A discovery in the classic style

[Mors Profundis]

While wandering in a local flea market(I was running low on fleas) I chanced to find a large selection of used books.
Since Lovecraftians are always finding forbidden tomes in these places, and getting their brains abducted to Pluto(I always wanted to see Pluto) I began to examine the shelves eagerly, but with little expectation of any pleasureable result.
But there, among the dog-eared volumes of book club prose, crouching like some malevolent, venomous creature was.............."The Supernatural Omnibus"!.............Edited by Montague Summers!"
Yes, the mysterious and fabled Witchfinder himself, rumored to be the Vatican's expert on the dark arts, with a special commission from the Pope himself, a man who frightened Aleister Crowley, expert on vampire, werewolves and the hideous Black Mass!
I tingled, I quivered, I gladly gave the pittance demanded to the sinister and somehow unwholesome cashier, then fled into the gathering gloom, clutching book to my bosom as I would a child.
I fled to a fuligent corner of the decaying family manse, and there, among the cobwebs and with scurrying rodents all about-how they love story time!-I began to read.
Summers may have been a wierdo and an open mouldy-fig, but his taste in wierd tales cannot be faulted-there's the Dickens tale just mentioned on Dr. Who, a superb story by Vernon Lee, 'Amor Dure', full of antique shudders-and I'm only halfway through!
Dang!, musta been mah lucky day!

 

[steve12553]

Your discovery prompted me to look in my bookcases where I found The Haunted Omnibus, a volume edited by Alexander Laing, listed as the greatest ghost stories ever. There's something about that word attached to book that is nearly 70 years old or in the case of "Supernatural" 75 years old.

Life is good. Excellent find MP.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Stories by Charles Dickens and Vernon Lee -- that sounds very promising indeed. Who/what are some of the other authors and stories?

(And let us know what Pluto is like, if you ever get there.)

 

[Mors Profundis]

The Mi-Go braincanister rarely makes a return trip, but I'll do my best.
Let's see, there's the Lee, which would make a grand movie, the Dickens, 'When I was Dead",Amelia B. Edwards "The Phantom Coach", Sheridan Le Fanu, severaltimes and avoo -doo yarn from the depraved sadist and cannibal, WilliamSeabrook .
Wonders, wonders, most wonderful wonders!

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Congratulations all around! A good find. Don't you just love that tingle of anticipation just before you enter a used bookstore (or in this particular instance, flea market)? You never know what treasures you'll unearth!

 

[Mors Profundis]

One hopes for the Necronomicon and such, which seem to be as plentiful as Gideon Bibles in New England, but alas, a reprint of Montegue Summers was the best so far.
Strange man.
Perhaps more in a bit, after The Society to Abolish the Worship of Rhan Tegoth Fun Fair and Witch Burning in May.
Busy,busy,busy!!!!!!!!

 

[GOLLUM]

Nice one MP....

I picked up a Centenary edition (Howard born 1906) of Robert E Howard's Conan Chroincles including some of the problematic revisions by De Camp and all of Howard's original Weird Tales plus an interesting afterward by Stephen Jones on Howard and some refrences to his various letters plus a nice colour plate print and other cool illustrations throughout the book. Granted it's a recent release via Victor Gollancz but it wasn't something I was going to pass by in the shop!!!

 

[Mors Profundis]

Why didn't they make a movie of "Red Nails"?
Best of the lot.
Next we'll see"Conan the Assistant Manager", "Conan the Wino" and "Conan the Crumbum".
Will it never end?
(this from a guy who rode the second wave of Amra's popularity for many years!)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Next we'll see"Conan the Assistant Manager", "Conan the Wino" and "Conan the Crumbum".

And here I always thought of Conan as the upper-management type! CEO material for sure.


It's much nicer to have these things in an actual book between covers -- and I do envy you that, Mors Profundis -- but I just found The Supernatural Omnibus online in a printable e-text, and I'm quite excited about that. Although I have read a number of the stories before, there are also a great many that I've never even heard of.

 

[Mors Profundis]

I expressed that badly- the Dickens is the well known "The Signalman", though "To be Taken with a Grain of Salt" is included,as well.
"When I was Dead" is by Vincent O'Sullivan, and a spooky thing, too.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

"When I was Dead" is by Vincent O'Sullivan, and a spooky thing, too.

Yes, I've just looked the book up online and realized that -- and edited my post accordingly, to the confusion of everyone else reading this exchange of comments.

 

[steve12553]

Gosh I think we just been spammed.

 

[j d worthington]

This may have become rather attenuated, but I'll add my congratulations also. I had a copy of the Causeway Books facsimile reprint of Summers' book, but it went the other way in a divorce (or at least disappeared around that time); I only recently found another, and it's sitting on my ASAP (which, at present, looks like about 7 years from now) shelf. In fact, I lately came across a very nice full 10-volume set of Julian Hawthorne's Lock-and-Key Library (the books HPL used for much of his source material for his SHiL essay, according to S. T. Joshi) -- if you look, you may be able to find that for a good price, and it's chock-full of goodies. (I also hear there's a much-abridged version of this from Kensington, though I'm not too certain of that).

At any rate, it is a great book, and many of the writers you find interesting may have had their work reprinted in the last few years -- there seems to be a decided boom in reprinting the classic supernatural writers; even Amyas Northcote's single collection was brought back out a few years ago. Happy hunting!

 

[BAYLOR]

The Dead of Night - The Ghost Stores of Oliver Onions.