Thomas Burke

Perhaps no writer of the early 20th century had a better knowledge of London than Thomas Burke (1886-1945), and his collection Night-Pieces (1935) contains eighteen of his most haunting tales of that immense city's dark back alleys, shadowy courts, and mysterious houses. In Burke's London, anything might happen. You might turn round a corner and find yourself back in your childhood. A casual drink with a stranger might end with you - quite literally - losing your head. That pale, slightly sinister-looking man sitting across the restaurant might be a murdered corpse, returned from the dead. And those footsteps you hear following you as you walk along a foggy street, faintly lit by gaslight ... well, let's just say you had better not look behind you ... A groundbreaking and undeservedly neglected volume, Night-Pieces contains a wide variety of weird and outré tales, ranging from stories of crime and murder to tales of ghosts, zombies, and the supernatural.

[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

Each story in Great Short Tales of Mystery and Terror is an example of the work of an outstanding author--from Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to such modern masters as Agatha Christie, Ross Macdonald, Georges Simenon and a score of other famous names. Appearing in these pages are the world's greatest fictional detectives--Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Father Brown, James Bond, Lew Archer, Ellery Queen, Inspector Maigret and Perry Mason, all at work on some of their more baffling and fascinating cases. Contents: [THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE]( / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle THE TURN OF THE TIDE / C. S Forester THE SUMMER PEOPLE / Shirley Jackson [THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO]( / Edgar Allan Poe THE THIRD FLOOR FLAT / Agatha Christie THE MAN WHO LIKED DICKENS / Evelyn Waugh WAS IT A DREAM / Guy de Maupassant THE FOURTH MAN / John Russell THE WENDIGO / Algernon Blackwood THE TOUCH OF NUTMEG MAKES IT / John Collier THE ABSENCE OF MR. GLASS / G. K. Chesterton MIRIAM / Truman capote THE LOG OF THE EVENING STAR / Alfred Noyes CASTING THE RUNES / M. R. James [MAN FROM THE SOUTH]( / Roald Dahl THE WHOLE TOWNS SLEEPING / Ray Bradbury THE ARROW OF GOD / Leslie Charteris THE TWO BOTTLES OF RELISH / Lord Dunsany THE GETTYSBURG BUGLE / Ellery Queen [The Damned Thing]( / Ambrose Bierce DON'T LOOK NOW / Daphne du Maurier THE HANDS OF MR. OTITRMOLE / Thomas Burke AN ALPINE DIVORCE / Robert Barr THE INCAUTIOUS BURGLAR / John Dickson Carr THANATOS PALACE HOTEL / André Maurois THE GHOST.SHIP / Richard Middleton THE RATS IN THE WALLS / H. P. Lovecraft AETER.DINNER STORY / William Irish ANOTHER SOLUTION j Gilbert Highet THE WAXWORK / A. M. Burrage FOR YOUR EYES ONLY / Ian Fleming THE FOGHORN / Gertrude Atherton LEININGEN VERSUS THE ANTS / c-arl. Stephenson THE INTERRUPTION / W. W. Jacobs AN INVITATION TO THE HUNT / George Hitchcock THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT / William Hope Hodgson MIDNIGHT BLUE / Ross Macdonald THE REIVRN OF IMRAY / Rudyard Kipling JOURNEY BACKWARD INTO TIME / Georges Simenon THE MOVIE PEOPLE / Robert Bloch BROKER'S SPECIAL / Stanley Ellin THE SEA RAIDERS / H. G. Wells THE CASE OF THE IRATE WITNTESS / Erie Stanley Gardner SREDNI VASHTAR / Saki (H. H. Munro) THE NINE BILLION NAMES or GOD / Arthur C. Clarke

The ghoulish, disturbing and macabre tales contained in this anthology of fear draw the reader into a world inhabited by the dark and threatening monsters of nightmare. Legendary creators of horror and suspense such as the father of vampire literature Bram Stoker and Ambrose 'Bitter' Bierce combine within these pages with modern mastercraftsmen like Psycho author Robert Bloch and phenomenal bestseller writer Stephen King. Their stories range from grisly supernatural revenge ("The Squaw") to black humour of a fantastic nature ("Edifice Complex") and the mystery and menace of fiendish possession ("The Night of the Tiger"). The collection encompasses recognised masterpieces of the genre such as H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" - a sustained evocation of monstrous violence in a sleepy mid-Western town - as well as stories by famous authors not usually associated with this type of fiction - H. G. Wells and Robert Silverberg for example. Within this Chamber of Horrors also lurk haunted houses such as H. Russell Wakefield's "The Red Lodge", psychological tortures of a peculiarly unpleasant kind, as in "The Cloth of Madness" by Seabury Quinn, and the masterful use of understatement and surprise endings in stories by M. R. James, Rudyard Kipling and Robert Aickman. From underwater monsters to bloodthirsty ghouls, from the evil that lies just beneath the surface of domestic comfort and security to cannibalism twenty-first- century style, this chilling compendium of terror is calculated to send a shiver down the spine of the most hardened devotee of horror fiction.

[Black Cat]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- [Tell-tale Heart]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- [Premature Burial]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- Torture of hope / Villiers de L'Isle Adam -- An episode of the terror / Honore de Balzac -- The hand / Guy de Maupassant -- The withered arm / Thomas Hardy -- The idiots / Joseph Conrad -- The bird / Thomas Burke -- Lot no. 249 / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- The sentence / J. Kaden-Bandrowski -- Arabesque, the mouse / A.E. Coppard -- Cinci / Luigi Pirandello -- Suspicion / Dorothy L. Sayers -- Dead on her feet / Cornell Woolrich -- Taboo / Geoffrey Household -- A little place off the Edgware Road / Graham Greene -- The words of guru / C.M. Kornbluth -- Yours truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch -- The veld / Ray Bradbury -- Evening primrose / John Collier -- Back from the grave / Robert Silverberg -- [A rose for Emily]( / William Faulkner -- The comforts of home / Flannery O'Connor -- [Pig]( / Roald Dahl -- Robert / Stanley Ellin -- The question / Stanley Ellin -- The terrapin / Patricia Highsmith -- Not after mindnight / Daphne du Maurier -- Corabella / David Fletcher.