Masterpieces of Horror and the Supernatural: A Treasury of Fascinating Tales Old and New

I get goosebumps thinking about some of the stories in this collection. It’s a Feast for Any Horror Fan: Forty-seven Short Stories and Six Poems Selected by Marvin Kaye with Saralee Kaye. Selections focus on psychological horror rather than blood and gore. As Kaye says in her introduction: “Any story that sent a shiver down my spine seemed to present the proper credentials for membership in the club.” These aren’t the best-known horror stories that appear over and over again in anthologies, some aren’t available anywhere else.

I have several favorites among them. “The Bottle Imp,” an intriguing twist on making a deal with the devil, was written in 1891 by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. Keawe, a native Hawaiian, buys a strange bottle from an old man who tells him that the imp in the bottle is responsible for his wealth. The imp will also grant Keawe anything he wants. Of course, there is a catch. If he dies with the bottle in his possession, his soul will burn in Hell. It must be sold for less than its purchase price and may not be disposed of or given away. Stevenson throws in some twists and turns in the story and Keawe is faced with some horrible choices.

“Dracula’s Guest” was published posthumously after Bram Stoker’s death and was probably intended as the first chapter of his novel “Dracula”. The narrator is Jonathan Harker on his way to Transylvania on Walpurgis Night, the first of May, when witches and demons draw near. He pays no heed to the coachman’s superstitious warnings and leaves the safety of his hotel to wander alone into the woods, where he gets the eerie feeling that he is being watched. When he comes across an ancient grave in an ancient cemetery, he realizes what a fool he has been.

Isaac Asimov’s “Flies” was first published in June 1953. It is a short science fiction story about a group of former college students who meet at a reunion twenty years after graduating. They discuss their accomplishments, and Casey tells them that she’s researching insecticides. Ironically, the flies seem to bother him and no one else.

British novelist Tanith Lee offers a different version of the Cinderella story. “When the Clock Strikes”, her heroine becomes a witch who swears allegiance to Lord Satanas.

Leonid Andreyev’s “Lazarus” is an account of the miraculous return to life described in the scriptures. Lazarus returns home after being dead for three days and family and friends celebrate his resurrection. He is elegantly dressed, but his days in the grave left him with a bluish hue to his face and reddish cracks in his skin. His temperament also changes. He is no longer happy-go-lucky and unwilling to talk about the horrors he has seen.

“The Flayed Hand” was written by Guy de Maupassant. A young student acquires a wrinkled hand, severed at the wrist from a deceased sorcerer. He intends to use it as a doorbell handle to scare the creditors out of it, but the owner wants it back.

The strength of this collection is in its diversity. It is divided into five sections, each with unique and chilling stories. Some of the stories are written in an old-fashioned style that may not appeal to readers who like more contemporary literature. But the prose sets the mood and creates an atmosphere that invokes a sense of dread that is so perfect for this kind of story, the kind that makes your hair stand on end. This is a book to be picked up and read over and over again.

Publisher: Doubleday & Company Inc. (May 1985)

ISBN: 978-0385185493

Pages: 623

Table of Contents

Introduction by Marvin Kaye

demons and creatures
Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest
Theodore Sturgeon’s Professor’s Teddy Bear
Bubnoff and the Devil by Ivan Turgenev, English adaptation by Marvin Kaye
The Search for Blank Calveringi by Patricia Highsmith
The Erl-King by Johann Wolfgang Von Goëthe, adapted into English by Marvin Kaye
The Imp in the Bottle by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Disease of Magic by Craig Shaw Gardner
Lan Lung by M. Lucie Chin
The Dragon over Hackensack by Richard L. Wexelblat
The Transformation by Mary W. Shelley
The Faceless Thing by Edward D. Hoch

Lovers and other monsters
Jack Snow’s Anchor
When the clock strikes by Tanith Lee
Oshidori by Lafcadio Hearn
Carmilla by Sheriden Le Fanu
Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory by Orson Scott Card
Gottfried August Bürger’s Lenore, English adaptation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Black Wedding by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated by Martha Glicklich
Hop Frog by Edgar Allan Poe
Ray Russell’s Sardonic
Richard Matheson’s Graveyard Shift
Wake not the dead by Johann Ludwig Tieck
Night and Silence by Maurice Level

Acts of God and other horrors
Isaac Asimov’s Flies
HF Arnold’s The Night Wire
Dick Baldwin’s Last Respects
The Stone God Pool by A. Merritt
An Ogden Nash Thirteenth Floor Story
The Dylan Thomas Tree
Parke Godwin’s Stroke of Mercy
Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev

the inner beast
AM Burrage wax figure
The Silent Couple by Pierre Courtois, Translated and Adapted by Faith Lancereau and Marvin Kaye
Jack London Moonface
Death in the classroom of Walt Whitman
Stephen Crane’s Upturned Face
A Midsummer Night by Ambrose Bierce
H. H. Munro (“Saki”) Easter Egg
The House in Goblin Wood by John Dickson Carr
Nitocris’s Revenge by Tennessee Williams
The Casual Run of Soupbone Pew by Damon Runyon
His invincible foe from WC Morrow
Alfred’s Rizpah, Lord Tennyson
Stanley Ellin’s Question

Miscellaneous ghosts and nightmares
The flayed hand of Guy de Maupassant
The Robert Aickman Hospice
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Christmas Banquet
The Hungry House by Robert Bloch
The Demon on the Gallows by Fitz-James O’Brien
The Owl by Anatole Le Braz, translated by Faith Lanceeau
No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince by Ralph Adams Cram
The Music of Erich Zann by HP Lovecraft
Riddles in the Dark (original version, 1938) by JRR Tolkien
Epilogue
miscellaneous notes
Selected bibliography