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The Twelfth Pan Book of Horror Stories
Tread softly - beware lest the evil that walks invisible assumes human shape...
'The face twisted in unspeakable horror, and gore dripping from the severed neck. A white glint of bone parted the flesh at the throat.' - "The Hunter", David Case.
'Her last conscious experience was two thick viscous streams edging their way down her burning face as her eyeballs melted.' - "Ashes To Ashes", Alan Hillary.
The volcano of hate and tears inside a precocious eleven-year-old boy erupts into savage violence. - "The Terrapin", Patricia Highsmith.
Fourteen unholy offerings to awaken half-forgotten fears and leave sleep cowering in the halls of terror.
'The face twisted in unspeakable horror, and gore dripping from the severed neck. A white glint of bone parted the flesh at the throat.' - "The Hunter", David Case.
'Her last conscious experience was two thick viscous streams edging their way down her burning face as her eyeballs melted.' - "Ashes To Ashes", Alan Hillary.
The volcano of hate and tears inside a precocious eleven-year-old boy erupts into savage violence. - "The Terrapin", Patricia Highsmith.
Fourteen unholy offerings to awaken half-forgotten fears and leave sleep cowering in the halls of terror.
190 pages, Paperback
First published October 8, 1971
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About the author
Herbert van Thal
113 books36 followersHerbert Maurice van Thal (1904-1983), known as Bertie van Thal, was a British bookseller, publisher, agent, biographer, and anthologist.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 29, 2009
Ramsey Campbell, one of the authors appearing in earlier volumes, is quoted on the series' fansite (oh yes, there is one) as saying ;
"I thought the series became increasingly illiterate and disgusting and meritless."
He's right, and No 12 is a good example. Hardly any story has discernable merit in any way, a farrago of unlikely demonic children, crazed surgeons, murderous spouses and sex killers and haunted dolls. Standard PBHS stuff. In some ways, of course, that's what appeals to me. How unpleasantly obedient to be always reading Proust, Dostoyevsky and Joyce. Live a little with a badly-written story about a guy whose mother develops a growth on her shoulder which gets bigger and bigger until it's actually physically larger than she is! Ha ha! Yes!
The cover is a graphic representation of me waiting for a No 17 bus on Mansfield Road one winter morning in 1993.
"I thought the series became increasingly illiterate and disgusting and meritless."
He's right, and No 12 is a good example. Hardly any story has discernable merit in any way, a farrago of unlikely demonic children, crazed surgeons, murderous spouses and sex killers and haunted dolls. Standard PBHS stuff. In some ways, of course, that's what appeals to me. How unpleasantly obedient to be always reading Proust, Dostoyevsky and Joyce. Live a little with a badly-written story about a guy whose mother develops a growth on her shoulder which gets bigger and bigger until it's actually physically larger than she is! Ha ha! Yes!
The cover is a graphic representation of me waiting for a No 17 bus on Mansfield Road one winter morning in 1993.
August 27, 2014
My first foray into the cult world of PBHS, and it's a mixed bag. The novella that opened the book is really very good stuff-pulpy and predictable, but very well written. So far the rest of the work is just...meh. It's not violent or extreme enough to be novel or transgressive; it's more of a general vibe of pornographic and shoddy bloodletting. It's kind of like watching a video nasty: The real crime is less in the content (I've read worse in Richard Laymon and Ed Lee), and more in the utter ineptness of the, ahem, execution.
The stories (I'll update as I go on):
"The Hunter." Best of the bunch: Excellent characterization, black humor, and a compelling (if trite) plot. This takes up about half the book, by the way.
"The Instant Divorce." A "poem," but really an adolescent piece of doggerel.
"In Mother's Loving Memory." Dime-a-dozen Psycho ripoff. Kinda like watching Don't Go in the House; the tin opener scene is notable though.
"Ashes to Ashes." My first real encounter with the nastiness of Pan Horror. It's ugly, sneering, and mean. I rather liked it.
"The Terrapin." A mixed bag--on the one hand, the characterization is excellent, and the scenario nightmarish. Too bad the author throws it away for a painfully predictable ending.
"Sergeant Lacey Demonstrates." Tame, predictable, mercifully short. If you've read or seen Creepshow, you'll see this one coming.
"Borderline." Poorly edited but gruesomely entertaining bit of survival horror that revels in grotesquery. Not bad.
"Pieces of Mary." Repulsive, plain and simple. It actually is gore porn, and I say this as a hardcore gore fiend. It's not shocking enough to be truly horrifying; instead, it's sort of banally repellent. If this sounds like a recommendation, I assure you, it isn't.
"Miss Fletcher's Plum Tree." Almost threw the book across the room at this point. The author is a decent writer, but the story can't decide if it wants to be shota spanking porno or a torture porn movie, and so it goes for both.
