Herbert Van Thal - Pan Horror 7

[Gloomy Sundae]

The 7th Pan Book Of Horror Stories ed. Herbert Van Thal (1966)

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Charles J. Benfleet - The Man Who Hated Flies
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Thing
G. M. Glaskin - The Return
David Grant - The Bats
Dulcie Gray - The Fur Brooch
Dulcie Gray - Dream House
Harry Harrison - The Streets Of Ashkelon
Patricia Highsmith - The Snail Watcher
W. W. Jacobs - The Monkey’s Paw
John D Keefauver - The Last Experiment
John D Keefauver - Mareta
Rene Morris - I’ll Never Leave You - Ever
William Sansom - A Smell Of Fear
William Sansom - The Little Room
Rosemary Timperley - Street of the Blind Donkey
Martin Waddell - Cannibals
Martin Waddell - The Old Adam
Elizabeth Walter - The Island Of Regrets
Alex White - Never Talk To Strangers

Charles J. Benfleet - The Man Who Hated Flies: Hugo Laytimer, retired chemistry teacher, is the man with the aversion. He also has an unwavering belief in reincarnation and promises ex-pupil now close friend Charles he'll find a way of demonstrating the truth of the matter when he dies. This he does, but at fatal cost to his new host body. An underwhelming choice for opener if ever there was.

R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Thing: A dressy West End bar, a favourite with theatre goers, and there's RCH, dapper in his roll neck jersey and corduroy trousers to impress upon the world that he is a writer and therefore, different. While he's indulging in his regular scotch binge - he shouts up six shots at a time to save his and the barman's legs - he's joined by a prostitute and, figuratively speaking, proceeds to bore the arse off her, having no inclination to become her client. In walks Rodney, a young man who affects a cockney accent to sound like a pop singer, and the girl is terrified. RCH is more unsettled by the gloating phantom that dogs the youth's every step and is clearly directing his actions. Rodney pulls out a gun.

I must admit, this is better than I remember it.

David Grant - The Bats: The Windrop's eight-year-old son, Melvyn, is a neglected child whose one love is his strange assortment of pets. When he loses the use of a hand following an accident with a chisel while his parents are out partying, the shamed parents decide it is time for his menagerie to go ...

Dulce Gray - The Fur Brooch: A spurned lover's revenge. Eighteen-year-old beauty Shiela Francis is engaged to marry John, but reluctantly agrees to a parting date with Henry Mallory, a man she's always found disagreeable. When she refuses to change her mind about wedding John, Henry tells her a little more about the origins of the brooch she's wearing on her coat ...

Elizabeth Walter - The Island Of Regrets: "We Bretons say it is a magic island. It grants the first wish you make when you set foot there, but grants it in such a way that you will wish it had not been granted. That is why it is called the Island of Regrets."

Dora is having none of this "peasant superstition" and cons the locals into hiring a boat, dragging reluctant fiance Peter with her. The only living soul they encounter on the island is a madman, and the Hotelier later advises the pair that there is always one in residence although nobody knows how they get there. Back in England, the couples wishes are horribly granted.

W. W. Jacobs - The Monkey's Paw: The Whites are entertaining Sergeant Major Morris. Morris has recently returned from India and shows them the idol in question. An old fakir had cast a spell on it because "he wanted to show how fate ruled peoples lives, and that those who interfered with it did so at their sorrow." Those who possess the idol are reputedly granted three wishes, but Morris isn't for putting it to the test and lobs it in the fireplace. Mr. White retrieves it and jokingly wishes for £200. The following day his son, Herbert is mutilated at the factory. His firm accept responsibility for the tragedy and offer compensation to the tune of £200. But the distraught Mrs. White just wants her boy back ...

Jacobs handles this story with remarkable economy, racing to a satisfying grim conclusion. Stephen King reworked this for his ace novel Pet Sematary and - of course - there's that EC variation, Wish You Were Here which shows up in Tales From The Crypt.

