The Pan Book of Horror Stories was a British paperback series of short horror story anthologies published by Pan Books Ltd. The series ran to thirty volumes, the first published in 1959. [1]
The series was initially collected and edited by Herbert Van Thal. On Van Thal's death Clarence Paget edited the series, from volume twenty-six until its demise with volume thirty in 1989.
The early editions of the Pan Book of Horror Stories were notable for their lurid cover art [2] and Van Thal's introduction of stories by new authors alongside classics of the genre. The first edition included works by Peter Fleming, Muriel Spark, Bram Stoker and C. S. Forester. Later volumes featured Ray Bradbury and Lord Dunsany among others. Basil Copper made his debut in fifth volume, with the story "The Spider". [3] The series also published work by Charles Birkin, R. Chetwynd-Hayes and Alex Hamilton. [4] After volume nine, Van Thal placed a heavier reliance on new authors. The series grew in popularity and was the stepping stone for much new talent. [1] In the 1970s, the increasingly violent content of the Pan Books provoked some controversy. [4] In the early 1980s a slow decline in standards was observed. Popularity rose again in the late decade, but a multitude of reprint stories from Stephen King and a severe slide in quality ended the iconic series in 1989. The last book is now a rare collectors item, owing to the small print run it received.
A U.S edition of the first Pan book was released by Gold Medal, an imprint of Fawcett Publications, and books 3, 4 and 5 were released by Berkley Medallion. While the first book was complete in its contents, the other three books gave only a small selection of their UK counterparts. There is no evidence to support PBoH #2 ever having a US release.
Screaming Terror, published under the Arthur Baker imprint, is a collection from the first three Pan Book of Horror Stories and is also edited by Herbert Van Thal.
In the run-up to Halloween in October 2018, BBC Radio 4 broadcast Anita Sullivan's reinterpretations of five stories from the 1962 Second Pan Book Of Horror Stories as part of the station's 15 Minute Drama series. [5]
The Pan Book of Horror Stories maintains a cult following with many tribute and informational sites available. [6] [7]
Mike Ashley took issue with the Pan Books, arguing that the books were "often gore for gore's sake", with "some of the stories showing meagre literary merit." Ashley also stated, however, that "something good crops up in each volume". [4] Christopher Fowler read the Pan Books as a child and has praised them, stating that the Pan Books of Horror Stories set a "benchmark that all other collections had to reach." However, Fowler has also criticised the later development of the series, arguing that as "the tales became more explicitly gruesome they lost much of their power; heavier shocks were clearly required in jaundiced times." [1]
A reprint of the initial Pan Book of Horror was published in October 2010, with an introduction by Pan expert Johnny Mains.
Arkham House was an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to publish hardcover collections of H. P. Lovecraft's best works, which had previously been published only in pulp magazines. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham, Massachusetts. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. The colophon for Arkham House was designed by Frank Utpatel.
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Karl Edward Wagner was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of horror, science fiction, and heroic fantasy, who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and originally trained as a psychiatrist. He wrote numerous dark fantasy and horror stories. As an editor, he created a three-volume set of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian fiction restored to its original form as written, and edited the long-running and genre-defining The Year's Best Horror Stories series for DAW Books. His Carcosa publishing company issued four volumes of the best stories by some of the major authors of the so-called Golden Age pulp magazines. He is possibly best known for his creation of a series of stories featuring the character Kane, the Mystic Swordsman.
Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong, better known as John Gawsworth, was a British writer, poet and compiler of anthologies, both of poetry and of short stories. He also used the pseudonym Orpheus Scrannel. He became the king of the unrecognized micronation of Redonda in 1947 and became known as King Juan I.
Robert Fordyce Aickman was an English writer and conservationist. As a conservationist, he co-founded the Inland Waterways Association, a group which has preserved from destruction and restored England's inland canal system. As a writer, he is best known for his supernatural fiction, which he described as "strange stories".
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Jove Books, formerly known as Pyramid Books, is an American paperback and eBook publishing imprint, founded as an independent paperback house in 1949 by Almat Magazine Publishers. The company was sold to the Walter Reade Organization in the late 1960s. It was acquired in 1974 by Harcourt Brace which renamed it to Jove in 1977 and continued the line as an imprint. In 1979, they sold it to The Putnam Berkley Group, which is now part of the Penguin Group.
Christine Hartley, better known as Christine Campbell Thomson (1897–1985), was a British horror fiction author best known for the Not at Night series. She also wrote under the name Flavia Richardson.
Infinity Science Fiction was an American science fiction magazine, edited by Larry T. Shaw, and published by Royal Publications. The first issue, which appeared in November 1955, included Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star", a story about a planet destroyed by a nova that turns out to have been the Star of Bethlehem; it won the Hugo Award for that year. Shaw obtained stories from some of the leading writers of the day, including Brian Aldiss, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Sheckley, but the material was of variable quality. In 1958 Irwin Stein, the owner of Royal Publications, decided to shut down Infinity; the last issue was dated November 1958.
A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.
Basil Frederick Albert Copper was an English writer and former journalist and newspaper editor. He became a full-time writer in 1970. In addition to horror and detective fiction, Copper was perhaps best known for his series of Solar Pons stories continuing the character created as a tribute to Sherlock Holmes by August Derleth.
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Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror was Australia's first original mass-market horror anthology for adults. It was edited by Leigh Blackmore..
Bertie Maurice van Thal (1904–1983), known as Herbert van Thal, was a British bookseller, publisher, agent, biographer, and anthologist.
Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.
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Death Rattle was an American black-and-white horror anthology comic book series published in three volumes by Kitchen Sink Press in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Death Rattle is not related to the Australian one-shot comic Death Rattle, published by Gredown in c. 1983.
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The House of Hammer was a British black-and-white magazine featuring articles and comics related to the Hammer Film Productions series of horror and science fiction films. The brainchild of Dez Skinn, almost every issue of the magazine featured a comics adaptations of a Hammer film, as well as an original comics backup story, such as the long-running feature Van Helsing's Terror Tales.