UNITED STATES AUTHOR · HORROR TALES · FICTION
Robert Bloch
Also known as: Tarleton Fiske, Will Folke
Robert Albert Bloch was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of German-Jewish Americans. During the 1930s, he was an avid reader of Weird Tales magazine and H. P. Lovecraft in particular. He wrote to Lovecraft, who responded with advice on writing, and Bloch sold his first published short story, "The Feast in the Abbey" to Weird Tales when he was just seventeen. He continued to write for Weird Tales and went on to become one of its most popular authors, while also contributing to other magazines. In 1946, his first published novel, The Scarf, was released. He received the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1959 for “That Hell-Bound Train” (1958). Also in 1959, he published one of his best-known novels, Psycho, which was adapted for the screen in 1960 by Joseph Stefano, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote the screenplay for the movie The Night Walker (1964), and he also wrote three scripts for the television show Star Trek. Over the course of his career, he wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, mostly in the crime fiction, science fiction and, horror fiction genres.
Attempting to compile a list of the best of anything is inevitably an exercise doomed to failure.
Most acclaimed
The Twelve Frights of Christmas
A collection of thirteen Yuletide horror tales features the work of such masters as Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Bloch, H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Ramsey Campbell Contains: The chimney / Ramsey Campbell Markheim / Robert Louis Stevenson The night before Christmas / Robert Bloch The festival / H.P. Lovecraft The old nurse's story / Mrs. Gaskell Glámr / S. Baring-Gould Pollock and the porroh man / H.G. Wells The weird woman / Anonymous The hellhound project / Ron Goulart Wolverden tower / Grant Allen Planet of fakers / J.T. McIntosh Life sentence / James McConnell The star / Arthur C. Clarke
The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time
[Purloined Letter]( / Edgar Allan Poe A terribly strange bed / Wilkie Collins The three strangers / Thomas Hardy T[he red-headed league]( / Arthur Conan Doyle The corpus delecti / Melville Davisson Post Gentlemen and players / E.W. Hornung A journey / Edith Wharton The leopard man's story / Jack London A retrieved reformation / O. Henry The problem of Cell 13 / Jacques Futrelle The absent-minded coterie / Robert Barr The invisible man / G.K. Chesterton The infallible Godahl / Frederick Irving Anderson The adventure of the unique "Hamlet" / Vincent Starrett The Gioconda smile / Aldous Huxley Haircut / Ring Lardner The killers / Ernest Hemingway The hands of Mr. Ottermole / Thomas Burke The little house at Croix-Rousse / Georges Simenon The case of the missing patriarchs / Logan Clendening Clerical error / James Gould Cozzens The two bottles of relish / Lord Dunsany The chaser / John Collier The perfect crime / Ben Ray Redman Yours truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch The blind spot / Barry Perowne The catbird seat / James Thurber Recipe for murder / C.P. Donnel Jr. The nine mile walk / Harry Kemelman Kill or be killed / Ogden Nash The specialty of the house / Stanley Ellin Nearly perfect / A.A. Milne The Gettysburg Bugle / Ellery Queen The last spin / Evan Hunter Stand up and die! / Mickey Spillane A new leaf / Jack Ritchie The snail-watcher / Patricia Highsmith The long way down / Edward D. Hoch The man who never told a lie / Isaac Asimov I have / John Gardner [Quitters, Inc.]( / Stephen King Horn man / Clark Howard The new girl friend / Ruth Rendell By the dawn's early light / Lawrence Block Iris / Stephen Greenleaf High Darktown / James Ellroy The Pietro Andromache / Sara Paretsky Soft monkey / Harlan Ellison The hand of Carlos / Charles McCarry Karen makes out / Elmore Leonard
The Seventh Galaxy Reader
Stories from Galaxy Magazine: 1960-1963. Introduction / Frederik Pohl. For love / Algis Budrys. Come into my cellar / Ray Bradbury. The tail-tied kings / Avram Davidson. Crime machine / Robert Bloch. Return engagement / Lester Del Rey. Earthmen bearing gifts / Frederic Brown. Rainbird / R.A. Lafferty. Three portraits and a prayer / Frederik Pohl. Something bright / Zenna Henderson. On the gem planet / Cordwainer Smith. The deep down dragon / Judith Merril. The king of the city / Keith Laumer. The beat cluster / Fritz Leiber. An old fashioned bird Christmas / Margaret St. Clair. The big pat boom / Damon Knight.