
1919: Ulric Daubeny — The Sumach
1920: Maurice Level — In the Light of the Red Lamp
1921: Vincent O’Sullivan — Master of Fallen Years
1922: Walter de la Mare — Seaton’s Aunt
1923: George Allen England — The Thing From—”Outside”
1924: C.M. Eddy, Jr. — The Loved Dead
1925: John Metcalfe — The Smoking Leg
1926: H.P. Lovecraft — The Outsider
1927: Donald Wandrei — The Red Brain
1928: H.R. Wakefield — The Red Lodge
1929: Eleanor Scott — Celui-La
1930: Rosalie Muspratt — Spirit of Stonhenge
1931: Henry S. Whitehead — Cassius
1932: David H. Keller — The Thing in the Cellar
1933: C.L. Moore — Shambleau
1934: L.A. Lewis — The Tower of Moab
1935: Clark Ashton Smith — The Dark Eidolon
1936: Thorp McCluskey — The Crawling Horror
1937: Howard Wandrei — The Eerie Mr Murphy
1938: Robert E. Howard — Pigeons from Hell
1939: Robert Barbour Johnson — Far Below
1940: John Collier — Evening Primrose
1941: C.M. Kornbluth — The Words of Guru
1942: Jane Rice — The Idol of the Flies
1943: Anthony Boucher — They Bite
1944: Ray Bradbury — The Jar
1945: August Derleth — Carousel
1946: Manly Wade Wellman — Shonokin Town
1947: Theodore Sturgeon — Bianca’s Hands
1948: Shirley Jackson — The Lottery
1949: Nigel Kneale — The Pond
1950: Richard Matheson — Born of Man & Woman
1951: Russell Kirk — Uncle Isiah
1952: Eric Frank Russell — I Am Nothing
1953: Robert Sheckley — The Altar
1954: Everil Worrell — Call Not Their Names
1955: Robert Aickman — Ringing the Changes
1956: Richard Wilson — Lonely Road
1957: Clifford Simak — Founding Father
1958: Robert Bloch — That Hell-Bound Train
1959: Charles Beaumont — The Howling Man
1960: Fredric Brown — The House
1961: Ray Russell — Sardonicus
1962: Carl Jacobi — The Aquarium
1963: Robert Arthur — The Mirror of Cagliostro
1964: Charles Birkin — A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
1965: Jean Ray — The Shadowy Street
1966: Arthur Porges — The Mirror
1967: Norman Spinrad — Carcinoma Angels
1968: Anna Hunger — Come
1969: Steffan Aletti — The Last Work of Pietro Apono
1970: David A. Riley — The Lurkers in the Abyss
1971: Dorothy K. Haynes — The Derelict Track
1972: Gary Brandner — The Price of a Demon
1973: Eddy C. Bertin — Like Two White Spiders
1974: Karl Edward Wagner — Sticks
1975: David Drake — The Barrow Troll
1976: Dennis Etchison — It Only Comes Out at Night
1977: Barry N. Malzberg — The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady
1978: Michael Bishop — Within the Walls of Tyre
1979: Ramsey Campbell — Mackintosh Willy
1980: Michael Shea — The Autopsy
1981: Stephen King — The Reach
1982: Fritz Leiber — Horrible Imagings
1983: David Schow — One for the Horrors
1984: Bob Leman — The Unhappy Pilgrimage of Clifford M.
1985: Michael Reaves — The Night People
1986: Tim Powers — Night Moves
1987: Ian Watson — Evil Water
1988: Joe R. Lansdale — The Night They Missed the Horror Show
1989: Joel Lane — The Earth Wire
1990: Elizabeth Massie — Stephen
1991: Thomas Ligotti — The Glamour
1992: Poppy Z. Brite — Calcutta Lord of Nerves
1993: Lucy Taylor — The Family Underwater
1994: Jack Ketchum — The Box
1995: Terry Lamsley — The Toddler
1996: Caitlín R. Kiernan — Tears Seven Times Salt
1997: Stephen Laws — The Crawl
1998: Brian Hodge — As Above, So Below
1999: Glen Hirshberg — Mr. Dark’s Carnival
2000: Tim Lebbon — Reconstructing Amy

We’ve also just receive some very collectable editions for your genre library.

a beautiful copy of SESQUA VALLEY AND OTHERS by W. H. Pugmire signed limited edition hardcover.

A very rare signed limited edition of Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts by W. H. Pugmire

This is one of only 250 signed and numbered hardcover limited editions.  Book is in fine condition in a fine dust jacket

Contents:

• O, Christmas Tree
• The Ones Who Bow Before Me
• Born In Strange Shadow
• Another Flesh
• Immortal Remains
• Selene
• The Darkest Star
• The Songs of Sesqua Valley
• The Heritage of Hunger
• The Imp of Aether
• The Million-Shadow One
• The Child of Dark Mania
• The Hands That Reek and Smoke
• The Host of Haunted Air
• The Woven Offspring
• The Place of Old Insanity
• The Zanies of Sorrow
• Beneath An Autumn Moon

THE INHABITANT OF THE LAKE & LESS WELCOME TENANTS by Ramsey Campbell (First Edition Hardcover)

The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by British author J. Ramsey Campbell, who dropped the initial from his name in subsequent publications. It was released in 1964 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,009 copies and was the author’s first book. The stories are part of the Cthulhu Mythos. Campbell had originally written his introduction to be included in the book The Dark Brotherhood and Other Pieces under the title “Cthulhu in Britain”. However, Arkham’s editor, August Derleth, decided to use it here.

