What single weird/horror story anthology is the best of all time? Pointless? Yeah, maybe. That strange egg Montague Summers edited what I feel is the best one, VICTORIAN GHOST STORIES (1934). A perfect selection of tales, not just ghost stories, and more of the gooseflesh variety than his earlier and equally varied anthology, THE SUPERNATURAL OMNIBUS (1931). Le Fanu features prominently in both, but the selection in VGS is better, imo. If it's too much of a pointless comparison, name one best pre-1970 & one best post 1970.

jkh

Pre-1970: CREEPS BY NIGHT, Ed. Dashiell Hammett. Post-1970: 1. THE UNDEAD Neville Spearman,1971, Ed. James Dickie. CAS's "The End of the Story", "The Death of Ilalotha", + "The Death of Halpin Frayser" & HPL's "The Hound". 2. DARK THINGS (also 1971). Original stories; hence, of uneven quality, but all the more entertaining for the authors included. Bloch's "The Funny Farm" is possibly the best story he ever wrote. Honorable Mention: BAR THE DOORS, edited by the redoubtable Alfred Hitchcock.

jkh

Did Alfred really edit that anthology? Or did he just lend his name to it and farm the actual selection of stories out to another editor, like Robert Arthur?

Ken K. Wrote:
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> Did Alfred really edit that anthology? Or did he
> just lend his name to it and farm the actual
> selection of stories out to another editor, like
> Robert Arthur?

Bar the Doors was ghost-edited by Don Ward, according to isfdb. I don't know if that is known for certain or just someone's guess. Don Ward was associated with Dell Paperbacks, which first issued the volume.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 16 May 22 | 11:53PM by Platypus.

By the way, I didn't mean to dismiss the anthologies issued under Hitchcock's name. In the early seventies I devoured those, starting with the ones intended for younger readers ( SPELLBINDERS IN SUSPENSE, MONSTER MUSEUM, SINISTER SPIES, etc.) and proceeding to the mystery collections in the adult section. Ah! Encountering murder, mayhem, lust, corruption...the delicious thrill of the forbidden!

Ken K. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> By the way, I didn't mean to dismiss the
> anthologies issued under Hitchcock's name. In the
> early seventies I devoured those, starting with
> the ones intended for younger readers (
> SPELLBINDERS IN SUSPENSE, MONSTER MUSEUM, SINISTER
> SPIES, etc.) and proceeding to the mystery
> collections in the adult section. Ah!
> Encountering murder, mayhem, lust,
> corruption...the delicious thrill of the
> forbidden!

I still have many of the old ALFRED HITCHCOCK AND THE THREE INVESTIGATORS novels, with "Text by Robert Arthur" in tiny print on an inside page. I remember my dad explaining to me that this meant that Robert Arthur was the actual author. Yes, even of the introduction by Alfred Hitchcock. We had some Hitchock horror anthologies too, and I think Robert Arthur was responsible for them as well (selecting, editing and contributing stories).

THE MYSTERY OF THE COUGHING DRAGON, THE MYSTERY OF THE GREEN GHOST...yes, those and similar juvenile mystery novels were catnip to me all those decades ago! Bless you, Robert Arthur, wherever you are!