"The Nursery Club." Reminiscent of the overrated The Veldt (love Bradbury, hate that story), but nowhere near as good. The kids in this story are creepy, but instead of exploring how and why that is, the author takes their malevolence for granted and rushes to the gruesome, yet underwhelming, ending.
"The Dancing Shoes." A really good, "literary" sort of story that reminds me of Joyce Carol Oates (the last horror writer I'd expect PBHS to remind me of). Unfortunately, the ending kind of pulls its punch--a shame, because this story is emotionally compelling, and a cruel twist could have been genuinely wrenching.
The stories (I'll update as I go on):
"The Hunter." Best of the bunch: Excellent characterization, black humor, and a compelling (if trite) plot. This takes up about half the book, by the way.
"The Instant Divorce." A "poem," but really an adolescent piece of doggerel.
"In Mother's Loving Memory." Dime-a-dozen Psycho ripoff. Kinda like watching Don't Go in the House; the tin opener scene is notable though.
"Ashes to Ashes." My first real encounter with the nastiness of Pan Horror. It's ugly, sneering, and mean. I rather liked it.
"The Terrapin." A mixed bag--on the one hand, the characterization is excellent, and the scenario nightmarish. Too bad the author throws it away for a painfully predictable ending.
"Sergeant Lacey Demonstrates." Tame, predictable, mercifully short. If you've read or seen Creepshow, you'll see this one coming.
"Borderline." Poorly edited but gruesomely entertaining bit of survival horror that revels in grotesquery. Not bad.
"Pieces of Mary." Repulsive, plain and simple. It actually is gore porn, and I say this as a hardcore gore fiend. It's not shocking enough to be truly horrifying; instead, it's sort of banally repellent. If this sounds like a recommendation, I assure you, it isn't.
"Miss Fletcher's Plum Tree." Almost threw the book across the room at this point. The author is a decent writer, but the story can't decide if it wants to be shota spanking porno or a torture porn movie, and so it goes for both.
"The Nursery Club." Reminiscent of the overrated The Veldt (love Bradbury, hate that story), but nowhere near as good. The kids in this story are creepy, but instead of exploring how and why that is, the author takes their malevolence for granted and rushes to the gruesome, yet underwhelming, ending.
"The Dancing Shoes." A really good, "literary" sort of story that reminds me of Joyce Carol Oates (the last horror writer I'd expect PBHS to remind me of). Unfortunately, the ending kind of pulls its punch--a shame, because this story is emotionally compelling, and a cruel twist could have been genuinely wrenching.
July 3, 2024
1st read this book at around 9 or 10 years old(50years ago) & mentioned it to my daughter as the 1st real horror anthology that kindled a love of the genre. She bought it for me at Christmas & I enjoyed it as much as the 1st time when I read it under the covers by torchlight. The story I remembered most was Pieces of Mary & I thought that was the most disturbing story I read & before everyone comments I knew even then it wasn’t a child’s book but that made it more exciting.
Having reread it I would cite “Laura” as the most disturbed & the fact I dismissed it as a soppy love story shows how young I was!
I now want to read the rest of the Pan horror story series.
Having reread it I would cite “Laura” as the most disturbed & the fact I dismissed it as a soppy love story shows how young I was!
I now want to read the rest of the Pan horror story series.
January 31, 2024
So many of the fourteen stories here are so thin and forgettable that I was wondering whether the problem was with me, that I was losing interest in short horror fiction; but just as disappointment would set in, a good one rose from the run-of-the-mill to let me know that it wasn’t me. I think the problem stems from the fact that the very first story takes up almost half of the 190 pages, meaning that most of the others are given so few pages as to lack any development or depth, which is the case here - for I’d only judge one to be absolutely dire, Robert Ashley’s ‘Pieces Of Mary,’ which is everything I hate in the genre, being nothing more than a description of blood and guts as a body is cut up.
The three stories which floated above the rest for me are:-
‘The Terrapin’ (by Patricia Highsmith) – A young boy is bullied by everyone, including his mother, who is about to boil a terrapin to which he has become emotionally attached. It’s a finely told character piece. The grisly ending (which ensures its suitability for this collection) feels a little tacked on, but then it’s hard to see where else the story could have gone.
‘Miss Fletcher’s Plum Tree’ (Frank Neate) – An old lady is tired of the young boys pinching the plums from her garden and so takes revenge upon one of them. For me, this is easily the best story in the collection. The subject is grisly, but is so well told that you’re drawn in – and I must confess I even smiled once or twice as I pictured the pleasure she was getting from dishing out her revenge. For those familiar with very old films, I was picturing a female Tod Slaughter.* It’s a well-drawn character piece with plenty of atmosphere.
