Customer Reviews

Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural

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I came upon this wonderful tome of stories accidentally while searching for a short story by John Collier, just one of the authors included of the seventeen, entitled "Thus I Refute Beelzy," a story that shows that a child's imagination can be a scary, evil place. The tales are remarkably eerie and marvellously unique in their approach to not only ghosts but to the shared demons of all humanity, which are all too close to the mark. In this lovely marriage of American and English supernaturalism, not only are readers treated to tales by masters such as H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Manly Wade Wellman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Montegue Rhodes James, among others, but also to the pithy introductions of the tales by accomplished editor Henry Mazzeo and troubling images from the magical, evil pen of the late, great Edward Gorey. You needn't be a die-hard fan of the genre of spooks and bumps-in-the-night to appreciate Hauntings, just a lover of language, an admirer of the craft of fiction, and a guest of this planet so replete with anger, dismay, despair, longing, and insecurity. The tales Mazzeo has so expertly selected pluck the aforementioned life-experiences like the strings of a lute and the resonation is nothing short of haunting.

I found this book in my grandparents house as a child in the 70's and read it so many times the pages were torn. i actually memorized "The Lonesome PLace" ... "you who sit in your houses of nights, " ... I still remember how it starts... I will guy another copy.

In this book you will recognize the narrative origins of Stephen King's "It" and the conceptual framework of "The Blair Witch Project." Enjoy these originals -- they are concise, unburdened by side-plots, and pure in the creepy feelings they inspire.

For me, this is still one of the best anthologies of supernatural stories I've ever read. Published in the 1960s, it's a solid mix of remarkably intense Victorian authors & more contemporary authors, with the emphasis on atmosphere rather than gratuitous gore. And it's a powerful atmosphere, drawing upon the darkest places of the psyche, invoking almost primal fears.

For example, "The Red Lodge" remains one of the creepiest haunted house stories written. It creates such a pervasive tone of outright nastiness & evil that it still makes me uncomfortable. And "The Gray Ones" works both as a story about The Silently Invading Other & as social commentary. In fact, many of these stories have a psychological component that provides food for thought along with effective chills. So "The Lonesome Place" delves into the nature of a child's terrified imagination, while "Thus I Refute Beelzy" takes a rather different look at the power of a child's worldview.

While many of these stories can also be found in other anthologies, this one has the added delight of illustrations by Edward Gorey. His combination of dark humor & subtly queasy uneasiness is the perfect complement to these well-chosen tales. If you're looking for genuinely frightening stories of high literary quality, you won't do better than this collection. While sadly out of print, it's well worth the seeking -- and very much in need of reprinting!

This book scared me so much as a little kid that I threw it out. Finlly after many years I have managed to get another copy. The story in there that will really make you wet your bed is called Levitation. I wont tell you what its about, all il say is that it will make you think twice before volenteering at any magic shows again. So if you find a copy hold on to it.

I read this book when I was a teenager and it delivered major chills. The artwork by Gory was stunning and the stories very creepy and spell binding. I still vividly remember several of the tales. It is the just the right combination of good art and stories.

This collection of horror stories from some of the masters of early/mid 20th century horror and some from the late 19th century (August Derleth, H. G. Wells, H. P. Lovecraft, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and none other than the author of "Psycho", Robert Bloch) was a favorite of mine as a child, some 40 years ago. The drawings by Edward Gorey just added to the utter darkness of the whole collection.

Yet the darkness is real, and you have no idea what's around the corner or under the sheet or up the stairs or in the back of the darkened room. These aren't scare you silly or blood and gore stories, these are stories that just SCARE you!

My favorite story amongst them is "Thus I Refute Beelzy", where the little boy has made friends with Beelzebub, and when his overbearing father keeps poo-poo-ing the idea, he is destroyed, leaving just a "...shoe, with the man's foot still in it, like that morsel of a mouse which sometimes falls unnoticed from the side of the jaws of the cat."

Great stuff. This is what horror is all about. Not what you CAN see or hear, but what you CANNOT see or hear, yet know it is there.

_Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural_ (1968) is an anthology of 17 spooky stories edited by Henry Mazzeo. The dust jacket and interior illustrations are by Edward Gorey, and the overall flavor is very old-fashioned. You won't find tales by Theodore Stugeon, Fritz Leiber, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester del Rey, Shirley Jackson, or Stephen King in these pages. Rather, you will find stories by Henry James, M.R. James, Mrs. Oliphant, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, and Robert Aickman. Mind you, the stories are consistently good. But they are in the old Gothic tradition rather than the modern _Unknown_ tradition. It is true that one story-- Manly Wade Wellman's "Where Angels Fear"-- was published in the first issue of _Unknown_. But it is really more of a _Weird Tales_ type of haunted house story than it is a Campbellian fantasy.

There is one story that is arguably a spoof-- Robert Bloch's "The Man Who Collected Poe". If you haven't read it, I'm betting that Bloch will manage to stay several jumps ahead of you. All of the other stories are played straight. It would not be correct to say that they are all humorless; but when humor is present, it runs beneath the surface of things. It tends to be subtle, ironic, or biting.

I will start with stories that I had read many times over in other collections, anthologies, or even in magazines. They included the Wellman and the Bloch, H.P. Lovecraft's "In the Vault," Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Lot No. 249," M.R. James' "The Haunted Doll House," John Collier's "Thus I Refute Beelzy," and Joseph Payne Brennan's "Levitation". The Wellman and the Lovecraft strike me as competently written but routine pieces. The Brennan is somewhat predictable but still effectively chilling at the end. The others are all first-class stories that deserve frequent reprinting.

Stories that I read for the first time in this anthology (though I had heard of some of them before) include: Mrs. Oliphant's "The Open Door," Henry James' "The Ghostly Rental," William Hope Hodgson's "The Whistling Room" (a Carnacki, Ghost-Finder story), H. Russell Wakefield's "The Red Lodge," August Derleth's "The Lonesome Place," J.B. Priestley's "The Grey Ones," H.G. Wells' "The Stolen Body," Robert Aickman's "The Visiting Star," and Alfred Noye's "Midnight Express".

All of these stories yield certain pleasures. But two of them-- the Henry James and the Aickman-- are outstanding. The haunt in the James story is made all the more real by the complexity of the characters and the vivid description of the Cambridge countryside. Modern readers may be puzzled by passing references to William Ellery Channing, the nineteenth century Unitarian minister, or to E.T.A. Hoffmann, the great German fantasy writer. Mazzeo gives editorial explanations for some (but not all) of these allusions. No matter. The story stands on its own two feet.

As for the Aickman, you might say that it is not so much about a haunt as it is about someone who is haunted. Once again, the setting-- a theater in an isolated coal mining town-- is carefully drawn and aids in the story's impact. For my money, James and Aickman were two of the best ghost story writers, ever. These stories are worth the price of the book and then some.

Mazzeo says that the stories in his anthology "have the timelessness of the Gothic castle-- the castle of Elsinore, Otranto, Udopho, Dracula, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Franz Kafka. There are subterranean passages connecting all of them" (11). It's a fair assessment. This book is well worth your attention.