Customer Reviews

Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural: A Treasury of Spellbinding Tales Old and New

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The words I am about to write will not do justice to this anthology. If you are a fan of horror short stories, get this before you get anything else. None of the stories are bad, and many are terrfying and unforgettable. Theodore Sturgeon's "The Professor's Teddy Bear" is unique, grotesque, and it will stick with you for months. "His Unconquerable Enemy" has a gripping climax that will amaze you. "The Bottle Imp" is a grand tale of treachery, pain, and sacrifice. "Hop-Frog" is a Poe selection that is every bit as brilliant as his more famous works, and in traditional Poe fashion it is a tale of revenge. I could go on about every story in here but instead I will just very strongly recommend this to all fans of horror literature.

This is an absolute treasure! Stoker, Lovecraft, Poe, Shelley, Asimov, Bierce, Tolkien are all here. You'll also find Richard Matheson, Tanith Lee, Sheridan LeFanu, Orson Scott Card (with one of the most disturbing, chilling tales I've ever read), Ogden Nash, Tennessee Williams, Jack London, Walt Whitman (is this high-school english class! ), Robert Bloch and more. Each selection comes with a little background note providing some info about the author, history about that particular story and recommendations for other related readings. This collection is fantastic; it doesn't disappoint. English class would have been infinitely more interesting with this kind of reading!

"Masterpieces" is correct. This book is hard to put down. Usually when reading a collection gathered on a mutual theme, the mind of the reader eventually numbs from the sameness of the stories. Not so with this anthology. Each story is unique, unpredictable, and well written. I enjoyed it greatly. I give it the highest praise possible here--5 stars.

This book was published in 1985. It contained 53 works by as many writers. There were 47 short stories and 6 poems.

The editor said his basis for selection was stories that gave his jaded spine a chill. He tried to focus on the psychology of terror, the "cosmic fear of the unknown," rather than the gory and repugnant; on stories with an "icy insight into human nature," rather than blood. He avoided any tale that had been anthologized too often.

The pieces ranged from the 1770s to the 1980s, covering virtually every decade. Two-thirds of the works were from the 20th century. More than half of the writers were from the United States, with the rest from Great Britain, Ireland, Russia, France and Germany. The earliest writers included both those well known (Goethe, Mary Shelley, Hawthorne, Poe, Tennyson, Turgenev, Whitman), and lesser known (Bürger, Tieck, Courtois, Hearn).

From the 20th and late 19th centuries, there were contributions by prominent writers who wrote often on terror or the macabre (LeFanu, Bierce, Stoker, Maupassant, Stevenson, Saki, Crane, London, Lovecraft, Bloch, Sturgeon, Highsmith, Matheson) and prominent ones who didn't (Andreyev, Runyon, Tolkien, Ogden Nash, I. B. Singer, Tennessee Williams, Dylan Thomas, Asimov); most of the tales from the latter were hardly spine-chilling. Lesser-known writers for this period included W. C. Morrow, Ralph Adams Cram, Abraham Merritt, H. F. Arnold, John Dickson Carr, Jack Snow, Stanley Ellin, Ray Russell and Parke Godwin from the United States, A. M. Burrage and Robert Aickman from England, and Anatole Le Braz and Maurice Level from France.

There were also a number of younger authors, many of whose works have appeared in various collections of horror or fantasy tales (Edward Hoch, Lucie Chin, Craig Gardner, Tanith Lee and Orson Card).

The editor's choices were eclectic. A tenth of the book's pages was given to one story, Sheridan LeFanu's "Carmilla" (1872), the most important vampire tale in English before Dracula. What many critics consider to be a deleted early chapter from Dracula, "Dracula's Guest," was also included. There were works that read like folk legends, Gothic tales, classic horror stories, works closer to the fantasy and detective genres, and pieces drawn from Weird Tales magazine.

