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Tales of Fear and Frightening Phenomena
Table of contents:
Love Me, Love Me, Love Me • M. S. Waddell
The Most Dangerous Game • Richard Connell
Return to the Sabbath • Robert Bloch
The Amorous Ghost • Enid Bagnold
Tarnhelm, or The Death of My Uncle Robert • Hugh Walpole
The Turn of the Tide • C. S. Forester
Fear • (1938) • P. C. Wren
The Whole Town's Sleeping • Ray Bradbury
Love Me, Love Me, Love Me • M. S. Waddell
The Most Dangerous Game • Richard Connell
Return to the Sabbath • Robert Bloch
The Amorous Ghost • Enid Bagnold
Tarnhelm, or The Death of My Uncle Robert • Hugh Walpole
The Turn of the Tide • C. S. Forester
Fear • (1938) • P. C. Wren
The Whole Town's Sleeping • Ray Bradbury
- GenresHorrorShort Stories
140 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
33 people want to read
About the author
Helen Hoke
113 books11 followersHelen Jeanne Lamb Hoke (20 July 1903 - 26 March 1990) was an American author of children's books.
She wrote nearly 100 children's books and set up and ran children's book divisions in five publishing companies. Helen Hoke was well known for her anthologies on children’s humour, but she was also fascinated by the esoteric, the supernatural, and the weird.
In 1945, Hoke married Franklin M. Watts, who owned Franklin M. Watts, Inc., publishers, and became the vice-president and director of international projects.
Franklin Hoke is her grandson.
She wrote nearly 100 children's books and set up and ran children's book divisions in five publishing companies. Helen Hoke was well known for her anthologies on children’s humour, but she was also fascinated by the esoteric, the supernatural, and the weird.
In 1945, Hoke married Franklin M. Watts, who owned Franklin M. Watts, Inc., publishers, and became the vice-president and director of international projects.
Franklin Hoke is her grandson.
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Want to Read
January 16, 2011I tracked down a copy of this simply to read the story "Fear" by P.C. Wren (aka Percival Christopher Wren - author of Beau Geste). I had 4 stories by him on my "to read" list of horror/supernatural fiction and decided to see if I could hunt them down. I had very little luck - oddly, as the stories are in public domain and thus likely to show up on things like Project Gutenberg. But anyway, this collection for juveniles had the story "Fear".
It's quite a good story, as a traveler in the jungles of an unclaimed zone near Cambodia, China and Burma, spends a night at a lonely rest lodge which has a decidedly creepy feeling. He experiences a number of vaguely ghostly events that culminate in the sounds of a loud party occurring in the remote building, although nothing is seen, finally ending in a scream and sounds of a panic. The traveler later speaks to a nearby missionary about ghosts and the man of the cloth does a good job of defusing many of the events into logical, likely explanations. But then, he reveals the fact that he himself experienced the final manifestation described one night when her slept in the same place, and then relates the awful story of a tragedy that occurred there.
What's nice about this story is that it builds on a ghost story standard. That is to say, there are ghost stories, and then there are stories like Rudyard Kipling's "My Own True Ghost Story" which have a character experience an absolutely convincing night of supernatural terrors, only to provide a logical explanation at the climax. This story does that model one better, creating a strong atmosphere, then defusing it after the fact with rational explanations...except for the one event that remains not only inexplicable but almost undeniably tied to a past event. Good stuff, and a good story for a young reader to read.
It's quite a good story, as a traveler in the jungles of an unclaimed zone near Cambodia, China and Burma, spends a night at a lonely rest lodge which has a decidedly creepy feeling. He experiences a number of vaguely ghostly events that culminate in the sounds of a loud party occurring in the remote building, although nothing is seen, finally ending in a scream and sounds of a panic. The traveler later speaks to a nearby missionary about ghosts and the man of the cloth does a good job of defusing many of the events into logical, likely explanations. But then, he reveals the fact that he himself experienced the final manifestation described one night when her slept in the same place, and then relates the awful story of a tragedy that occurred there.
What's nice about this story is that it builds on a ghost story standard. That is to say, there are ghost stories, and then there are stories like Rudyard Kipling's "My Own True Ghost Story" which have a character experience an absolutely convincing night of supernatural terrors, only to provide a logical explanation at the climax. This story does that model one better, creating a strong atmosphere, then defusing it after the fact with rational explanations...except for the one event that remains not only inexplicable but almost undeniably tied to a past event. Good stuff, and a good story for a young reader to read.
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