Books I've Owned Since I was A Kid. Part 8.

[poliphilo]

This one really doesn't need explanation. The date of publication is 1960. The stories are a conservative choice of "classic" tales- some of them not in the least bit scary- but the illustrations, by Edward Pagram, are way cool. 





"...the face as of a man long drowned"  (Edward Bulwer Lytton: The Haunted and the Haunters)



"The abhorred phantom was before me there" (J. Sheridan Le Fanu: An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street)

Comments

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

That looks fun!!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It used to scare me silly.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Good old Herbert van Thal, king of the Pan Books of Horror Stories that we bad-assed kids grew up on alongside the New English Library skinhead/biker series. Even his name sounded sinister in that Mitteleuropäisch way.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a good name. Sounds like he should have been a fearless vampire slayer or something like that. Apparently he wore a monocle- and his friend James Agate likened him to a "sleek, well-groomed dormouse".

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Great illustratons! The "abhorred phantom" in the last plate looks like Catholic Cardinal all in red.
:D

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He's actually the ghost of an infamous 18th century "hanging judge".

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

That looks like a good book for a ten year old to read herself to sleep with - and have nightmares afterward!
I agree with you about the illustrations.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I must have been nine or ten when I got it- and can remember reading one of the stories aloud to my classmates.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

What scary illustrations! They would have given me nightmares at age 10.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I could hardly bear to look at them- and at the same time I loved them.

Joseph Sheridan LeFanu--you never forget a name like that...

[jorrocks-j.livejournal.com]

He wrote Carmilla, a succesful vampire novel published in 1872, well befoe Dracula. And he crops up in 1000 Years of Irish Poetry, of all places.

Re: Joseph Sheridan LeFanu--you never forget a name like that...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've read a few of his things. In fact I did a little project on him at university.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.