Enjoyed most were the story by LeFanu, which described one girl's infatuation for another, ended in a haunting way, and was interesting also for what it suggested about gender, class and an Anglophile's view of Central Europe. Highsmith's story, which depicted coldly the ironic fate of an arrogant man. London's, written from the point of view of an evil man. And Burrage's, which showed well the psychology of a man with a nervous imagination.

Other memorable pieces included Orson Card's story about a manipulative man's nightmare. Parke Godwin's tale, which took place in several eras at once, showing people's gradual loss of individuality and responsibility, which would end in a holocaust. The open-ended story by Robert Aickman, which combined realistic surface description with utter ambiguity about what the main character was really experiencing. And Tanith Lee's dark version of the Cinderella tale.

For writers like Bierce, Maupassant and Bloch, one wondered whether better works by them could've been included. Least interesting of all the stories by far were the contemporary fantasy/SF writers, some "comic" interludes and a dated detective story. For this reader, these were less than masterpieces.

Two of the best things about the anthology were the editor's sense of history and his inclusion of writers from other languages besides English. Other suitable candidates for selection could've included Pushkin, Gogol, Garshin, Kuprin, Bryusov, Grin, Merimée, Gautier, Hoffmann, Strobl, Kafka, Heym and Lind. For writers in English, Irving, Twain, Paul Bowles, Fritz Leiber, Shirley Jackson, Bill Pronzini, John Collier, Gerald Kersh, William Sansom, E. C. Tubb and Angela Carter. The editor must've avoided M. R. James, W. W. Jacobs and Lord Dunsany because their stories have so often been anthologized elsewhere.

I picked this book up at the thrift store for about thirty-five cents, expecting the usual collection of stories that I have probably read countless times before in other anthologies.While it did have the requisite Poe and Lovecraft, I was pleasantly surprised by the offbeat and rare pieces of work this book offered. Some standouts include "Graveyard Shift" by Richard Matheson (immeasurably better than the King story of the same name, "The Night Wire" by H.F. Arnold, and Orson Scott Card's "Eumenides In The Fourth Floor Lavatory". The roster also includes such authors as Dylan Thomas, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Theodore Sturgeon. All in all, a good collection with more than a few surprises.

I have to tell you, this is a book I can read annually. I first discovered this book on my Grandmother's bookshelf when I was 13 and fell in love. Now, while some of the stories quite obviously went over my head at the time, I still "got" most of the stories. When they say Masterpieces in the title, they truly meant it. These stories will chill you. I really loved Asimov, which is a quick story but one of complete dread. I couldn't sleep, it had a deep affect on me at that young age and still does. I just read the book again after 13 years and it is still great. Do yourself a favor and get this book.

I read this book when I was a teenager, and it has log stood as the basis by which I compare all horror story collections. Not one has been able to compare. I still tell people of the story of the Professor's Teddy Bear, still recall the vibrant image of the Orang-U-Tangs and the missing chapter between Bilbo and Gollem. If someone finds a collection as great as this, I pray I can come across it to enjoy someday, as well.

As a teen I loved to sit in a dark, old library and take out this book on a chilly fall evening. Kaye has selected some of the best-loved and best-written pieces that have been carefully crafted and stood the test of time. Now, as an adult, I can still read these stories and feel a shiver. Sadly, the covers illustrator Edward Gorey (1925-2000), an author himself, is no longer with us. Yet his frightfully appropriate illustrated cover sets just the right mood each time you pick up the book. A great collection for old and new readers alike. ~S. Matthew "Mort" Aod

This is a wonderful book to read and become aware of other entities and creatures that live with us. As with, "The Faceless Thing", the writer found what it is like to be old. The book has the stories listed in their unique type of terror. For example, "Fiends and Creatures", "Lovers and other Monsters", "Ghosts and Miscellaneous Nightmares", to name just a few. So, turn the lights down, set by the fireplace, have a brandy and read this masterpiece of terror.

warrenpls