Richard Dalby

"All of a sudden in the midst of the stillness the iron lid of the coffin burst with a crash and the corpse rose up. It was more terrible than the first time. Its teeth clacked horribly against each other, its lips twitched convulsively, and incantations came from them in wild shrieks." In 1897, Bram Stoker's iconic Dracula redefined the horror genre and had a significant impact on the image of the vampire in popular culture. But encounters with the undead were nothing new: they had electrified readers of Gothic fiction since even before Victorian times. Dracula's Brethren is a tribute to those early writers, a collation of 19 archetypal tales written between 1820 and 1910, many long forgotten, celebrating the vampire stories that both inspired and were inspired by Bram Stoker's iconic novel. A companion to Richard Dalby's definitive anthology, Dracula's Brood, itself 30 years old, these rediscovered stories are a genuine treasure trove for classic thrill-seekers and all lovers of supernatural fiction.

Whenever fictional ghost stories are written or spoken about, one author is sure to be invoked: M. R. James, Provost successively of King's College, Cambridge, and Eton, and the author of four outstanding collections of ghost stories published between 1904 and 1925. This anthology is the first to illustrate the extent of James's influence on the English tradition of ghost fiction. Following James's lead, the writers represented here conjure up an ordered, placid world into which the supernatural - usually in malevolent form - slowly but surely intrudes itself, a world of country houses, forlorn churches, quiet college quadrangles and damp cathedral crypts, a world in which ancient objects, books, manuscripts and inscriptions provide potent links between the present and a vengeful past. Richard Dalby and Rosemary Pardoe's selection of 25 of the very best Jamesian stories include several rarities such as "The Stone Coffin" by the anonymous 'B' and Frederick Cowles's "The Strange Affair at Upton Stonewold" - as well as tales by Archur Gray, R.H. Malden, L. T. C. Rolt, Dermot Chesson Spence, E. G. Swain, Montague Summers, Ramsey Campbell, and David Rowlands. In addition, there is a little-known essay on ghost stories by James himself and a Preface by James's biographer, Michael Cox.

The last lords of Gardonal (1867) / William Gilbert The fate of Madame Cabanel (1880) / Eliza Lynn Linton The man-eating tree (1881) / Phil Robinson The vampyre (1886) / Vasile Alecsandrai A mystery of the Campagna (1887) / Anne Crawford Ken's mystery (1888) / Julian Hawthorne The parasite (1894) / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Good lady Ducayne (1896) / Mary E. Braddon Let loose (1898) / Mary Cholmondeley Will (1899) / Vincent O'Sullivan The stone chamber (1899) / H.B. Marriott Watson The vampire maid (1900) ; The old portrait (1900) / Hume Nisbet Marsyas in Flanders (1900) / Vernon Lee An unscientific story (1903) / Louise J. Strong A dead finger (1904) / Sabine Baring-Gold The feather pillow (1907) / Horacio Quiroga The singular death of Morton (1910) / Algernon Blackwood Aylmer Vance and the vampire (1914) / Alice and Claude Askew The sumach (1919) / Ulric Daubeny Wailing well (1927) / M.R. James Another squaw? (1934) / E. Heron-Allen The living stone (1939) / E.R. Punshon Princess of darkness (1940)

Twelve Christmas mysteries -- gift wrapped in entertainment and suspense -- ready to take home for the holidays in this delightful collection selected from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Margery Allingham's Albert Campion, British detective extraordinaire, solves a country killing in which delivering a Christmas card was simply murder. Rex Stout sends a crotchety patrolman out to investigate a yuletide jewel theft on Manhattan's mean streets. John D. MacDonald leaves us a secretary's corpse on Christmas Street along with a cop's clever ruse to catch her killer. And Santa Claus himself hitches up a sleighload of chills in stories by George Baxt, Malcolm McClintock, James Powell, and many more... for it's ho, ho, homicide in the season to guess whodunit.

Collection contains 40 stories: Ghosts / Anon. -- Schalken the painter/ Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu -- M. Anastasius / Dinah Maria Mulock -- The lost room / Fitz-James O'Brien -- No. 1 Branch Line : the signalman / Charles Dickens -- Haunted / Anon -- The romance of certain old clothes / Henry James -- John Granger / Mary E. Braddon -- The ghost in the mill and The ghost in the Cap'n Brown House / Harriet Beecher Stowe -- Poor pretty Bobby / Rhoda Broughton -- The new pass / Amelia B. Edwards -- The white and the black / Erckmann-Chatrian -- The underground ghost / J.B. Harwood -- Christmas Eve on a haunted hulk / Frank Cowper -- Dog or demon? / Theo Gift -- A ghost from the sea / J.E.P. Muddock -- A set of chessmen / Richard Marsh -- The judge's house / Bram Stoker. Pallinghurst Barrow / Grant Allen -- The mystery of the semi-detached / E. Nesbit -- Sister Maddelena / Ralph Adams Cram -- The trainer's ghost / Lettice Galbraith -- An original revenge / W.C. Morrow -- Caulfield's crime / Alice Perrin -- The bridal pair / Robert W. Chambers -- The watcher / Robert Benson -- The spectre in the cart / Thomas Nelson Page -- H.P. / S. Baring-Gould -- Yuki-Onna / Lafcadio Hearn -- The ash-tree / M.R. James -- The story of the Green House, Wallington / Allen Upward -- The Slype House / A.C. Benson -- A ghost-child / Bernard Capes. The bead necklace / Alice Perrin -- A dead man's bargain / Clive Pemberton -- The house that was lost / Tom Gallon -- The jolly corner / Henry James -- The doll's ghost / F. Marion Crawford -- The moonlit road / Ambrose Bierce -- The forbidden floor / Alexander Harvey -- The shadow / E. Nesbit -- The gateway of the monster / William Hope Hodgson.

A collection of macabre tales originally published from 1679 to 1909.

Contains: - The American's tale -- - The captain of the pole-star -- - John Barrington Cowles -- - The ring of thoth -- - The winning shot -- - The parasite -- - The adventure of the illustrious client -- - The adventure of the Sussex vampire - The adventure of the three gables -- - The case of the vanished vampire / by Bill Crider.