For the record, my 6 bottom of the barrels are – ‘My Dear How Dead You Look And Yet You Sweetly Sing’ by Priscilla Marron; ‘The Janissaries of Emilion’ by Basil Copper; ‘The Computer’ by Rene Morris; ‘Sugar And Spice’ by A. G. J. Rough; ‘The Most Precious’ by John D. Keefauver; and ‘Playtime’ also by A. G. J. Rough. I thought this was going to be a vampire story. I was wrong. The twist is that the lover of the title is a necrophile. It’s a very short story, and adds just the right touch of tasteful depravity to the mix. This is an old-fashioned ghost story about a landlady who receives a visit from the husband she killed years before. Not a classic, but well told. Raspberry Jam’ takes it’s time but builds tension brilliantly towards a horribly cruel ending. A fantastic short story. Stewart seems to have a fondness for the name Mason as here's a whole family of them. Although the mother won't be seeing the outside of a mental hospital any time soon ...

W.S.’ by L.P. Hartley – An interesting little tale of a writer who is haunted by ‘someone’ sending postcards which are postmarked from locations that are getting nearer. THE 'BEAN-NIGHE', by Dorothy K. Haynes: A young girl is haunted by the spirit of a washer-woman. A well-written and chilling ghost story that's a perfect exercise in foreboding. 4/5 You're afraid of your own son" she cried, struggling. "Let me go. I'm coming, Herbert, I'm coming!" Jennifer’s plans do appear to go just a little too smoothly to be credible, but it is a diverting enough read. Dulcie Gray (1915-2011) was a British singer and actress of stage, screen and television, a mystery writer and a lepidopterist.THE OTHER PASSENGER, by John Keir Cross: A man is haunted by his doppelganger. Very atypical and unusually written, but engaging with it. 3/5 Fengriffen and Other Gothic Tales (2015) - Contains the stories "Fengriffen," "Anachrona," "The Foreign Bride," "The Dead End" The Christine Trollope who wrote this story may or may not be the Christine Trollope who translated The Satanic Cult by Gerhard Zaccharias from the German. The Fur Brooch’ (Dulcie Gray). A woman who is the fiancé of a good-looking man is constantly irritated by her mother pushing her towards an odd and creepy man. The creepy man is none too pleased at her choice! This is a beautifully written character horror story with a good central idea and a heavy foreboding atmosphere. There’s another evil surgeon ‘Behind the Yellow Door’ in a low key tale from Flavia Richardson. Marcia Miles goes to be a companion to an eminent doctor and her daughter and gets an unpleasant surprise. All in all, medical reputations are not enhanced by this book.

Young lad had secret solo river swim sessions. Woman bursts on to the riverbank during one such, pursued by a man. She falls in the river and is drowned. The man is later arrested for murder. Beautifully written. This story was filmed as part of Season 2, Episode 6 of Night Gallery, Oct 27, 1971 with Leslie Nielsen in the lead role. The character names were changed. On the whole though, there are more hits than misses. There are tales that unsettle (LP Hartley’s W.S.), tales that make you look at normal things in a different way and tales that are just a little messy.But the real flaw with this one is the gargantuan geographic coincidence which has to be swallowed, whereby two Englishmen who last met over a quarter of a century ago bump into one another, not only in foreign country, but in a sparsely populated region where they are probably the only living souls within a fifteen kilometer radius. This story about a house which physically rebels against its inhabitants is well told, but I was expecting more given the author. Perhaps that is unfair. When you have a short story beginning with the line “I like to burn children”, it is a fairly safe bet we are not looking at an O. Henry Prize contender. No, this one has the feel of Kaufman deliberately dumbing down in response to the New Brutalism seen in Pan12.

Barbara Field Benziger (1918-1084) was an American writer who specialised in non-fiction about mental illness. In 1956, she survived the sinking of the ocean liner Andrea Doria. I guess these horror anthologies are like a time capsule of the fears and obsessions of the age. If so people in 1958 were scared of hulking retired surgeons with a Nazi past and a big library.Actually there are only a few stories worth commenting on. By 1970 this series had run out of good horror. The real horror is that it carried on for another 19 years! In the meantime, here’s a brief overview of each of the 22 stories in this first, groundbreaking volume.

After reading all 37 Fontana Books of Horror and Ghost stories, I now embark on the 30 volume Pan Books of Horror (published between 1959 and 1989).John Burke - A Comedy Of Terrors: Robbie Searidge, a designer for a movie company, practices torture and mutilation on his visitors then reproduces the finer details of their tormented deaths on film for mass consumption. When he catches his girlfriend Dolores prying in his secret room he flays her alive then disposes of her body (and those of her predecessors: burnt alive, hung, drawn and quartered, etc.) at the junkyard. But Dolores brother is convinced that Robbie is a murderer and before she went "missing" Dolores confided to him that lover-boy talks in his sleep: about his greatest fear ....