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)

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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.

Five Arkham House Classics Just Arrived

We just got in five new Arkham House classics from several of your favorite authors and just in time for the holidays.

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Thanks so much for supporting the small press and independent bookstores!

COLLECTED POEMS by H. P. Lovecraft (First Edition Hardcover)

Collected Poems is an illustrated collection of poems by H. P. Lovecraft. It was released in 1963 by Arkham House in an edition of 2,013 copies. The editor August Derleth, in his foreword, stated that the book contains the best of Lovecraft’s poetry.

Collected Poems contains the following poems:

•     “Foreword”, by August Derleth
•     “Providence”
•     “On a Grecian Colonnade in a Park”
•     “Old Christmas”
•     “New England Fallen”
•     “On a New England Village Seen by Moonlight”
•     “Astrophobos”
•     “Sunset”
•     “To Pan”
•     “A Summer Sunset and Evening”
•     “To Mistress Sophia Simple, Queen of the Cinema”
•     “A Year Off”
•     “Sir Thomas Tryout”
•     “Phaeton”
•     “August”
•     “Death”
•     “To the American Flag”
•     “To a Youth”
•     “My Favorite Character”
•     “To Templeton and Mount Monadnock”
•     “The Poe-et’s Nightmare”
•     “Lament for the Vanished Spider”
•     “Regnar Lodbrug’s Epicedium”
•     “Little Sam Perkins”
•     “Drinking Song from the Tomb”
•     “The Ancient Track”
•     “The Eidolon”
•     “The Nightmare Lake”
•     “The Outpost”
•     “The Rutted Road”
•     “The Wood”
•     “The House”
•     “The City”
•     “Hallowe’en in a Suburb”
•     “Primavera”
•     “October”
•     “To a Dreamer”
•     “Despair”
•     “Nemesis”
•     “Yule Horror”
•     “To Mr. Finlay, Upon His Drawing for Mr. Bloch’s Tale, ‘The Faceless God’”
•     “Where Once Poe Walked”
•     “Christmas Greetings to Mrs. Phillips Gamwell—1925″
•     “Brick Row”
•     “The Messenger”
•     “To Klarkash-ton, Lord of Averoigne”
•     “Psychopompos”
•     “The Book”
•     “Pursuit”
•     “The Key”
•     “Recognition”
•     “Homecoming”
•     “The Lamp”
•     “Zaman’s Hill”
•     “The Port”
•     “The Courtyard”
•     “The Pigeon-Flyers”
•     “The Well”
•     “The Howler”
•     “Hesperia”
•     “Star Winds”
•     “Antarkos”
•     “The Window”
•     “A Memory”
•     “The Gardens of Yin”
•     “The Bells”
•     “Night Gaunts”
•     “Nyarlathotep”
•     “Azathoth”
•     “Mirage”
•     “The Canal”
•     “St. Toad’s”
•     “The Familiars”
•     “The Elder Pharos”
•     “Expectancy”
•     “Nostalgia”
•     “Background”
•     “The Dweller”
•     “Alienation”
•     “Harbour Whistles”
•     “Recapture”
•     “Evening Star”
•     “Continuity”

The 36 poems from “The Book” through “Continuity” form a sequence of sonnets known as Fungi from Yuggoth.

This book is in near fine condition in a near fine dust jacket. Very light toning else fine

GENIUS LOCI AND OTHER TALES by Clark Ashton Smith (First Edition Hardcover)

Genius Loci and Other Tales is a collection of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories by author Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1948 and was the author’s third book published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 3,047 copies.

Genius Loci and Other Tales contains the following stories:

•     “Genius Loci”
•     “The Willow Landscape”
•     “The Ninth Skeleton”
•     “The Phantoms of the Fire”
•     “The Eternal World”
•     “Vulthoom”
•     “A Star-Change”
•     “The Primal City”
•     “The Disinterment of Venus”
•     “The Colossus of Ylourgne”
•     “The Satyr”
•     “The Garden of Adompha”
•     “The Charnel God”
•     “The Black Abbot of Puthuum”
•     “The Weaver in the Vault”

Book is in near fine condition with light rubbing to bottom front board and some very light toning else fine copy. This is a very nice copy of this tough title.

NINE HORRORS by Joseph Payne Brennan (First Edition Hardcover)

Nine Horrors and a Dream is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by author Joseph Payne Brennan. It was released in 1958 by Arkham House in an edition of 1,336 copies. It was the author’s first collection of stories to be published.