The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants contains the following tales:

•     “A Word From the Author”
•     “The Room in the Castle”
•     “The Horror from the Bridge”
•     “The Insects from Shaggai”
•     “The Render of the Veils”
•     “The Inhabitant of the Lake”
•     “The Plain of Sound”
•     “The Return of the Witch”
•     “The Mine on Yuggoth”
•     “The Will of Stanley Brooke”
•     “The Moon-Lens”

References in popular culture

The band Iron Maiden’s song Still Life ( from the classic 1983 album Piece of Mind ) was inspired by the story The Inhabitant of the Lake. The lyrics deal with a man who sees spirits or beings in the lake and becomes obsessed with them. After many nightmares and visions of the images in the water, he eventually becomes insane and ultimately jumps into the pool with his female companion. The lyrics end with the ominous verse ” Oh,we’ll drown together. It, will be forever. Nightmares…forever calling me. Nightmares…now we rest in peace”, so the listener can safely assume the person has killed himself, as well the female.

FEAR ITSELF:THE HORROR FICTION OF STEPHEN KING with Stephen King, Peter Straub and more (Signed)!

A fascinating examination of King’s early novels (Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Stand, Firestarter, Cujo and The Dark Tower) and short stories. Contributors include Peter Straub, Burton Hatlan (King’s former English professor), Fritz Leiber, Alan Ryan, Deborah Notkin, Don Herron, and others.

This copy is inscribed, signed and dated to the owner of the book by both Stephen King and Chuck Miller  Date signed is 10/30/82

5000 copies of the first edition were printed and very few were inscribed by Stephen King. A true rarity!

This copy is in near fine condition in a near fine dust jacket.

Interview with a Book Collector: Mark Valentine

I would like to thank Ray Russell of Tartarus Press for bringing this video to my attention.

We have several Mark Valentine books in stock at Miskatonic Books. Just click on the book cover below to see our list of titles.

In the video, Mark Valentine discusses the following writers: Arthur Machen, Walter de la Mare, Lord Dunsany, M.P. Shiel, William Gerhardie, R. Austin Freeman, William Hope Hodgson, Algernon Blackwood, Hubert Crackanthorpe, H.A. Manhood, Claude Houghton, E.E. Dorling, David Lindsay, Ronald Fraser, Park Barnitz, Norman Boothroyd, Francis Brett Young, Sarban, W.F. Morris, Denton Welch, Oliver Onions, Eric Lyall, Peter Vansittart, J.C. Snaith, Mary Butts, Frank Baker and Phyllis Paul. He ends with a discussion of the classic “British Rainfall, 1910″.

Mark Valentine is an English author, biographer, editor and book collector.

His short stories have been published by a number of small presses and in anthologies since the 1980s, and the exploits of his series character, “The Connoisseur”, an occult detective, were published as The Collected Connoisseur in 2010. As a biographer, Valentine has published a life of Arthur Machen, and a study of Sarban. He has also written numerous articles for the Book and Magazine Collector magazine, and introductions for various books, including editions of work by Walter de la Mare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Saki, J. Meade Falkner and others.

Valentine also edits Wormwood, a journal dedicated to fantastic, supernatural and decadent literature, and has also edited anthologies.

The cat that appears in the video is called Percy

 

The Rhombic Side of Horror

“We shall go on seeking it to the end, so long as there are men on earth. We shall seek it in all manner of strange ways; some of them wise, and some of them unutterably foolish. But the search will never end.

“It”? “It” is the secret of things; the real truth that is everywhere hidden under outward appearances. There are many ways of the great quest of the secret.”

- “Far Off Things”, Arthur Machen

Why Horror? Why is it important to us as a human species? Each and every day we read a news article that befuddles us. Somewhere in a distant place terrible things happen to innocent people. From time to time, these same things happen to us and it becomes very personal. In the blink of an eye, we could get attacked by an animal, become stricken by paralysis from a car accident or a disease, become financially destitute from cancer, or even the victim of random serial violence.

How do we deal with our world turning upside down? We read horror fantasy fiction. By immersing us into the perils of a protagonist, it diffuses the psychic stresses of our lives. In some cases with the very best writers or visual artists, our serotonin levels soar.

Along the way we also learn things. It is very unlikely that an Edward Lee demon will actually violate our persons, but that isn’t the point. Horror is an abstraction of life. Every day in small ways, and too often in big ways, we have our personal lives violated by the crudities of life. We get fired, our bank account dips to zero, bill collectors hound us and tell us we are bad people because they are good at their psychological warfare and we miscalculated how far our meager salaries would stretch. On very bad days, warped individuals do very bad things to us and ruin our days – or our lives.

These are the stories told on large canvases in hyperbolic language. The short stories, movies, and novels of horror help us deconstruct the everyday terrors and allows us to deal with them.

Horror writing is not easy. Societal norms have to be purposely stretched ad absurdum so that our myths may be shattered. That zombie who is eating you in the novel may be your prejudices showing about your neighbors who look different and have odd beliefs and dress funny. The vampire sucking your blood may represent cancer eating you, AIDS, or even your sexual anxiety. Horror is one of the most personal forms of fantasy fiction we read, and when it is personal it is important to our lives.

Don’t be afraid of horror, embrace it. Also don’t be afraid that horror will disappear. It is only lurking beneath the surface, and soon – very soon – it will reappear in a startling and unpredictable new form.