T. Joshi • Introduction: A Mythos in His Own Image1.At the Mountains of Madness2.The Case of Charles Dexter Ward3.The Shunned House4.The Dreams in the Witch House5.The Statement of Randolph Carter6.The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath7.The Silver Key8.Through the Gates of the Silver KeyCover Illustration: Raymond Bayless

    Hammett's continental op - tough, tired, intelligent, a snap-brimmed Sir Galahad with a Browning - was the prototype for a whole new tradition of private eye thrillers.Here are ten of his classic suspense stories from the twenties and thirties - selected and introduced by Lillian Hellman.

    Sprague de Camp The People of the Black Circle-Robert E. Howard-Weird Tales 9/34The Slithering Shadow-Robert E. Howard-Weird Tales 9/33 Drums of Tombalku The Pool of the Black One-Robert E. Howard-Weird Tales 10/33

    Andy builds four robots to help with farm work and baby-sitting, little dreaming of the heroic services the robots will perform for him.

    One of the pair, Michael Padillo, isn’t around a lot; he keeps disappearing on “business trips.” McCorkle, his partner, wisely doesn’t ask questions; he knows Padillo has a second job—he’s a (reluctant) US agent. But McCorkle is ready to answer a call for help from Padillo, and he joins his friend in a blind journey with no inkling of what they will encounter at the turn of each dark and dangerous corner.

    Her trip to Scotland to check a few dates in family history started mainly as a favor to her aunt. But she became thoroughly, intimately involved when her research began to unearth puzzles, facts that didn't seem to fit, enigmas with a vague but frighteningly sinister ring...Something was definitely wrong in Strathmuir, and Sable was on completely unfamiliar ground in trying to find the right answers. And she could confide in no one, since anyone could be an enemy. But there was romance as well as danger in the air for Sable, love as well as terror and tragedy -- and she had the strength of a truly feminine heart to carry her through to the starling climax.

    This volume features:The Gorgon:What is the terrible secret of the village of Vandorf, where a murderer's victims turn to stone?The Curse of Frankenstein:Baron Victor Frankenstein creates a grotesque monster - and is himself condemned to death for the creature's killings.The Revenge of Frankenstein:Escaping the guillotine Baron Frankenstein repays the dwarf who aids him - giving him a new body! But his creation is a killer; worse - a cannibal ...The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb:From the Egypt of 3000BC to the London of 1912 comes the monster that would not die!

    The detective from Earth feared The Black more than any torture his own planet could conceive. But he had to uncover the sinister plot that threatened Earth and all its people."

    But then I found out that was why I was there - to unravel an ancient web of hate and death with the visions my childhood toy brought me - and to play a strange and dangerous part in the dark drama set in that shadow-haunted old house...

    

    

    Both stories take place during the nineteenth century, in the swampy farmland of the Sologne region, near Orléans, where its peasantry lives in the grip of medieval witchcraft and local legend. From their infancy, the heroines of Malvenue (The Unwelcome One) and Marie the Wolf have been possessed by evil spirits. Unable to escape the power of the Devil, they are given to irrational and sometimes perverse behavior--behavior that leads inexorably to tragedy.THE ACCURSED is rich in the atmosphere one associates with Poe, Mary Shelley and Isak Dinesen. Yet there is no question that Claude Seignolle is a wholly original, even unique writer. An acknowledged authority on witchcraft and French folklore, he has drawn his stories from supernatural tales handed down from one generation to the next. What he has created is virtually a new genre, writing that stands on is own as literature, as superlative entertainment, and as authentic folklore.

    And in process we encounter the antics of such individuals as the straightlaced CIA agent, Craig Mathews, Aunt Lily, Aunt Nasturtia, Aunt Marigold, Honeysuckle the pianist, the gigantic Gladiola, and the very strange Nick. Of course, Jackie always winds up on top in the end. Sounds like business as usual for this ever-C.A.M.P.-ish series! First publication in 45 years.

    Cover art by Robert Bonfils.