Nine Horrors and a Dream contains the following tales:

•     “Slime”
•     “Levitation”
•     “The Calamander Chest”
•     “Death in Peru”
•     “On the Elevator”
•     “The Green Parrot”
•     “Canavan’s Back Yard”
•     “I’m Murdering Mr. Massingham”
•     “The Hunt”
•     “The Mail for Juniper Hill”

This copy is in near fine condition in a near fine dust jacket. Light rubbing and toning due to edge else fine. This is an excellent copy.

TALES OF SCIENCE AND SORCERY by Clark Ashton Smith (First Edition Hardcover)

Tales of Science and Sorcery is a collection of stories by author Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 1964 and was the author’s fifth collection of stories published by Arkham House. It was released in an edition of 2,482 copies.

Contents:

Tales of Science and Sorcery contains the following stories:

•     “Clark Ashton Smith: A Memoir”, by E. Hoffmann Price
•     “Master of the Asteroid”
•     “The Seed from the Sepulchre”
•     “The Root of Ampoi”
•     “The Immortals of Mercury”
•     “Murder in the Fourth Dimension”
•     “Seedling of Mars” (after a plot by E.M. Johnson)
•     “The Maker of Gargoyles”
•     “The Great God Awto”
•     “Mother of Toads”
•     “The Tomb-Spawn”
•     “Schizoid Creator”
•     “Symposium of the Gorgon”
•     “The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles”
•     “Morthylla”

Book is in near fine condition in a near fine dust jacket. Book has sharp corners and only a touch on toning due to age else fine.

ROADS by Seabury Quinn (First Edition Hardcover)

Roads is a short novel by author Seabury Quinn. It was published by Arkham House in 1948 in an edition of 2,137 copies. It was Arkham House’s first illustrated book and the author’s first hardcover.

Roads is a Christmas story that traces the origins of Santa Claus from the beginning of the Christian era.

The story is split into three parts:

•     “The Road to Bethlehem”
•     “The Road to Calvary”
•     “The Long, Long Road”

Book is in near fine condition with some very light toning due to age and a gentle bump to one corner. Dust Jacket is in very good condition with rubbing to the black cover which is very common with this title. No tears or chips to the dust jacket.

The Ancient World of Fanzines

Long, long ago on a primitive planet teenagers went amok.  Fed by imagination and fueled by pulp paper and ink they formed little local clubs and passed Weird Tales and Hugo Gernsback scientifiction (later Sci-Fi and SF) back and forth between each other.  When a “pen pal” in a far off town couldn’t get the latest works of E Hoffmann Price, Seabury Quinn, Dr. David Keller, Ray Bradbury, Damon Knight, L Sprague deCamp, Isaac Asimov, or some other fantasy-horror-weird tale writer, they traded them or sold extra copies.

Not content to merely talk about it, or send a USPS letter about it (long distance!  too expensive!), they made their own “fanatic magazines”, or fanzines.  These were the rawest of raw by the most amateur of amateurs.  The art was drawn, and then hectographed (by gelatin plates) or sometimes a raid to the local high to use the mimeograph machine!

Crude?  You bet.  Fun?  Better than an Indie forum firefight.  In fact, fanzines invented the flame war.  One of the first practitioners of the flame war was a guy from Providence named Howard Lovecraft.  When “H P Lovecraft” wasn’t calling down astrologers in the newspapers, or ripping into Edgar Rice Burroughs for not portraying Mars correctly, he critiqued other people’s stories.  That is until he met a kid from California named Forest Ackerman.  Whew, was that something.  Later, along came cratchity Harlan Ellison, frenetic Ray Bradbury, and a boy from Florida whose name was almost as long as his state:  Linwood Vrooman Carter.

Those were days when amateurs drooled to be in the “prozines”, or *gasp* land a letter in the  PULPS!  A few rare dreamers thought they might one day live to have a short story published like their heroes Robert Bloch, August Derleth, or Robert Heinlein.  Darest they reach for the stars and think they might even get a BOOK  published?

Forest J Ackerman ‘zine from August 1942

Many youths between the years 1935 and 1975 learned their craft and landed contracts (such as Marion Zimmer and later Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire, Jr),  became critics or editors (Sam Moskowitz), or went on to write for radio, television, and movies (Arthur C Clarke is one example).  As they say, cream rises to the top.

Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of those fandom days is how 4SJ managed to sneak him risqué magazine covers through the USPS censors!  Hey, anything for the G. I. Josephs!

So the next time you visit an Indie horror forum and post there, think how hard that person is working to grow the genre.  Support Horror!  It may be down, but it ain’t over yet!