The Haunted Dolls: An Anthology

by Seon Manley

extremely rare,very good condition

318 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1980

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of haunted doll stories. Of course, I liked some of the stories more than others, but I only found one boring.

My favorites were The Dressmaker's Doll by Agatha Christie, that master of mystery, and The Doll's Ghost by F. Marion Crawford. In the first, a large doll seems to be changing locations in a dressmaker's shop without assistance from any humans, thoroughly disturbing those who work in the shop. It has a delightful ending I didn't see coming. In the second, the ghost of a doll visits the man who repaired her as he frets over his missing human child.

The delightful and poignant Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen is also included. Not all of the stories are genuinely creepy, but some of them are.

Scattered throughout the book are delightful drawings of little girls and their dolls. It is worth flipping through just for the art. A definite recommend for any fan of dolls, or anyone creeped out by them.

[Julie Maruskin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A carefully-chosen, sweetly eerie collection of stories that invite the reader into the twilight land where dolls and human beings meet as equals; sometimes as enemies, sometimes as dear friends, and sometimes merely as acquaintances passing through each others' dreams.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed back, but a charming publication in that it contains a range of doll-related stories and some beautiful historic illustrations of the children playing with them. The whole "haunted doll" thing and the scary front-cover is a bit misleading, as only a few of the stories contained within are actually horror stories, and these were usually the weaker ones. But there were a few chilling moments all the same. Highlights for me were Agatha Christie's The Dressmaker's Doll and another that was simply called The Doll. I cannot recall the author's name. Included also is one of the great M.R. James's stories, but it is not one of his better ones. Also, one of the longer stories by Algernon Blackwood left me disappointed.

[Lisa]

Quarter-2

Genre-Fantasy