Best of
Weird-Fiction

1951

We Are for the Dark: Six Ghost Stories


Elizabeth Jane Howard - 1951
    Credit for the genesis of this sub-genre of the ghost story should be given jointly to Robert Aickman and his collaborator in We Are for the Dark, Elizabeth Jane Howard. Contributing three tales each, the authors were not identified with their own stories when the book was first published in 1951. We Are for the Dark contains six stories: ‘The Trains’, ‘The View’ and ‘The Insufficient Answer’ are by Robert Aickman, while ‘Three Miles Up’, ‘Left Luggage’ and ‘Perfect Love’ are by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

Ringstones and Other Curious Tales


Sarban - 1951
    350 numbered copies. Out of print. Contents: A Christmas Story/ Capra/ Calmahain/ The Khan/ Ringstones/ Number FourteenThe five original stories of the collection are here augmented by the first ever publication of “Number Fourteen”, a newly discovered conte cruel. - Uniquely disquieting short stories.Ringstones and Other Curious Tales ‘have a curiously-imparted quality of strangeness; the feeling of having strayed over the border of experience into a world where other dimensions operate.’ So said one of the original reviewers of these unique stories, first published in 1951. The title story is set on the Northumberland moors, where Daphne Hazel appears to cross the boundaries of time, becoming involved with terrifying personalities from the mysterious past. ‘Calmahain’ deals delicately and imaginatively with two children’s attempts at escape from the grim realities of the Home Front during World War Two. Sarban shows himself equally at home in the Middle East, where, against an authentic background of expatriate life, three further stories explore ancient legends with spine-chilling results.