    

    

    Collects the following short stories featuring Breckinridge Elkins:The Riot At Cougar PawPilgrims to the PecosHigh Horse RampageThe Apache Mountain WarPistol PoliticsThe Conquerin' Hero of the HumboltsA Ringtailed Tornado

    Lawson

    

    A mystery shrouded her legacy in rare old coins, and her life was threatened twice in a storm. Then Gary Ellsworth, a handsome young coin dealer with a warm smile, helped her search for a missing golden crown and Prudence began to feel a love more precious than any coin in the world.Lady of Redhill HouseIt was a grim, forbidding old mansion, totally isolated and filled with darkness and mysterious shadows. It did little to make Prudence Redhill feel welcome when she returned from school following the weird death of her father.Her sister Regina was there to meet her, but in that old house it seemed that all the forces of evil were silently gathering, whispering plans for some final attack.Prudence tried to face the darkness with determination but could know only fear.What was about to happen…?

    "A startling, even shocking novel of a young girl who is so hungry for love that she sets out to destroy her mother's remarriage."

    Cave, "Vampire Meat" by Frederick C. Painton, "Blood Magic" by G.T. Fleming-Roberts, "From Out of the Shadows" by Frances Bragg Middleton, and "Village of the Dead" by Wyatt Blassingame.

    in order to live with him in the supposedly haunted Castle Gaye, B.U.T.C.H. makes various attempts on his life; at Rich's instigation Summers, Stark, Matthews, and Shannon show up to help.

    StrathersNew facesParis pilgrimageObsessionThe Harlem horror"Bring back by bonny" Softly ... softlyThe beltShelter The orphanage"Gran"No more for Mary

    England is at war with itself. While bitter battles rage between King and Parliament, local magistrates have more power, and less accountability, than ever before. Taking advantage of the tense atmosphere and lax prosecution procedures, Matthew Hopkins, an insignificant lawyer and self-appointed Witchfinder General, travels across East Anglia accusing the aged, the confused and the poor of satanic crimes against their neighbours. With every innocent death, his purse grows heavier, as he satisfies his lust for power. But his dealings with one particular young woman make him a powerful enemy in the form of Ralph Margery – a captain in Cromwell’s army who is determined to put a stop to Hopkins’ reign of terror. In this tense and chilling novel Ronald Basset brings to life the nightmarish figure of Matthew Hopkins, a man responsible for the deaths of more than 300 women and who, almost single-handedly, caused more people to be hanged for witchcraft in two years than in the whole of the previous century. ‘Witchfinder General’ is a gripping historical thriller set during the massively tumultuous period of the English Civil War.

    Cover copy reads: "Sin-sick minds demanded shame-tortured bodies!" The set-up is similar to the Loren Beauchamp Another Night, Another Love: an out-of-work actor in his late 20s, Nick, his TV & stage days slowing fading, needs money, & is approached by an old acting pal who recruits him for male prostitution: in Another, it is loving up rich older women at a resort; in The Pain Lusters, it's beating up rich older women with a taste for pain in an outskirts NYC mansion that caters to the wealthy & sexually weird. Nick slowly gets into the job—he has to audition for the madame, of course (the girlfriend of his pal), & learn the finer points of BDSM (L.T. Woodward, Silverberg’s doctorly pen name, provides a sort of preface, taken from Sex Fiend). The men & women of the pain mansion aren't mere mindless, soulless whores, but people with lost dreams & future hopes, each in need of finding love as any human. All seems to go well until one wealthy woman, Carolyn, comes to the mansion seeking to re-experience a rape she endured three years ago, when a burglar broke in while her husband was away & ravished her by force. She claims it's the only time in her life that she had multiple orgasms & felt alive (as any real psychosexual researcher will tell you, there are these instances, fueled by the forced ravishings of romance novels). When Carolyn’s husband gets wind of his wife’s secret desires, he stakes out the mansion, gains entry & causes all hell to break loose.

    Fox

    Desmond Wood faces his grimmest challenge as he battles supernatural forces to save his beautiful wife from becoming a sacrifice to Kali.

    The worshippers of the devil danced around the ruined abbey, now transformed into a temple of terror. Deborah had come there hoping to unmask her sister’s killer. Suddenly against her will, Deborah felt herself succumbing to the unholy spell woven by the frenzied witches. Relentlessly they began to encircle her. Panic gripped her for she knew they had chosen her as their next victim.

    He didn’t ask to be the Feds’ “receiver” on a pass of inside info on the smuggling racket, but he was. He didn’t ask to have a couple of hoods beat the living daylights out of him to get the info back, but they did. As a matter of fact, for the first time in his life, Johnny Liddell wasn’t asking for trouble. But when a lovely doll invited him to see her later, and murder turned later into never again, Johnny asked in—in to the bloody end.