‘The Nursery Club’ (Martin Ricketts) – Two tutors are employed by a father to live in and teach his four rather strange children. One teacher makes the mistake of divulging a secret held with the children and other tutor to their father – for which he pays a price! It’s another well written character piece with atmosphere.
Plenty of the stories in this collection are fine enough time-passers – especially ‘Sergeant Lacey Demonstrates’ (Norman Kaufman), ‘Laura’ (Barry Martin), ‘The Dancing Shoes’ (Rachel Kemper) – which almost joined the three stories above that I liked, and ‘Man With A Knife’ (T. H. McCormick) – but that’s all they are.
After a good start to this Pan series, in which a lot of originality was on display, it rapidly seems to be sinking into dull predictability. I hope Volume 13 sees an improvement.
* Tod Slaughter was an OTT villain (to the point of being humorous). He pre-dated Vincent Price, but that’ll give you the idea.
The three stories which floated above the rest for me are:-
‘The Terrapin’ (by Patricia Highsmith) – A young boy is bullied by everyone, including his mother, who is about to boil a terrapin to which he has become emotionally attached. It’s a finely told character piece. The grisly ending (which ensures its suitability for this collection) feels a little tacked on, but then it’s hard to see where else the story could have gone.
‘Miss Fletcher’s Plum Tree’ (Frank Neate) – An old lady is tired of the young boys pinching the plums from her garden and so takes revenge upon one of them. For me, this is easily the best story in the collection. The subject is grisly, but is so well told that you’re drawn in – and I must confess I even smiled once or twice as I pictured the pleasure she was getting from dishing out her revenge. For those familiar with very old films, I was picturing a female Tod Slaughter.* It’s a well-drawn character piece with plenty of atmosphere.
‘The Nursery Club’ (Martin Ricketts) – Two tutors are employed by a father to live in and teach his four rather strange children. One teacher makes the mistake of divulging a secret held with the children and other tutor to their father – for which he pays a price! It’s another well written character piece with atmosphere.
Plenty of the stories in this collection are fine enough time-passers – especially ‘Sergeant Lacey Demonstrates’ (Norman Kaufman), ‘Laura’ (Barry Martin), ‘The Dancing Shoes’ (Rachel Kemper) – which almost joined the three stories above that I liked, and ‘Man With A Knife’ (T. H. McCormick) – but that’s all they are.
After a good start to this Pan series, in which a lot of originality was on display, it rapidly seems to be sinking into dull predictability. I hope Volume 13 sees an improvement.
* Tod Slaughter was an OTT villain (to the point of being humorous). He pre-dated Vincent Price, but that’ll give you the idea.
June 26, 2021
As a teenager I loved horror stories, Guy N Smith, Stephen King and James Herbert. I also remember reading and enjoying some of the Pan Book of Horror Stories. I can’t remember which ones I read, the fifth one sticks in my mind. I remember them more from the covers than the stories inside.
The early Pan collections were a mix of established writers and new writers, Stephen King had a short story included in one of these anthologies. The series ran to 30 volumes and the first 24 were edited by Herbert Van Thal, these were the books I remember most. After volume nine the emphasis was placed more on new authors. In the 1970’s the stories became increasingly more violent and graphic. The quality of the stories in the 1980’s lead to a decline in popularity and the series eventually ended in 1989. This, the twelfth volume, was published in 1971.
They are out of print now I think so the only way to read them is by finding them on eBay or a second hand book store. So when I came across this, the twelfth book, I had to read it, for nostaglic reasons. It contains a couple of stories that were an indication of where the series was going, James Jauncy’s Borderline, which features the fans favourite in horror stories from the 70’s, rats, and Pieces of Mary by Robert Ashley. Pieces of Mary is over the top gore. It’s also the one story I remembered reading before. I suppose a story like that never leaves you! Also it reminded me of an actual incident that happened involving a child in the 1990’s which was particularly upsetting. So I wish I could un-read that one.
The only author here though of any note is Patricia Highsmith. She wrote The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train. Both made into movies, the latter by Alfred Hitchcock. Her contribution to this book, The Terrapin, although quite good isn’t up to the standards of those two stories.
There are however some stories of quality here. The opening story, The Hunter by David Case I particularly enjoyed. It’s also the longest story here taking up almost half of the book. Also worth noting are In Mother’s Loving Memory by Barry Martin, who has two stories here, the other being Laura which I also liked. Ashes to Ashes by Alan Hillary is also good as is Frank Neate’s Miss Fletcher’s Plum Tree. The collection ends on a high too with T.H. McCormick’s hospital story, Man With a Knife.