Dulce Grey - The Dream House: Another of her neat, frightfully British little gems. The insufferable, loudmouthed, tight-fisted Marjory Denchworth and her subdued, affable Aussie husband Henry take Lord Drummond's magnificent Milton House on an 18 month lease. While Madge sets about making herself unpopular with the Blayddon villagers, Henry toils over renovations to the old house to the delight of Lord Drummond who recognises him as a highly skilled construction worker. Well, Henry's had plenty of practice and there's more than a touch of the Edgar Allen Poe's about him ...

Alex White - Never Talk To Strangers: so rotten and despicable, we gave it it's own thread on Vault!

[David A. Riley]

The sight of that book cover brings back nostalgic memories of when I was at school in those days and dog-eared copies of the old Pan Book series used to pass round from hand to hand. It was stuff like this that first got me interested in writing. Though I don't know whether it was the stories themselves or the atmospheric covers that intrigued me the most.
It's curious how some writers are represented by a couple of stories - something you very rarely found in other anthologies but wasn't unusual in the Pan series, especially, I suspect, when London Management began to figure more prominently amongst the writers' agents...
I wonder how many other people had their interest in writing triggered off by series like this.
It's hard to realise these days just how common these books were in bookshops and even newsagents. Anthologies of short stories, especially of horror stories, are getting as hard to find as hen's teeth these days, whereas back in the 60s and 70s they were far from unusual, whether part of a series like Pan or Fontana or one offs. The shame of it is that those of us interested in such stuff never appreciated just how fortunate we then were to have such a plentiful supply of books and new stories available to us. A far cry from today, when we have to rely upon the small press, like Gray Friar Books or Crowswing Books, etc, which turn out incredibly small numbers of copies compared to what were printed in the past by the likes of Pan, Fontana, Sphere, Corgi, etc., other than the annual Year's Best from Steve Jones and Robinson Books.
My gripe of the day.
And every day.

[Gloomy Sundae]

Personally, I see very little comparison between horror books then and now, David. The Pans and Fontana's are like baby chimps to Stephen Jones' great apes, and many of the authors in the later Years Best Horrors I've read take it all very, very seriously indeed. Also, my preferred paperback is one I can fit in my pocket. A nice 250 page job along the lines of Mary Danby's Frighteners on a regular basis and I'd be happy.

[David A. Riley]

Actually I wasn't comparing the 70s or 80s volumes to Steve Jones' Year's Best anthologies. The latter are so massive they are incredible. And, literally, are the year's best - which you could not claim for the old Pan series, with notable exceptions!

My point, really, was to comment on just how fortunate we then were with the sheer quantity of these sorts of anthologies, including reprints of Arkham House collections, especially those by August Derleth, who printed some outstanding stuff, and introduced me to the stories of such writers as HP Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. A month would hardly ever go by without at least a couple of new anthologies being published by either Pan, Four Square, Sphere, Corgi, etc, etc.

Not only that, but it was far from uncommon to see reprints of single author collections by writers such as Arthur Machen. When was the last time we saw a mass market paperback of his?

Noweadays, apart from the great ape of Steve Jones, we rely almost totally on the small press and books produced in print runs of less than 500. If not for the fact that the internet allows us to find out about and order these books, with the concurrent paucity of good, independent bookshops selling new books, the place would be a wasteland.

Perhaps not the most appropriate place to pontificate about this, but I wonder what chances RCH would have of making a mark nowadays if he was starting up as a brand new writer.

David

[Gloomy Sundae]

I doubt he'd have been anything like as successful. Actually, I'm amazed he was so consistently published during the eighties! Kimber was a good publisher for him as he was nothing if not prolific and its hard to think of another mainstream company committing to an average of half a dozen hardcover collections of original horror fiction a year for a decade - by non-household names and in hardcover, too! Although he struggled when William Kimber died and the company were bought out, he still had the good fortune of having a keen admirer in Stephen Jones, and that saw some "best of" collections and several anthology appearances up to and beyond his death. Not bad going when he doesn't seem to have had much critical acclaim.

I think it maybe worked for him that he was never exactly at the cutting edge of horror (whatever that is), so he was never in or out of fashion and just kept steadily chugging along, doing his own thing. But if he'd not been picked up by Kimber, I wonder how many of his collections or novels post 1977 would have seen publication?

As to the abundance of horror paperbacks published in the 'seventies as opposed to now - I try not to think about it because it makes me bloody miserable!