In conclusion reading this was a nice stroll down memory lane (although a dark and twisted one). It’s interesting to re read the horror stories I loved as a teenager and note how they impact differently on me now.
The early Pan collections were a mix of established writers and new writers, Stephen King had a short story included in one of these anthologies. The series ran to 30 volumes and the first 24 were edited by Herbert Van Thal, these were the books I remember most. After volume nine the emphasis was placed more on new authors. In the 1970’s the stories became increasingly more violent and graphic. The quality of the stories in the 1980’s lead to a decline in popularity and the series eventually ended in 1989. This, the twelfth volume, was published in 1971.
They are out of print now I think so the only way to read them is by finding them on eBay or a second hand book store. So when I came across this, the twelfth book, I had to read it, for nostaglic reasons. It contains a couple of stories that were an indication of where the series was going, James Jauncy’s Borderline, which features the fans favourite in horror stories from the 70’s, rats, and Pieces of Mary by Robert Ashley. Pieces of Mary is over the top gore. It’s also the one story I remembered reading before. I suppose a story like that never leaves you! Also it reminded me of an actual incident that happened involving a child in the 1990’s which was particularly upsetting. So I wish I could un-read that one.
The only author here though of any note is Patricia Highsmith. She wrote The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train. Both made into movies, the latter by Alfred Hitchcock. Her contribution to this book, The Terrapin, although quite good isn’t up to the standards of those two stories.
There are however some stories of quality here. The opening story, The Hunter by David Case I particularly enjoyed. It’s also the longest story here taking up almost half of the book. Also worth noting are In Mother’s Loving Memory by Barry Martin, who has two stories here, the other being Laura which I also liked. Ashes to Ashes by Alan Hillary is also good as is Frank Neate’s Miss Fletcher’s Plum Tree. The collection ends on a high too with T.H. McCormick’s hospital story, Man With a Knife.
In conclusion reading this was a nice stroll down memory lane (although a dark and twisted one). It’s interesting to re read the horror stories I loved as a teenager and note how they impact differently on me now.
November 8, 2021
Almost unheard of - A Pan Horror Collection in which there are absolutely no duffers! Except one rather inconsequential poem, all of the stories here are, at the very least, great macabre fun.
The highlight of the collection would have to be the opening story 'The Hunter' by David Cass. As I read it, I could really picture this being made as an Amicus production in the 1960s with Cushing and Lee in the roles of Wetherby and Byron respectively.
I enjoyed all of the stories but especially 'Ashes to Ashes', the story of a vengeful husband, with a marvellous twist at the end; 'Pieces of Mary', a deliciously nasty tale of childhood evil; 'Miss Fletcher's Plum Tree', which again demonstrates that well worn horror trope of children imperilled; and 'The Nursery Club', in which a family of rather strange children become the antagonists.
As usual, most of the tales focus on human horror, but it was good to see some excellent tales of the supernatural included as well, especially 'The Dancing Shoes', and 'The Peg Doll'.
Quite possibly my favourite collection in the Pan Horror series yet!
The highlight of the collection would have to be the opening story 'The Hunter' by David Cass. As I read it, I could really picture this being made as an Amicus production in the 1960s with Cushing and Lee in the roles of Wetherby and Byron respectively.
I enjoyed all of the stories but especially 'Ashes to Ashes', the story of a vengeful husband, with a marvellous twist at the end; 'Pieces of Mary', a deliciously nasty tale of childhood evil; 'Miss Fletcher's Plum Tree', which again demonstrates that well worn horror trope of children imperilled; and 'The Nursery Club', in which a family of rather strange children become the antagonists.
As usual, most of the tales focus on human horror, but it was good to see some excellent tales of the supernatural included as well, especially 'The Dancing Shoes', and 'The Peg Doll'.
Quite possibly my favourite collection in the Pan Horror series yet!
October 3, 2023
Good classic horror stories
February 21, 2016
I do not know whether it was this title in the series, but my school library stocked several of these anthologies and the story which I read at the tender age of 11 (probably having read nothing more terrifying than Famous Five until then), as one about an old lady living alone and feeding her pets (and I recall that they were either cats or worse, rats) until she was too feeble to move and get them food, whereupon the pets ate ...
Well, I am sorry if you like horror stories, but that was/is too traumatising and "why bother writing this", and I was put off for life and have not really read any more, ever.
Truly a memorable story in its central idea, as I still shy away from anything "horror" based.
An excellent example of aversion therapy!
Well, I am sorry if you like horror stories, but that was/is too traumatising and "why bother writing this", and I was put off for life and have not really read any more, ever.
Truly a memorable story in its central idea, as I still shy away from anything "horror" based.
An excellent example of aversion therapy!
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April 14, 2008Horror,Anthology
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